Empowering women brings peace

Maybe I have a hang-up about empowered women; a concern that they will abandon their families and go off on their own mission. We have seen that happening.

In fact, the research about the state of the family published recently by the South African Institute for Race Relations, reporting on child-headed households, acknowledged that in the majority of child-headed households, there are parents living somewhere.

Fathers are the ones mostly absent, but focusing specifically on women we ask what their motivation is? Are they just desperate job-seekers in order to provide for their children? Are these mothers working for the improvement of society, or are these mothers taking up positions in the public sector, where opportunity exists, where there is a concerted effort towards gender equity and where there are visibly more women in leadership positions than anywhere else? Women in power in politics however is not necessarily a world phenomenon, as any group photo of world leaders clearly indicates.

The idea that has been incorporated into the 2011 family calendar, “empowered women, carers for all” provides the kind of holistic vision I embrace. Those are the words of Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese pro-democracy activist who has been jailed or held under house arrest for 15 years and was recently released. She was not fighting a battle for women’s rights, but for all—including women.

The following statement of hers was the inspiration for this month’s theme: “The education and empowerment of women throughout the world cannot fail to result in a more caring, tolerant, just and peaceful life for all.” We, women and men, young and old, doubtless can all say Amen to that. Whether we would all be prepared to suffer detention and house-arrest for our belief is a moot point.

The youth of the time of 1976, boys and girls, were involved in a political struggle. The women’s march in 1956 to protest against carrying of passbooks was the inspiration behind Women’s Day as we celebrate it now. Much has changed in society and in family life since then for women as well as men. The women in South Africa may still be disadvantaged, but they are not as oppressed as women in many other African and Middle Eastern countries.

Our concern here is for the bigger picture, the families of our region and the women as mothers of those families.  In some of my discussions around commemorating grandparents in July we noted that one can be a grandmother in one’s thirties. Having a child in one’s teens and, with history repeating itself, a grandchild by a teenage daughter is not uncommon, mainly in poorer depressed communities.

How does one empower those women, the older mother who becomes, or still is, the carer for all, as well as the young mom who should be at school and living the more carefree life of a teenager?

Identifying the specific family needs of communities through completing a profile of the reality of its families is one of the aspects of Parish Family Ministry, a programme developed by the SACBC Family Life Desk.

Parenting is clearly one of the challenges and some programmes are offered in different areas. Parenting a teenage mom should be an aspect of such a programme too, and of course the teenage dad shouldn’t be excluded either, bearing in mind as I have been told, that in many communities the women are the stronger ones and the men need to be empowered to take greater responsibility for themselves and their families.

Marriage preparation from early childhood should include the belief that male and female were created equal by God, different but with equal rights. Justice demands that this fact be recognised. Peace demands that their different qualities should be a source of complementarity rather than competition, power struggles and discrimination.

Pope John Paul II in his letter to the Bejing World Conference on Women in 1995 greeted women in different circumstances; mothers, wives, daughters and sisters, women at work and consecrated women. He concluded by saying: “Thank you every woman for the simple fact of being a woman. Through the insight of your womanhood you enrich the world’s understanding and help to make human relations more honest and authentic.”

May the women of our region in a particular way bring these qualities into their family relationships, pass them on to their children for the future wellbeing and happiness in all families and so bring peace to the world. After all family matters more than money matters, doesn’t it?