For the most part, women carry a disproportionate load in our society. There’s little debate about that. And for their parts, too many men are often missing in action and are not helping out as much as they could.
Here’s something to think about:
• When it come to raising children, as most of us know, the bulk of that responsibility is on the woman’s shoulders.
• When it comes to caring for sick children, relatives; it’s generally mothers, sisters, aunts; but rarely men.
• When it comes to cooking and preparing dinner, it’s mostly women doing that task.
• When it comes to doing laundry, guess who does that?
• When it comes to getting children ready for school, making sure homework is done, getting them school supplies, making sure children get all of their vaccination shots; it’s women who are taking care of those duties.
• When there’s a funeral, women often take the lead with arrangements, and they make sure everything gets done, or it won’t get done.
• When an unmarried woman has a baby, it’s all on her. She didn’t make the baby by herself, but too often, she’s taking care of that baby by herself. She rarely gets any help from the child’s father.
We can argue that women are nurturers, and they certainly are. However, what women have been doing for the longest isn’t due to a “female gene.” It’s due to societal conditioning. Just as men eat, they can be conditioned to cook. If they want clean clothes, they can be conditioned to do the laundry. If they want to live in a clean house, they can be conditioned to sweep, mop and scrub, just like women.
Ironically, women themselves can be the agent of change. They can raise boys to do more and to develop more as human beings. Women are the first teachers, and they can teach boys to be more responsible starting at an early age. This is how change can take place.