Some of the problems that women have cannot be handled by monks. If I have a problem about abortion or menopause, for example, the monks cannot handle these kinds of questions. If ordained women helped the monks guide the women, it would be much better. There are certain kinds of work, like running an orphanage, taking care of young children, that monks cannot do at least they haven t been doing them in my country. If we have fully ordained nuns, we could open up the horizon of different activities for women.
People believe that if they make an offering to a monk, they get merit.
But if they make an offering to a woman, they don t get merit, because women are not ordained. When there is this kind of belief in society, you have to provide a space for women to be ordained also so that they can better heal the ills of society. I see that we are living in a world full of crisis. We are being hypocritical about many things. In my work in Thailand, I do not talk about ordination of women because that is a very sensitive issue.