A decade of education has only given her
literacy and better job options than her mother. Deep inside, her self-concept
has remained largely traditional, unchanged from earlier generations of women,
and one that rests on her domestic role as a wife and mother.
Truth be told, many women today have not
evolved much intellectually, emotionally, socially and spiritually compared
with our mothers and grandmothers. To
our children and to society at large, we perpetuate the image of women as dependents
– first on husbands, then on adult children.
This over-identification with our family
constrains our roles in society and our development as individuals. As a result, we are content to play limited
and supportive roles, and consciously avoid leadership and strategic ones. A husband becomes the highest frame of
reference, a figurehead of authority and rule, regardless of his moral failings
and judgmental flaws.
The time has come for us to pay attention
to the person within us that forms all our social identities, and to accept
that the progress we have made as women has been mere skin-deep. We are better-educated, not better informed
than our mothers. We need to reform
ourselves to become new role models so that generations of young women will become
more aware of who they are and what they can bring to every relationship –
within and outside the family.
Indeed, our daughters and sons will respect
or resent womanhood according to the way we live as empowered and engaged citizens of the world.