Saudi Woman Sentenced to 10 Lashes for Driving Car That is the headline from ABC on September 27/2011. Unfortunately, in this day and age, there are still societies that are living in the Dark Ages. The Age of Enlightenment hasn’t spread around the world, that’s quite apparent!
Now we don’t have Sharia Law in Canada, (although the Dalton McGuinty Liberals in Ontario Canada almost went ahead with it. Read more).
But many women in the West are still subservient to men. How many people get married for better or for worse, and come hell or high water, they stick to their vows no matter how abusive the situation. I’ve seen it many times as I’m sure most people have.
When I was a teenager, I can still remember when I was working at the local Tom Boy grocery store in a little town of Camrose, Alberta. A woman and her husband came in to do the shopping. She shopped there regularly and over the last while her husband had been away in jail. But this day, she came in, with her just released husband.
And in the staff coffee room, where we always talked about everyone and everything, no one said a word about it.
I do believe today, that someone would speak up and say or do something, at least I hope so.
But there are other forms of suppression, where women are living in a situation where they are being held back. Be it at work, or in the home it is still happening.
It is truly time for Female Empowerment. Check out the Ultimate Wake Up and watch the videos on the site. You can take charge of your life.
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– A blog of a young woman who has just discovered she has breast cancer. Her writing is therapeutic for her, and is a help others going through this trying ordeal
The Intention Experiment with Lynn McTaggert
My mom is my role model for female empowerment.
When I was 9 months old, she obtained a divorce to get out of a stifling marriage at a time when divorce was taboo. After the divorce when she could not get a job where she lived, she moved to new country with her baby (me) where she did not speak the local language, English. Fortunately, there was a scarcity of French teachers, so she was hired as a French teacher. She also took night courses at university in “Use of English” to become fully bilingual. She became the most liked and highly regarded French teacher on the island, teaching French to kids aged 8 to 18 years. During that time, I remember feeling the taboo of being a child of divorced parents, but I also remember thinking that I was a lot luckier than kids who got beaten when their parents argued.
With hopes of giving me a good post secondary education, my mom and I moved to Canada when I was 15 years old. We arrived in Canada in the middle of winter, and coming from a tropical climate, we were not aware of the existence of thermostats, so we were freezing. By the end of my first week in Canada, I got sick. My mom wondered whether we would adapt to Canada, and whether she made a good decision to come here.
When it comes to female and social equity, my mom was ahead of societal values in her part of the world. She had this fiery streak in her with regards to women being in charge of their own destiny. She insisted that I obtain a good education so that I could find a good job and be financially independent. She also instilled in me a curiosity to learn about other cultures and to make friends with whom I shared similar values and interests regardless of their race, cultural background or social status. I have told her many times that I admired her for the decisions she made and that she was “a tough cookie”. She has replied that she had never felt tough or strong, but instead was scared most of the time. I am in awe of her – despite being scared, she took tough decisions that went against the social mores of her time – social mores that need to be changed in order to create a more just and peaceful world.
Thanks for sharing. What a great story and what a great role model! Your mom definitely is a strong women, and that’s what the world needs more of.