Guest Post by Susan V.
There are certain things that throughout time have proven to be black or white:
The Ten Commandments - you shall not kill or steal, or you shall probably go to jail, or worse.
You shall not covet your neighbor's ass, nor his wife, nor his wife's ass, or you may get a butt full of buckshot.
You shall not take the Lord's name in vain, - people will think you have a limited vocabulary and are too stupid to think of better ways to express yourself.
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor - in other words, don't lie, don't spread gossip about people of your acquaintance or you may end up with no acquaintances at all.
Then there's the Golden Rule... Do unto others as you would have others do unto you, treat people decently and they will, usually, treat you in kind.
These are black and white rules that we have lived with for generations. We all know right from wrong, good from bad, and we know when we are doing something we shouldn't - we know these things because they play out in our everyday lives and have proven themselves over and over....kill, steal - away you go, covet and it's buckshot for you. But when the question of equality is raised, is there really a black or white answer to how a woman achieves it, or does her personal quest for equality come in shades of grey?
I can't help but feel that the correlation between equality and a women's personal feelings of self worth are directly related. That her perception of her "place" within her family, social circle,community and work place all contribute to how she sees herself in relation to the people around her.
Most working women know what it feels like to be on the low end of the pole in the work place - to have her contribution to the working environment down played by the men around her. Even when she works harder, contributes more and has a broader knowledge of how the company actually functions. In social circles, and the community at large, isn't it the women who bring people together to celebrate special occasions, to enlist groups to volunteer and contribute? And in the family unit, its the mother/wife who holds the family together through"thick and thin", calm the waters when disputes arise, ...................its always the woman.
Why then is equality such an issue at all? Aren't the contributions women make to the lives around them just as important as the contributions of men? Are women somehow programmed from a very early age to accept the lesser role in life, therefor contributing to a diminished self worth? Did the very women who raised us instill a "acquiescent" gene in us that makes us feel that somehow, while we may feel we deserve the same recognition of the men in our lives, that is not so? We are intelligent, thinking women. We have in our hands the power to be who and what we want to be. We know right from wrong, good from bad but do we fight for black or white when it comes to our personal equality or do we settle for shades of grey.
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