Dalai Lamas Vancouver Peace Summit Comments

About a month ago, the Dalai Lama said something about women that is just now making the rounds on Twitter. His statement, The world will be saved by the western woman, was delivered during the Vancouver Peace Summit 2009, which opened on the morning of Sunday, September 27th. Although Im still trying to track down a transcript of the speech containing the above statement, the Dalai Lama participated in more than one panel discussion that day, and the event most likely to have provoked such a strongly worded declaration was the Nobel Laureates in Dialogue: Connecting for Peace presentation held that afternoon. Moderated by former Irish president and peace activist Mary Robinson, the panel discussion featured four Nobel Peace Prize Laureates: the Dalai Lama (who won in 1989); Mairead Maguire and Betty Williams, founders of the Northern Ireland Peace Movement and winners of the Nobel in 1976; and anti-landmine crusader Jody Williams, an American peace prize winner in 1997. If the western woman statement were made in the context of the Dalai Lamas appearance with these extraordinary women, the words would seem less stunning than sensible. Truly, these western women have already changed the world, and have been doing so for more than three decades. Writing for the Interaction Institute for Social Change (IISC) blog, executive director Marianne Hughes ponders the idea of the aging women as hag (originally a representation of feminine power) and how it relates to the Dalai Lamas statement: Im not entirely sure what he meant...but I am wondering if when he travels across the globe and sees so many of our sisters impoverished and repressed he sees western women of all ages in a position to speak out for justice and to take on the responsibilities of the hag... to take loving care of the planet and its people. The Dalai Lamas comment about western women was not the only notable pro-female statement he made during the summit. In the Vancouver Sun,  Amy OBrian quotes others including a call for increased emphasis on the promotion of women to positions of influence. In response to a moderators question about what he sees as priorities in the quest for world peace, heres what the Dalai Lama said: Some people may call me a feminist...But we need more effort to promote basic human values — human compassion, human affection. And in that respect, females have more sensitivity for others pain and suffering. World-saving aside, women do what they do because its work that needs to be done. None of them do it with an eye toward winning a Nobel Peace Prize, but the acknowledgment is valuable in that it draws attention to these efforts and eases the ever-present fund-raising struggle...and recruits more followers, like those who are retweeting the Dalai Lamas statement. Hopefully every woman who forwards those words will dig down deep enough to find the source of his inspiration and understand that he honors real women whose work continues day in, day out...regardless of whether theyre in the limelight or not.