Several months ago, I ran across this song on the radio. It profoundly struck me then, and still does today. Its lyrics tell the story of a young girl being teased by boys at school. That same girl as a young woman trying to break the glass ceiling in the business world. And that same woman, now wife and mother, realizing what it’s all about when she enters the fight of her life in a battle with cancer. The chorus is the advice of the girl’s mother as she comforted her hurt child. Advice that stayed with that girl through her life:
Hold your head high. Don’t ever let them define the light in your eyes. Love yourself. Give ‘em hell. You can take on this world. You just stand and be strong. And then fight like a girl.
So many positive messages in those few short lines. The message of never letting anything defeat you. The message that there is a Power that works within each of us, that can be the Light in our eyes, if we let it. That we are Loved and should love ourselves because of that Love.
But the message that really struck me was in that last line. The message of fighting… like a girl.
The feminist movement did a lot of good in this world. I would not be in the positions I’m in today if it weren’t for the work of many women and men who fought for equal rights for both sexes. But, inequality still remains and what’s worse, the dignity of gender, of woman and man has been cut down. With so many still trying to break the glass ceiling and sacrificing their feminity for it, reflection on what it means to be a woman could not be more needed.
That’s why I love this Mercatornet symposium.
Carolyn Moynihan: Beyond equality, the question of meaning
This year began with The Economist applauding the economic empowerment of women across the rich world as “one of the most remarkable revolutions of the past 50 years.” A Pew report drew attention to the “rise of wives” in terms of education and their economic contribution to the home. Is the struggle for equality nearly over in the rich world? And when it is, what then? Is there anything else?
Yes, there is. When the last glass ceiling has been shattered we will have to confront the fact that there are still two sexes, and ask what that means. What does it mean to be a woman? What are women’s specific characteristics and strengths? How can they be fostered and brought into play for the benefit of everyone?
People running the gender agenda do not want us to ask these metaphysical questions. They will tell us it is a bid to tie women and men up in sex-role straightjackets again. Let’s ignore their protests. We have to address once more the meaning of being a woman, or a man, or we will never get out of the blind alley where a woman’s dignity is reduced to her income and whether her husband does half the chores at home.
Carolyn Moynihan is deputy editor of MercatorNet.
Some snips from contributors:
Angelina Kakooza-Mwesige: Education the top priority for African women
One way in which the status of women in Uganda and in Africa as a whole can be improved by 2020 is to ensure that their education is given paramount importance.
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Dr Kakooza-Mwesige Angelina is a paediatrician in the Department of Paediatrics & Child Health, Makerere University College of Health Sciences, Kampala, Uganda.
Lea Singh: Dressing for respect
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Every woman has the power to make her dignity easier for men to recognize and respect, just by the clothes she reaches for in the morning. I hope that by 2020, more women will be making that choice.
Lea Singh is a wife and mother of a young and growing family in Ottawa, Canada.
Jennifer Roback Morse: Motherhood within marriage is a worthy choice
I have a radical idea for promoting the dignity of women: the idea that giving birth to children inside marriage is good and worthy use of one’s time and talent. This idea has come under assault from many directions.
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Male and female are two different ways of being human. Without women being women, men too, are diminished. The uniquely feminine becomes obscured to us all, much to the loss of woman’s intrinsic dignity.
Jennifer Roback Morse, PhD is the Founder and President of the Ruth Institute, a project of the National Organization for Marriage.
Check Mercatornet for the full version of each of these women’s comments. And check back for updates of this symposium. Or send your own thoughts to Mercatornet.
Being a woman is a beautiful thing, it’s time we recognize that.