This is not about women. It is about the state of all people, all human beings. It is tempting to think that the recent Women’s March for Unity, and the sign waving event was about women. It wasn’t. It was
This is not about women. It is about the state of all people, all human beings. It is tempting to think that the recent Women’s March for Unity, and the sign waving event was about women.
It wasn’t. It was about more than one-half the population of the planet, and all the future populations.
Women rise collectively when society recognizes all humans as equal, without regard to gender, race, age, ethnicity, religious or political beliefs. Women rise to take a stand when human populations, the environment they live in, and the resources necessary to sustain all life are at risk.
As a group, women are overwhelmed with responsibilities to families: economically, socially and as caregivers. Many, especially men, may be tempted to think they aren’t involved or interested in policy and decisionmaking. It is a dangerous error in thinking.
None of us would be here without women. Not just our birth mothers — but a whole community of women who monitor and safeguard the land, our communities, our food, economy and our health.
They create the social linkages that hold our communities together. They create relationships. Creating indestructible networks of communication, that ensure that the old, the young, the disabled, the sick, the newcomers, the disadvantaged, everyone is woven into the ohana.
Women step up to raise issues that are not simply momentary, but to raise the future. Women create their own lives, but future generations. They are experts on monitoring the quality of life. Now, and for the future.
Women happen to have a gender assignment, but that doesn’t eliminate their equal roles, votes, involvement in current events and interest in the outcome of political decisions.
We need to understand that more than one-half the population is represented when women take a stand. Not just women, present, but the entire future population. The people they care for, and the entire population of humans still unborn.
As a speaker for the unborn, each woman represents a link in an unbroken chain going back more than 400,000 years. Our female lineage is intact.
Humans separated from the great apes about 7 million years ago, and what we call “modern” humans evolved about 200,000 years ago. We owe those early foremothers a great deal of credit. Each of us is here because she survived. Women understand sacrifice for survival.
Without your mother, you would not be here to have a life, a voice, an opinion. Without this planet, this island, this climate, we cannot survive. Without women speaking up for the health of the land, the community, the political agenda, and the rights of all women, men, and children, our community loses its grasp of what community means.
Enlightened self-interest demands that we examine the flaws in our understanding and in political processes that fail to take into account current dangers. This is what causes women to focus on the issues confronting our future hopes.
Women talk. They communicate. It’s what they do. And the wide, wide coconut wireless echoes, and the messages grow and the cliques and groups merge to a common need to protect the community.
Women guard the future when they unite to step out and speak up. We are not gender bent, wanting things just for women. We want them for everyone, with no one left out.
We want men, as we saw at the march and sign waving events, to continue to join with us to unite on policies, strategic planning, and resource allocation that provides for our entire human ohana. No one left out.
Aloha makes us great, and let us make Kauai even greater.
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Virginia Beck has lived on Kauai since 1971. One of KCC’s first RN graduates, she was a nurse practitioner here, and in the Stanford community, a Certified Trager practitioner, and a childbirth educator. A rich educational experience in European countries, Pakistan, and the Mainland were good preparation for our multicultural chop suey Kauai life. A wellness coach and writer, at Healthy by Design Hawaii, she helps her clients erase stress and design “Lives they Love.” (808) 635-5618.
