Is entry to Goenkhag, gender bias?

The soul in a feminine body
is the mother of wisdom 

I was watching the BBS Dzongkha programme known as Legshed-Lamzang where Venerable Khenpo Tandin Sithup was speaking to a folk of youths.

If you have watched and listened to the programme, a big question has been answered where many think a tradition where females are restricted the entry in Goenkhangs- the room reserved as the place for deities.

He was speaking about the four immeasurable, 1. The immeasurable love and kindness, 2. Immeasurable compassion, 3.immeasurable joy and 4. immeasurable equanimity to the young youths.

One of the youths asked him that, in his view the monastery not allowing women to enter the Goen-khang does not make sense while the Buddhism teaches to practice equanimity.

True, as he said, but this is not an issues of gender discrimination as in the context of the gender equality. It actually respects equality.

Khenpo said that first of all, a human body is never pure as it is composed of 36 filths. “A beautiful eye can be as disgusting as anything dirty on earth if it happens to be infected,” Khenpo said.

So men or women every one is equally dirty and filthy by nature although we see it as handsome, beautiful and clean when we have fair skin wrapped in the most expensive attires.

Well, coming to the point of not allowing the women to enter Goenkhang, Khenpo said, that since certain nature of human filth is considered very powerful that effects the spirits that live there in the Goenkhag; the deities, it is therefore restricted.

Filth such as the women’s monthly period, the madness in a men who killed his father, a men who had sex with a women on period are considered a powerful filth that can agitate the deities. “Therefore, since it is quite difficult to know a women is in her period time, to avoid any accidental entry that is believed would create agitation in the deities, women are restricted from entering the Goenkhang and not because they are a women,“ Khenpo explained.

Kehpo also mentioned, that even if it is a men, if he had killed his parents are not allowed to enter the Goenkhang. A man who had sex with women in her period should also not enter the Goenkhang until he had passed three days after the action so my father told me. For some women, it takes weeks to end the period time.

Therefore, I think it answers the question where some argued that not allowing the women in Goenkhang is gender discrimination. This clearly says that it is not at all gender discriminatory.

Hope it did answer the question of gender discrimination.