Women's Identity

Women's Identity - Mayra Santos Blog

Since my teenage years I have been passionate about women's rights due to the inequality and discrimination that existed at that time. Driven by that passion I studied law and strived to achieve my professional goals and become the professional I am today.

However, it is paradoxical that after achieving my professional goals and becoming a New York lawyer, I was forced to abandon my professional career, my family, my culture, to live in a Middle Eastern country. There I experienced firsthand the discrimination against women. My life was in danger and I had to flee for my life with my little daughter. I tell you about that odyssey in my book, El Ultimo Atardecer en el Líbano (Spanish version and My Last Sunset in Lebanon (English version).

I advocate for the freedom of women who are mistreated and oppressed by the supremacy of macho men, who believe that women are their property and sexual objects. The woman who feels verbally, physically, emotionally or psychologically abused by her partner, should run and seek immediate help. That help could be a relationship therapist, a counselor, such as your pastor or priest. But if your life is in danger, get a lawyer or call 911.

In the modern society in which we live, women have achieved laws to protect them from violence against women. Affirmative Action laws protect against gender discrimination in the workplace. This is true in the United States, Europe and most of our Latin American countries.

Women today have already managed to position themselves in the labor, professional, business and political spheres in positions similar to those of men. Today we see a significant representation of women in Congress, in the Senate, in presidential candidacies. Women have been Prime Minister and Vice President of the nation. We are seeing an increasing number of women entrepreneurs and professionals just like men, with nothing to stop them. We have shown that we are capable, both intellectually and physically.

However, I am concerned that the struggle of women of today's generation is no longer for equal civil and political rights, which we have already achieved. Their struggle is to be equal to men and that struggle is leading them to lose their femininity, their identity of being a woman, a mother, a wife. She is losing what makes her unique.

While it is true that women and men have the same rights before the law, the same right to be respected and valued as persons, we are not in competition with men, we are complementary. We are unique because only a woman can be a mother, only a woman can breastfeed her baby. Motherhood is a woman's innate right. Did you know that there is already a tendency to suppress the pronoun he or she, by hem, which is a neutral pronoun. They also seek to suppress the word woman, mother, breastfeeding, menstruation for bleeding. That is to say, that women lose their identity of being women. The right to be a mother is a woman's innate right. The father has his role as provider, protector of the family. The woman is a complement to the man in the family.

Women also have a peculiar emotional intelligence, because we are the heart of man, beings of love. We have a purpose that makes us unique. Man is the head, just as the human body cannot live without a head or a heart. We are the heart of man in a couple relationship. I don't say this, the Bible says it.

The Bible also says that we were created to be a help meet. Genesis 2:18 "And the LORD God said, 'It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.'" The word 'suitable' in Hebrew is 'kenegdo' meaning 'fit for him' It is used to describe the woman created by God to be a companion to the man. As a woman 'fit help' she has specific purpose and that is to help the man. what kind of help? Suitable help, equal. To be a complement.

As women we have purposes. Woman was created to do what a man cannot do. So let's not lose our identity of being a woman. Because what God established is good and perfect.