No matter what the PSC says, women deserve equal treatment

Last week, the Parliamentary Select Committee that is sitting in the lap of luxury in a Naivasha Golf Club trying to panel beat what will be our future Constitution decided that wives are not equal to their husbands. That decision got men thumping their chests while their women retorted in anger.

We have come a long way for men to continue showing disregard and disrespect for women’s worth and contribution to society.

No wonder an increasing number of women are choosing to remain single in order to retain their independence and wholesome individual rights while a growing number of married women are opting to walk out of marriages because they would rather live alone than continue to be treated like dirt.

So what is the way forward for women? I guess we can’t stop fighting for what is truly ours — God given human rights.

Let’s face it, men do have their strengths, which we all appreciate, but they also have weaknesses, which make them human. So do women.

Voices of inspiration

Sadly, men generally choose to focus on women’s weaknesses and negative traits to support and defend their suppression which, frankly, is evil and ungodly.

Women have no other choice but to continue the struggle for recognition, appreciation and independence.

Last week, I fell upon Legacy of Grace, a website that hosts inspirational quotes from some of the world’s greatest women.

I share them with you today to also refresh your femininity and motivate you for future battles.

From Abigail Adams (American first lady and feminist, 1744-1818) comes these gems:

"If particular care is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice, no representation.

"I cannot say that I think you are very generous to the ladies for whilst you are proclaiming peace and good will to men and emancipating all nations, you insist upon retaining an absolute power over wives.

"Nay why should your sex wish for such a disparity in those whom they one day intend for companions and associates. Pardon me, sir, if I cannot help sometimes suspecting that this neglect arises in some measure from an ungenerous jealousy of rivals near the throne.

"I regret the trifling narrow contracted education of the females of my own country.

Deprived

"Patriotism in the female sex is the most disinterested of all virtues. Excluded from honours and from offices, we cannot attach ourselves to the State or Government from having held a place of eminence.

"Even in the freest countries our property is subject to the control and disposal of our partners, to whom the laws have given a sovereign authority. Deprived of a voice in legislation, obliged to submit to those laws, which are impressed upon us, is it not sufficient to make us indifferent to the public welfare?

"Yet all history and every age exhibit instances of patriotic virtue in the female sex; which considering our situation equals the most heroic of yours."

Shirley Chisholm was the first black US Congresswoman in the 1920s and these were her thoughts:

"In the end anti-black, anti-female and all forms of discrimination are equivalent to the same thing — anti-humanism. My God, what do we want? What does any human being want?

"One distressing thing is the way men react to women who assert their equality — their ultimate weapon is to call them unfeminine, anti-male; they even whisper that she’s probably a lesbian.

From journalist Susan Faludi came this insight:

"In place of equal respect, the nation offered women the Miss America beauty pageant established in 1920, the same year women won the vote."

Lucy Colman was a famous American abolitionist who lived from 1818-1906 and her sentiments were no different:

"If your Bible is an argument for the degradation of women and the abuse by whipping of little children, I advise you to put it away and use your common sense instead."

And finally, from feminist author Andrea Dworkin whose passionate call was thus:

"Men who want to support women in our struggle for freedom and justice should understand that it is not terrifically important to us that they learn to cry; it is important to us that they stop the crimes of violence against us."

From me; a luta continua; the struggle must continue.