A Monday To Challenge Inequity
“Today, Monday, International Women’s Day, is a call to remembrance of every woman who closed the inequality gap by just believing and acting on her belief that the God who created her would also carry her into brave moments of breaking barriers and challenging societal, religious and political norms.”
My mother was a woman ahead of her time. She challenged the boundaries of women’s roles in her world, was the first of her friends to get her driver’s license in an era where women didn’t drive, and without even a high school education went on to chair national women’s committees and entertain athletes and politicians in her home.
Today, Monday, International Women’s Day, is a call to remembrance of every woman who closed the inequality gap by just believing and acting on her belief that the God who created her would also carry her into brave moments of breaking barriers and challenging societal, religious and political norms.
Don’t forget to also call to remembrance the words of Philippians 1:6:
“I am confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”
Where does your confidence come from?
“Women in leadership: achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 world”, celebrates the tremendous efforts by women and girls around the world in shaping a more equal future and recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and highlights the gaps that remain.
Women’s full and effective participation and leadership in of all areas of life, and in the church, drives progress for everyone.
Yet, did you know that women are still underrepresented in public life and decision-making, as revealed in the UN Secretary-General’s recent report? Women are Heads of State or Government in 22 countries, and only 24.9 per cent of national parliamentarians are women. At the current rate of progress, gender equality among Heads of Government will take another 130 years.
Women are also at the forefront of the battle against COVID-19, as front-line and health sector workers, as scientists, doctors and caregivers, yet they get paid 11 per cent less globally than their male counterparts. An analysis of COVID-19 task teams from 87 countries found only 3.5 per cent of them had gender parity.
When women lead, we see positive results. Some of the most efficient and exemplary responses to the COVID-19 pandemic were led by women. Think of Bonnie Henry in British Columbia. And women, especially young women, are at the forefront of diverse and inclusive movements online and on the streets for social justice, climate change and equality in all parts of the world. Yet, women under 30 are less than 1 per cent of parliamentarians worldwide.
This is why, this year’s International Women’s Day is a rallying cry for generation equality, in addition to gender equality.
In the church, there is still disparity between how and where men and women are allowed to lead. As the church, do we take our cues from culture and seek to accommodate the values of International Women’s Day into our own belief system?
Or do we recognize that some of the values of challenging inequity were also driven by the actions of Jesus when he elevated the status of every woman he came into contact with?
I believe that for Jesus, women had an intrinsic value equal to that of men.
Jesus came to earth not primarily as a male but as a person. He treated women not primarily as females but as human beings.
Jesus recognized women as fellow human beings.
The foundation-stone of Jesus’s attitude toward women was his vision of them as persons to whom and for whom he had come.
Jesus regularly addressed women directly while in public. This was unusual for a man to do (John 5:27). The disciples were amazed to see Jesus talking with the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4).
He also spoke freely with the woman taken in adultery (John 8:10-11), with the widow of Nain (Luke 7:12-13), the woman with the bleeding disorder (Luke 8:48), a woman who called to him from a crowd (Luke 11:27-28), and a woman bent over for eighteen years (Luke 13:12).
Jesus had high regard for the full intrinsic value of women as seen in how he spoke to the women he addressed. Jesus addressed the woman with the bleeding disorder tenderly as “daughter” and referred to the bent woman as a “daughter of Abraham” according them a spiritual status equal to that of men.
Do you carry the confidence that the God who started a work in you, will complete it and highly esteems you? And will that confidence that God is the only one who can bring forth a harvest of fruit in your life, translate to how you live your life, today, on Monday, and each day to come?
I pray that you would be confident.
Confident enough to walk into every room knowing that your gender does not disqualify you.
Confident enough to walk into every week knowing that because you are a woman, you have the same opportunities as everyone else ever born on this earth.
Confident enough to learn that other people’s limitations do not need to become your insecurity.
Confident enough to know that just because other people think things about you, it does not mean you have to believe it.
Confident enough to know that even giants of inequity and abuse can fall when the love of Christ that you carry comes face to face with them.
Confident enough to know that though others will try to disqualify you because of your gender, your age, your class or your age, those things are the very reasons God calls you and qualifies and equips you.
I believe in you.
Cathie