Women deserve better treatment

THE real strength of the nation is in our women.
They are much maligned and maltreated, yet women carry our nation.
They do so in the mind numbing rigours of child labour and birth, in the nurture of each growing child, and in the unquestioning toil provided for each home.
Child or adult, disabled by violence or malformed at birth, educated or illiterate, women perform tasks beyond their calling and often beyond their strength and tragically for far too many, beyond their endurance.
Modern men ought to know the difference but often times the hardships inflicted upon wives and daughters today are no different to the physical and mental torment and anguish of our mothers, grandmothers and aunts. Few men of today show they merely stepped across the cultural divide but never grew up or out of the claustrophobic constraints of male chauvinism.
The inequalities stacked against women is enormous.
Women constitute roughly half the population of the country, yet the woman vote is negligible on behalf of their sex as evidenced by the fact that the highest number they have provided in any one parliament is three.
They are beaten senseless on numerous occasions.
Yet they are far stronger than these facts convey or perhaps because of these facts they have emerged resilient, courageous and triumphant.
One needs only be in the delivery room of a hospital labour ward or indeed the makeshift shelters which constitute a delivery room in most rural settings, to understand the physical pain and stress to her being that a woman is able to withstand – again and again at each child birth.
She hardly ever says no and often she has no choice in the creative process, giving as her nature provides and as often being taken against her will.
Writing A Treatise on Domestic Economy author Catherine E Beecher wrote: “The mother forms the character of the future man; the sister bends the fibres that are hereafter to be the forest tree; the wife sways the heart whose energies may turn for good or for evil the destinies of a nation.
“Let the women of a country be made virtuous and intelligent, and the men will certainly be the same.
“The proper education of a man decides the welfare of an individual; but educate a woman, and the interest of a whole family are secured.”
Yet these formers of the destinies of nations are, in this nation, maltreated beyond reason.
A woman is generally worked as a slave at home, maltreated and bullied at school and taken advantage of and harassed at work.
She has been warned to take care every day in her dress, her manners, and her conversations lest she invites unwanted attention. Their meek, submissive and obedient character, which might have seemed weak in a past era, is absolutely correct for a corporate organisation where such characteristics contribute greatly to productivity.
Other parts of her nature help her in the modern economy.
Everywhere, in every industry and profession women are advancing.
She is skilful at multi-tasking because that is what she does at home. She is consistent and committed to finishing a task.
She is caring and loving but territorial.
A society where its women do not feel secure and respected is not worth calling a society.
Violence against women is preventable and policy-makers should play a critical role in this regard.