Woman of Valor

"(Because of her) Her husband is respected at the city gate, where he takes his seat among the elders of the land... Honor her for all that her hands have done, and let her works bring her praise at the city gate." - Proverbs 31:23, 31

Yesterday I received an in-box message from a Facebook friend whom I had accepted the same day. Although the message was only two words, it was distasteful, nauseating, and vomitous to say the least. Recently I was wondering how come men who were from very far places and also considering some of their Facebook posts were not of my taste began to send me a Facebook friendship request. I was a bit reluctant to accept many of them as a Facebook friends thinking that they might be of suspicious characters; in addition we had no common area of discussion. Anyway I accepted some; and yesterday's ex-Facebook friend was one of them. And his obscene in-box message gave me a clue on why I had received those so many strange friendship requests. It was because of my Facebook profile pictures.

Lately I used a picture of two ladies at different times as my Facebook profile picture. The pictures belong to two of my heroine Eritrean sisters who are prisoners of conscience in Eritrea. I used it in order to express my admiration of their courage to build a free Eritrean society and to raise general awareness about their daily ordeals for the last 14 years in prison. But this "thickheaded man" could only able to see women as little more than sex objects. What a shame! This is also an eye opening on the level of harassment which is going on upon our noble mothers, sisters and daughters in the Social Media.

This week a similar issue was a hot topic of discussion in the city of Nairobi. A mob of "idiotic men" began to undress women in public. They were committing this horrendous act of crime on the name of indecent clothing. The irony of it was, "how could stripping a lady in public be a covering for improper clothing?" What can only be said about it is, from the outset dressing was not the issue, the problem was the poor state of mind of these "ridiculous men." Any society which does not treat its women with utmost respect and dignity could never ever develop. It is so easy to locate a civilized society by simply observing on how it dignifies its women. After all how could a society expect to prosper if it brutally dishonour half of its members? A society which exalt its women is always intact; but those who disgrace women are always flawed. If one robs the natural wealth of those nations who superficially glitter but disrespect women, they would immediately return to the stone age.

Therefore, not only as Christians but as a civilized men we should respect and protect our grandmothers, mothers, wives, daughters, sisters, aunts and female neighbors. We should preserve their equality and full participation in the society. If we fail to do that, it's at our peril.

Love and blessings

Brehane-meskel Araya