Uplift our women; uplift our community

“You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.” — Maya Angelou

The world that we live in is becoming more and more a globalised village. We have international conferences, meetings and seminars that seek to deal with the countless number of issues that exist in our respective countries. Many problems and solutions have been placed on several of these conference tables. However, I would like to deal with one of the world’s biggest talking points: the measure of a woman. Should they just be restricted to being in the home or should they be empowered to be all that they can be in life?

Measure is considered to be the character, nature or capacity of somebody or something ascertained by assessment. In our world, how do we measure a woman? Should they be measured by the length and texture of their hair, the shape of their body or the pleasure that they can give to a man or do we measure them by their achievements and the ability to overcome obstacles?

Coming up as a little girl, I have always admired women not because of their physical beauty but due to their survivalist spirit. In our world many of our young girls are pushed into being child brides, forced into having female genital mutilation performed on them, prostitution and not being supplied with the option of when to become mothers. Women are vulnerable in our societies but several are resilient.

The measure of a woman should be seen in the ways that they are able to skillfully navigate through life with its myriad bumps and humps. It should be seen in the way they nurture their young ones, the way they inspire both girls and boys to be better than they are today. We should be standing and lifting up both hands of our women and trying to fight down the injustices that many of them suffer. As a people we have to educate and prosecute those that are hurting our women because when you empower a woman, you are empowering the community as well.

“You educate a man; you educate a man. You educate a woman; you educate a generation.”― Brigham Young

By
Lyn-Marie Blackman