This year, the United Nations theme is: Equal Access to Education, Training and Science and Technology – Pathway to Decent Work for Women. In this way, the UN is underscoring that gender equality and empowerment of women are fundamental to achieving equal rights and dignity for all.
Promisingly, most girls worldwide now receive an education, particularly at the primary level, and women are more likely to run businesses or participate in government. However, according to the UN’s Millennium Development Goals Report 2010, “Poverty puts girls at a distinct disadvantage in terms of education. Girls of primary-school age from the poorest 60 percent of households are three times more likely to be out of school than those from the wealthiest households. Their chances of attending secondary school are even slimmer, and older girls in general are more likely to be out of school. In the poorest households, about twice as many girls of secondary-school age are out of school compared to their wealthier peers.”
The situation for women healthwise is not much better. For instance, despite the growing number of countries that have legislation supporting sexual and reproductive health, maternal mortality remains unacceptably high, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Finally, violence against women remains a cause of global shame, and is now recognised as a major factor in the psychological and physical trauma of women. It is not confined to any particular political and economic system, is prevalent in every society in the world, and cuts across boundaries of wealth, race and culture.
At the time of Jesus, women did not fare much better than many women today in some countries, yet the Lord showed, with His teachings and actions, that women have exactly the same value as men do in God’s eyes. In a culture where it was customary for males to pray three times a day, “Blessed are you, Lord our God, King of the Universe, for not having made me a Gentile… for not having made me a slave… for not having made me a woman,” Jesus brought in a real cultural revolution. Transcending the established norms of tradition, He treated women with openness, respect, acceptance and tenderness; in this way honouring the dignity which women have always possessed in God’s plan and love.
Perhaps the most touching words of praise and gratitude for women ever written were those penned in 1995 by our soon-to-be Beatified Pope John Paul II. In his famous letter to women throughout the world he wrote:
“Thank you, women who are mothers! You have sheltered human beings within yourselves in a unique experience of joy and travail. This experience makes you become God’s own smile upon the newborn child, the one who guides your child’s first steps, who helps it to grow, and who is the anchor as the child makes its way along the journey of life.
"Thank you, women who are wives! You irrevocably join your future to that of your husbands, in a relationship of mutual giving, at the service of love and life.
"Thank you, women who are daughters and women who are sisters! Into the heart of the family, and then of all society, you bring the richness of your sensitivity, your intuitiveness, your generosity and fidelity.
“Thank you, women who work! You are present and active in every area of life-social, economic, cultural, artistic and political. In this way you make an indispensable contribution to the growth of a culture which unites reason and feeling, to a model of life ever open to the sense of ‘mystery’, to the establishment of economic and political structures ever more worthy of humanity.
"Thank you, consecrated women! Following the example of the greatest of women, the Mother of Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word, you open yourselves with obedience and fidelity to the gift of God’s love. You help the Church and all mankind to experience a ‘spousal’ relationship to God, one which magnificently expresses the fellowship which God wishes to establish with his creatures.
"Thank you, every woman, for the simple fact of being a woman! Through the insight which is so much a part of your womanhood you enrich the world’s understanding and help to make human relations more honest and authentic.”
Updated on October 06 2016