As we continue to celebrate March as the time we globally recognize the achievements of girls and women,let us remember the incredible quality of life struggles girls and women have in most corners of the world. It is good to talk about the growing number of girls and women cracking glass ceilings but we need actions to assure urgently needed justice for the majority of girls and women who are still confined to the dungeons of their societies due to male biased attitudes about them as human beings.

Since being a 19 year old college leader , thus a very long time ago, I have observed and where I can, blocked the efforts of boys and men who are determined to keep women less successful than they are. In this day and age anti- female discrimination legislation and public rhetoric has actually done very little to change the anti-female inclinations of males in most societies. The bigots are just more careful and covert in their anti female actions. They use their power in the media , in academic study, and in electoral politics to spin all kinds of factual looking myths about the absence of women in highest places such as winners of elite science prizes and the supreme leaders of nations and of their judicial and legislative branches.

Reams of empirical studies show that all over the world including in the United States and in the other most developed nations of the world there are two principles of patriarchy which are universally in force persistently. One is that no matter how work and otherwise demanding a wife’s life becomes, it is still expected that she be the primary parent taking care of the children and in most cases the home. And oddly enough this becomes a breeding ground for sexist sons who see their mothers cooking and cleaning at home, not at work running a major corporation. Second, you can readily tell and predict the mobility and achievement level of a woman by determining the attitude of the man in her life. High achieving women who are coupled with men who are supportive of them is relatively rare which is why so many such high status women are increasingly single or in same sex relationships.

So it was pleasing to recently hear US President Joe Biden in his 2024 State of the Union address stress so strongly his pro-reproduction abortion rights views. Progress male leaders have been doing that for decades. As has been said by white feminists and non-white womanists for generations, especially in the late 20th and early 21st centuries the deep roots of mundane everyday anti-female biases held by males and internalized by not a few females are the crux of the reason why most girls and women are stuck in the dungeons. Their daddies ,boyfriends, and husbands may never lay a hand on them or say an unkind word to them but do nothing to encourage them to move forward in their lives. And many girls and women become OK with that, to settle in for the protection and security, becoming mum and then numb when it comes to their own identities, desires, and dreams. It is only in times when the guy sooner or later leaves her for greener pastures, usually a younger woman or dies or when the kids she fawns over grow up and leaves that a woman becomes resentful in her loneliness; feeling cheated with time now running hard against her.

This is why not only girls and women but boys and men in every society need to do much more in their attitudes and beliefs and most importantly actions in supporting the empowerment of all females. Like in all arenas of justice, everyone, not just those who are the targets of oppression need to get with it and be in the mix of action. Rather than boys and men like girls and women seeing each other as competitors and as inferiors and superiors, they should support each other and encourage each other to do well in life. Boys and men both privately and publicly should stand up against male bigots against females just as much as girls and women should do the same when it comes to female bigots against males.

And for those of you who are religious, regardless of your professed faith and those not religious but who live by some golden rule, please cease in using your religion or golden rule as a rationale for discriminating against females or males. A male can cook and clean the house as well as if not better than a girl or a woman. A girl or a woman can mow the lawn or fix the bathroom plumbing just as well if not better than a boy or a man. Be collaborative in coupling not assuming the guy is the leader and the woman is a following floor mat. A man and a woman should encourage each other to further their education and career goals, not keep one in the kitchen or just fixing cars. We are all human beings with feelings not objects for sexual pleasures, getting money, and getting kids.

Perhaps not your perspective but my view on God is He wants the best for all of us. The discrimination, the hurt,the pain,the abuse we do to each other, in this case girls and women is what we males do too often with too often accommodating females. We need to stop it guys and right now. God is not smiling about this anti-female bias matter as we pretend is not there or/and we daily benefit.

Prof John Huston Stanfield
Faith and Justice Sunday Conversations
ASARPI
March 9, 2024