Can you think for a moment what life would be like without women. Many things set us apart from males. Yet there are more similarities than differences I believe. What stands out is the experience of pregnancy and giving birth then raising a child or children. Even though women’s jobs, duties, occupations and skills have widened and are nearly limitless, carrying and having a baby stands out to me as a woman and mother. It is a magnificent experience to carry and give birth to a baby.

Having said that, women have expanded beyond just one way to have a child. Some of the ways are: We adopt, raise children without a father, take in foster children, assist other women and families in childcare, designate other women to carry our baby, or choose not to have children and other scenarios.  

However women continue to be dexterous and can do many things seemingly at once and are able to have a family, raise a baby or children while having a career or volunteer endeavors simultaneously.  

Another incredible thing–I have watched fathers raise their children without a mother present. In these situations the father usually develops the characteristics of both male and female tendencies. The dad has nurturing and motherly developed qualities to compensate and balance the experience of caring for and raising a child or children.

Quite extraordinarily, a woman does the same thing. She develops those qualities of safety, strength, authority, financial support for the family and providing guidance and encouragement as the child develops into maturity. Thus both the female and male have the innate drive to express the masculine and the feminine–the needed components in being a parent and feeling more balanced within. Assisting a child’s growth and maturity is a wonderful job to share with the father, father-figure, husband or step-parent and grandparents also.    

And, today we salute women, the delicate, the strong, little and big. We salute the advances of women’s rights and those who have stepped forth into occupations heretofore occupied exclusively by males. Yet, there is much work still to be done in the area of women’s equality, equal rights, treatment and safety. So, we move forward celebrating our advances and looking to expanded rights, privileges and statures.

Nevertheless, women, we can hold our head high and give thanks to the Creative and spiritual Presence within us and in the world, the progress and expansion of greater expression and worthiness earned. While always remembering the brave women who have gone before us paving new roads, breaking through old barriers and low standards set for women in many societies. 

Besides, there are an abundant number of standout women of the world who have made life more expansive and acceptable for you and I. Women like Virginia Woolf who would walk into an all male college library and begin learning from a book she took off the shelf. Women were forbidden to study certain subjects a century or more ago, one of them was math.

Our own Myrtle Fillmore set high standards for women’s rolls and broke through previously set limitations on women. She declined having a kitchen in her home. She did not want to spend time cooking; instead, she ministered, prayed with, wrote healing letters, raised her children, lectured, founded and lead the early Silent Unity Prayer Ministry. She indeed was co-founder and a great contributor of the Unity Movement along with her husband Charles Fillmore. They were equal in their individual jobs and services within the Movement. 

Importantly, the women’s right to vote took tremendous persistence, leadership and organization to finally earn women the privilege to vote which came in August 18, 1920 with the Nineteenth Amendment to the US Constitution. Stand-out women in the women right to vote initiative are Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott.  

Women’s advances and rights have mostly been hard earned by vigorous women and sympathetic men. We must pledge to further these rights and reject any abuses to women, children, and to men for that matter the world over. We need to continue to expand from within and in outer ways, being our individual authentic selves, supporting other women and men in the progression forward. 

Further, as women, continue to develop and use our voices, express with authority what we need and want in life. And boldly pursue avenues corresponding with our dreams, hopes and desires. We need to say NO to, not accept and voice our demand to end child-abuse, domestic abuse, sexual abuse and all kinds of human, animal and planet abuses. We have the God given power, the initiative and now is the appropriate time!