The Woman Is The Centerpiece Of Society

The woman is the centerpiece of any society or cultural community of people. The way a group of peoples or community regards their women is directly indicative and a direct reflection of how those people regard themselves, and how they collectively progress or regress as a people. This ideal is so prevalent and obvious, in fact, that I dare anybody to challenge it.

Conditions such as infidelity, young women being abandoned by the young men whose child they are carrying, lack of education for women, domestic violence and rape all lead to the swift and sure deterioration of any society as we have seen so clearly demonstrated time and time again. When I say this, I speak of various groups within the United States as well as in other nations around the world.

There is a natural string of events which is constantly taking place and will always take place, from which the seeds are being sown every second of every day, every day of every year and every year of every decade. This makes up what we call our human “history” and evolution. It unfolds as follows: The woman is the primary and earliest teacher of her children as well as a role model for what her daughters may become and a template from which her sons learn to treat other women. When a community of people, be it religious, racial, philosophical, national…holds their women in high regard they are creating a powerful network of wise and confident teachers for their future generation and in turn, a powerful and productive network of people as a whole. What results are not only an intact family, but a positive example of working together as a unit to build a stronger community of people.

If a father teaches his daughter that she can indeed grow up to become anything she wishes and encourages her towards the path of education and self respect, then that girl will be bestowed with a sense of self worth and she will be goal oriented. She will be less likely to fall prey to teen pregnancy, drug use, domestic violence and the like. If a son grows up in an environment where he bares witness to his father treating his mother with love, respect and dignity and sees his parents are true and equal partners, he will likely carry those ideas into manhood and will uphold his responsibilities as a father and husband. He and his wife will raise well adjusted, loving and responsible children who will grow up to be productive adults.

To take an opposite scenario, if a woman is raised to believe that she is worth very little, intellectually and spiritually, she will be likely to gravitate towards the wrong men who will not serve to benefit her or her children. She may wind up raising those children alone, unable to shoulder the obligation of raising them and providing for them financially. She may suffer physical or verbal abuse at the hands of her husband or boyfriend. These conditions lead to children who are ill supervised and disciplined, emotionally disturbed, malnourished, poorly educated and unaware of their personal potential. These children are the backbone of which our future society depends upon. More importantly they are a direct reflection of their ethnicity and the way their people are viewed by society at large. It is a vicious cycle of sowing poorly planted and poorly nourished seeds and reaping poorly grown and poorly developed crops.

If I were to get biblical, the bible clearly states that Eve was made of Adam’s rib. I don’t know that I believe the literal contents of the bible, but for those who subscribe to the bible’s words, it is easy to see how Eve was an extension of Adam’s body. So in essence, when a community of men continually put down and degrades their women, it is merely a reflection of how they feel about themselves.

I have studied this melting pot that we call America, in particular. I have observed a direct correlation between how different groups of people within American society regard their women and the overall progression of those groups. I was fortunate enough to grow up in a culture where the man and woman acted as equal partners in the home and represented themselves as such to their children. In fact, it wasn’t until I reached college where I heard the word “bitch” used as a direct synonym for “woman,” for the very first time. I remember that this filled me with anger so primal and so profound, that I could barely contain it. I was unsure of how to process it. I would come to learn that, that particular word was only the tip of the iceberg. My father had always been my role model for success and achievement and I saw no reason to veer away from that line of thinking, even though I am a female and my father is a male. I saw no difference in the level of respect we could command and what I could achieve in relation to him. I have a heart, mind and soul, and as far as I knew, they were in working order.

The content of this article would bring to mind the buzzword “feminist,” which emerged in the 1970s and grew legs with the revolutionary efforts of people like Gloria Steinem, who saw fit to lecture the world on the merits of feminine self-esteem and urging women to remain independent, otherwise known as “single.” Gloria Steinem was famously quoted as stating, “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.” I don’t subscribe to those views and think they are actually misguided, but I can understand how sometimes when trying to create revolution, we must first miss the mark before we can hit it. Even she got married, at the age of 66. I do not believe that feminism has a legitimate place in the 21st century. I think that the regiment for these new times should be that of embracing traditional roles with a healthy grain of salt, while granting equal respect, dignity and honor to all human beings.