importance of feminine values in society

By Florence Didigu (Vanguard, Lagos)

OPINION

February 16, 2005: The Igbos have a saying: "Nne bu isi uwa", which freely translated means that the mother is head of the world, that is, the anchor of life. Is it not wonderful that a patriarchal society like ours recognises the capacity of women to engender "actions which elicit life, and contribute to the growth and protection of the other"? Indeed, it is the so called modern influences that have deployed the rhetorics of a misguided feminism in an attempt to rob women of this capacity for the other", and nudge them on a vain and narcissistic ego trip.

Society can only be impoverished by this brand of women liberation, since it can only succeed in "masculinising women or in turning them into unrecognisable hybrids. But homo sapiens has no hybrid! "God made them man and woman": man is not woman and woman is not man, and it is the collaboration of their "manness" and "womanness" that completes the humankind. There is no doubt that if women lose the very essence that makes them woman they are no longer capable of using what the Holy Father dubbed "the special genius." of women, to bring to society values that humanise culture and shape the lives of individuals. The terrible consequences of this crisis of identity in women affect every aspect of human life, and are most palpable in the so called modern societies. But we in the underdeveloped countries are no longer immune to the deconstruction caused by it. African women and women groups must therefore vehemently oppose those who hide under the cloak of women rights activism to rob them of their feminine dignity.

The importance of feminine values in the life of the society, according to a publication by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith titled "Collaboration of Men and Women", is anchored primarily on women's physical capacity to give life. This reality breeds into women that maternal instinct that "structures the female personality in a profound way that allows her to acquire maturity very quickly", and become imbued with "a sense of the seriousness of life and its responsibilities." No wonder then more male than female children in our society derail on their journey to responsible adulthood, and constitute serious problems to their families and society as a whole.

The phenomena of "Area Boys" youth militancy, youth unemployment, cultism, armed robbery etc, have of course been spurned by a dire economic condition, that have pushed many young people to the shady fringes of society, where hope and human dignity die fast. But the fact that, with the exception of prostitution, there are very few females in the ranks of these social malcontents, proves that the female instinct is resilient and possesses a "singular capacity to persevere in adversity, to keep life going even in extreme situations, to hold tenaciously to the future", even where there seems to be no future. It follows therefore that in the present critical situation that Nigeria finds itself, Nigerian women with their inherent tenacity, perseverance and solicitude could keep hope alive and families intact.
Already, the economic downturn that has created young delinquents has also emasculated many family men. These unfortunate heads of families, having seen their sources of income dry up, are no longer capable of providing for their families' needs.

In such families, and there are very many like that in our midst, the women's natural "capacity for the other" is greatly challenged. Indeed many wives in this situation, who are financially empowered, have, with all humility, love and respect for their husbands, taken up the burden of catering for the family, a task complicated sometimes with the pain of placating a husband, who, because of a bruised ego, is petulant and in the extreme, mean and even violent. But of course there are women who in the same situation have refused to become their families' anchor of life, and in the process squandered the golden opportunity to use their singular nurturing capacity to give themselves to the other, to sacrifice themselves, to "carry the cross", as our Lord invites those who are overburdened and heavy laden" to do.
The result of course is that the peace and rest promised by the Lord also eludes them and their families, for it is within the family that the need for women to act as shapers of life and culture is most urgent and indispensable.

The family is the cradle of citizenship, the "seedbed" of virtues and values, the primordial school, where an individual first learns or fails to learn the essential qualities necessary for governing the self: love, honesty, trust, loyalty, co-operation, self restraint, civility, compassion, responsibility and respect for the other. But the family is under siege all over the world and "its indispensability is being denied and its integrity violated".

If the family is to survive, an urgent and drastic intervention is required to protect, reconstruct and rehabilitate its fortunes. A moral rearmament must necessarily be part of this intervention, and it must start within the family. This is because it is within the family that individuals "learn to know the face of God in as much as they receive a first revelation of it from a father and mother full of attention in their regard". This intervention must also take on the moral equivalence of a revolution, and women, as the purveyors and shapers of life must be present in the avant-garde if any good is to come of it.

All that is required of women in this family revolution is that they bring the force of their God-given capacity to nurture and care for life and all the feminine values accruing from this, to bear on the entire spectrum of human experience. This means that women "should not only be present in the family but also in the world of work, in the organisation of society, and should have access to positions of responsibility, which allow them to inspire the policies of nations and to promote innovative solutions to economic and social problems", and thereby healing the wounds of society with their gentle but resilient touch.

In present day Nigeria examples of the salutary effects of a woman's presence in the scheme of things abound: Dora Akunyili leading the revolution for transparency and effectiveness at NAFDAC; Rosaline Odeh prosecuting the battle to sanitise our film industry at the Film and Video Censors Board; Of course not every woman can get on the public stage like these women. But every woman can just by being more present within her family transform that family, and since the family is a microcosm of the society, her presence will eventually ripple all over as members of this family go out to imbue the entire society with the love, respect, sensitivity and godliness engendered in them by her.

But if women owe society their benevolent presence in the family and in the world of work, society also owes women! The organisation of work and laws governing work for example must be such that women can "devote the totality of their time to the work of the household without being stigmatised by society or penalised financially, while those who wish to engage in other work may be able to do so with an appropriate work schedule, and not have to choose between relinquishing their family life or enduring continual stress with negative consequences" for the harmony of the family.

To achieve this equilibrium requires not only an organisational, legal or economic re-engineering, but above all a change in mentality and culture.
As a broadcaster, I believe that media women have a pivotal role to play in all this, because they have at their disposal the awesome power of the media. They could therefore deploy media content as a formidable catalyst for change. Putting their creativity at the service of their sisters, they could help rehabilitate the media image of women as sex objects, discourage women from allowing their persons to be used in packaging media content that denigrates their dignity.

They could also address in a wholesome manner issues that concern women. Above all they should promote a culture of life and oppose vehemently the progenitors of the culture of death, abortion, euthanasia, homosexuality, same sex marriage etc etc. Although it has been established here that feminine values are corollaries of motherhood - "a key element in a woman's identity", it however does not follow that women should be considered "from the sole perspective of physical procreation". Such a faulty perception could lead to "distortions that extol biological fecundity ... and are often accompanied by dangerous disrespect for women".