December 25, 2009 |
|
Women’s rights are
human rights?
Stephen Henry Lewis,
United Nations’ envoy for HIV AIDS in Africa, 2006, said:
“[Women’s rights have] never been made real, and so long as men control the levers and bastions of power… it never will be real. The demeaning diminution of women is everywhere evident… where freedom from sexual violence, the right to sexual autonomy, to sexual and reproductive health, social and economic independence, and even the whiff of gender equality are barely approximated. It’s a ghastly, deadly business, this untrammeled oppression of women in so many countries on the planet.”
» Subscribe to Albeit
or to unsubscribe.
|
Two for One
There are only a few pages left on this year’s calendar and it will soon be time to start over in our countdown through existence. 2009 ends with an unusual occurrence—a blue moon on December 31. The old saying, “Once in a blue moon” rises from the occasion of two full moons appearing in the same month. The first full moon was on December 2, leaving the latter dubbed ‘blue.’ We’re accustomed to a solitary full moon most months, and it may be many years before another blue moon shines down on us. The things we take for granted often go unnoticed until an oddity causes us to reflect on the wonder of being alive.
Formulating Win-Win
Life is somewhat like a game of Solitaire—we get up each day and click the ‘deal’ button, assess the finite cards we are dealt and try to determine how to play them to achieve the goals of the game—all cards played resulting in a progressive, orderliness to victory in accordance with the imaginary and agreed upon rules. There are many versions of the popular game, but most engage only one player who is responsible for its outcome from beginning to end.
If only humans could play life’s game as one—all seeking the win for oneself and all others. How did we become so separate, so fiercely competitive and unfathomably selfish to ignore the other players at our elbows?
We seem to be segregated primarily by beliefs—those idealistic imaginings of perfection presented by external sources we presume to be more perfect than we. Beliefs turn into myriad perceptions of right, wrong, good, better, best, holy, satanic, chosen, and excluded to name a few.
Clutching Samaritan's Purse
Politics is one of the sacrosanct systems of segregation, glorifying the elite and depredating the rest. Attempts at health care reform is a recent study in the ‘haves and have nots’ vying for the right to determine the quality of life for millions of people, based upon their own perceptions of good and evil instead of veracity.
If Christianity were true to itself, there would be no question about health care—every individual would be given exactly what they needed to be and stay healthy, and the gift would be given without regard to cost or judgment based on the givers’ perceptions. But instead, it seems that Christians support a separation of church and state if it is convenient, especially when one’s pocketbook is impacted by Good Samaritan practices. We know for sure the animosity that abounds between Christians, Jews, and Muslims, in spite of the teachings to love one’s so-called enemies, leading me to believe that religions are not the solution but the problem.
Politics and religions are about as compatible as oil and water, yet the world is run by opposing jesters from both camps. And most people know the majority of players upon the dichotomous stage are men. As women and mothers, females know that men and children are seldom self-correcting. They will repeatedly test the limits of space, time, and consequences unless something or some one shackles them from continuous malfeasance. Until men self-correct, things in our world won’t get much better than they are now. As we’ve learned, there will be war after war, poverty, disease, death, destruction, and devolvement in ways yet unknown to our supposedly most brilliant of all species.
Self-correcting Sextants
If women leave it up to men to make things right in our world, we will most likely ‘go down with the ship’ since they are the captains of our destiny. In the event of global catastrophes, there will be no life boats, no women and children first, no second chances to save ourselves and our children.
The only workable solution was said long ago and so simple that even a child can understand it—“Peace on Earth, goodwill to all.” I invite women to unite in 2010 and begin the long overdue task of scolding, shaming, threatening, or using any other peaceful means of insisting that the insanity perpetrated and perpetuated by males stop. The only reason they continue their despicable behavior is that they ‘haven’t gotten caught’ and no one seems brave enough to point a finger in their direction.
For the most part, according to historical records, females are life-givers and males are life-takers. It is truly a wonder our species has survived as long as it has under their influence. All it takes to make the next 2,000 years at least tolerable for our current 7 billion people and their descendants is for men to self-correct now. If women allow them to extinct our species, we are as much to blame as they.
Our nation spent most of the first decade of this new century in isolation, playing a deadly game of solitaire while the ‘dealers’ wheeled and dealed themselves winning hands, leaving the non-elite begging for crumbs from their tables. Millions homeless, sick, mal-nourished, uneducated, wasting away into oblivion. Odds are, it won’t get much better without intervention from the inclusive gender. Let’s get busy…
Mrs. Obama’s 2009 Christmas theme for the White House is “Reflect, rejoice, renew.” Let us reflect on the possibility and probability that our species may disappear due to our negligence—not ignorance. Let us rejoice that there is still time for the human family to self-correct. Let us renew our commitment to perpetuity of the human family through global goodwill.
Peace to all the pieces in 2010!
#0065 Albeit Rantler
|
