THE month of March is dedicated to all the women in the world. March 8 was their day. It is a declaration of recognition for all women around the globe. We salute all women for their participation in social transformation.
The scriptures had given recognition of the role of women in salvation history. It all started with God giving “man” a companion in the Garden of Eden. This was followed by the many women in the history of mankind who had been tasked by God to play significant and major roles in preparing the way for the birth of Christ. Without these women, the stories in the Old Testament might have another dimension. It was how they brought up their children, who obeyed the will of God. These are the women who evangelized and catechized their children. Their values and teachings made Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, the Judges, the Kings, the Prophets, and great leaders bow to the will of God or Yahweh. The great obedience and meekness of the Blessed Mother could be attributed to how St. Anne had brought her up. Her "Fiat" (I do) is a manifestation of how her mother had taught her. The Blessed Mother’s training of Jesus made him embrace the will of the Father and later the cross. And so we see all the women who had a great influence on our spiritual leaders. Without them, these leaders could have chosen the other path of life.
Today, women take an active role in society. They are no longer the stereotyped household keepers or baby-makers. They have already entered the arena which was stereotyped to be only for eh masculine gender. Most of these women who worked at the male-stereotyped jobs have proven themselves to be better than their male counterparts. In all fields of discipline, engineering, politics, medicine, agriculture, and many more, women have proven themselves that they can work at par with the male species. Most of their motto is to co-operate and not to compete, this made them productive and effective in the fields.
Motherhood or their mother-instinct in women makes them good persons of society. Most of them use their hearts and their minds in making decisions. Unlike the male species, the majority use force and rationality in getting what they want. Women have the family as a primary for all the things they do. They can adopt even the community as their family. It becomes easy for women to view all people as “children.” This makes them easy to see in a wider perspective the realities of life. Most women have been gifted with a large capacity of patience and this is an opportunity to use intuition overheated debates and discussions.
However, society has and continues to exploit women. It is sad to note that until this very day, there are a lot of people who see women as a commodity or economic property. In the world of business, women have been used to propagate a product or merchandise. In many countries, they have used women as pawns or as simple statues in political arenas to be bullied by male political monsters. In the world of sports, though many have excelled, many are also bullied or are used to advance the interests of others. These are some of the sad states of women in most countries.
But anyhow, we need to look into ourselves and once again appreciate the role of women in our family, community, and society. We need to embrace our mothers, our wives, our sisters. Our neighbors and thank them for what they have done to us. We are what we are because of these women.
Long live the women!