The lots of women in Nigeria and many third world countries deserves our attention. In some countries, women are beginning to make giant strides in political, economic and social arena. It is good but it can be better. In this article, Reverend Mrs. Seun Dada, of All Believers Congregation, Lagos Nigeria takes an intellectual look at women.

Read part 11 of this article in the July/August Editon

FEATURES:
•  WOMEN – THIS IS OUR WORLD TOO
•  FROM THE BEGINNING
•  CONCEPT OF FEMINISM IN JUDAISM
•  JESUS AND WOMEN
•  THE APOSTLES AND THE WOMEN

(To be concluded in the next edition)

WOMEN THIS IS OUR WORLD TOO
“This is a man's world”

I wonder how many times you have come across that cliché. How it came about, only God knows, but certainly it is not true, if you are thinking of the male: female ratio in the population of any nation in any generation.

Women are not sexual toys for their husbands to play with. They have an identity, a full faculty, a real purpose in their being. Strangely though, most women are lost in the maze of self-denigration and hopeless resignation to the whims and caprices of the men folk.

The simple act of telling a woman's story from a woman's point of view is a revolutionary act: it has never been done before. A new language must be created to express women's experience and insight, new metaphors discovered, new themes considered. It actually involves creating a new literary tradition. If women writers could share their own experiences without apologies, they would forge connections to other women, who would hear their own unnamed longings voiced, who would relish their perceptions of the world and its powers and they take a new form and a different dimension.

Every woman who wants to make a mark in life must awaken to the depths of her soul and to her unique position in the universe. She must, in quiet and solitary contemplation ask and receive concrete answers to these three inevitable questions:

•  Who am I?
•  Why am I here?
•  What is my place in the universe?

The 21st century woman can no longer accept conventional answers, or answers that are coloured by the prism of patriarchy. She must uncover her own truths and delve still deeper. Underneath her bone marrow are treasures that are more complex, more profound, and more competitive than gold and diamond. It is time to cast away those yokes of inferiority complex and appropriate our God-given potentials in full.

No woman should feel fulfilled in life if she does not maximize her potentials and occupy her God-given position. To accept the status-quo is to accept disillusionment, despondency, despair and ultimately death.

We must be able to positively and enthusiastically affirm, “Nay, this is OUR world!”

FROM THE BEGINNING

Both the earliest artifacts known to man, and the myriad of female statues from the so-called Upper Paleolithic era, emphasize the awe that our forebears felt for women and their “mysteries” – viz, bleeding painlessly in rhythm with the moon (menstruation) drawing people from their bodies (child-birth), producing food from their bodies for the young (breast-feeding).

Such was the awe and deepest respects accorded to women that the earth was regarded as the bountiful “female”, the ever-giving mother.

It was not surprising therefore that rituals in the honour of the woman took place in womb-like caves, often with vulva-like entrances and long, slippery corridors.

This practice pre-dates both Abraham and Mohammed; in fact, the farther you trace back to ancient times, the more you discover that in virtually every clime, the woman had more awe than the men.

CONCEPTS OF FEMINISM IN JUDAISM

We may never know at what exact point, the tide turned and ours became a “man's world”. But what is evident from recorded, Biblical history, is that from the days of Noah and Abraham, patriarchy had infiltrated the general understanding of the God-head.

Thus, under Judaism, a woman received daily variations of the message that her only contribution to life, is to attach herself to a man who possesses, actually or potentially, economic, legal, intellectual and spiritual power. After all, he is the same gender as lawmakers, presidents, kings, priests and even God Himself.

Theologians have continued to underline this patriarchy by insisting that, since Eve was easily deceived but Adam was not, women cannot be trusted with sacred chores, let alone assignments that require the best commitments.

Religious laws were made segregation women and children away from the main chambers of the synagogue, as they were confined to the “section for the women”. To compound matters, it became the norm not to include women during the verification of numerical strength of a group. Thus, we find such biblical statements as “besides women and children”, in situations where the men folk are counted and recorded.

All that a man needed to do, to foster a divorce on his wife, in Judaism, was to give her a “bill of divorcement”. Obtaining such a “bill” from relevant authorities was so easy that the abuse was so evident. Religious zealots would pick up a woman involved in adultery and present her to be stoned, without making any reference to the male accomplice. It was that bad.

JESUS AND WOMEN

Till date, the first advent of Jesus Christ remains very controversial.

Not only did He accord women a rare pride of place in His ministry,

He actually hanged out with several of them.

•  The Son of the Living God was carried in a woman's womb for nine months.

•  Without apologies, the Bible records that Jesus loved Martha and her sister, Mary and Lazarus. (John 11:5).

•  Jesus allowed a woman to wipe his feet with her hair, after anointing him with oil – for which she is eternally remembered for as far as the gospel goes. (Matthew 26:6-13).

•  In spite of the manifold pain on the cross, and beyond the deafening noise and uproar that attended his crucifixion, Jesus found time to devote an important statement to the mother.

•  When Jesus finally died, the veil of the temple divided into two, from top to bottom, signifying that the gender segregation has come to an end.

•  On the morning of resurrection, it was first to a woman that Jesus appeared – not to a man.

If Jesus is our model – and there is no reason why He shouldn't be – we ought to treat women the way Jesus treated them.

THE APOSTLES AND THE WOMEN.

May be because they had seen the women played important roles in the ministries of their master, up to and including during the agonies of crucifixion {mark 15:40-41},the early apostles had the company of several women, before the day of Pentecost. (Acts 1:14).

Clearly, Priscilla emerged in the apostolic era as a leader! Although she is never mentioned apart from her husband. Aquila , she is mentioned first. in writings from first century Palestine , this was considered good Greek syntax, to emphasize their position. The leader is mentioned first, and Priscilla had that very role.

We see Priscilla and Aquila supporting Paul, and we see Priscilla and Aquila , putting Apolos through in some deeper truths of the gospel. We are to see Priscilla later leading a house-church, a type of ministry that became very common in early Christianity – and all that she did still working!

It is to the credit of the early church that women were allowed to be part of the main-stream worship: a freedom hitherto unthinkable in Judaism. Paul, especially, continued to insist that a God is not gender-sensitive in His dealings with His creation.

To put it very clearly, the apostles like their Master Jesus Christ, did not relegate women to the background.


(To be concluded in the next edition)

Rev. (Mrs.) Oluwaseun Dada is an Associate Pastor at All Believers Congregation, Ajao Estate, Lagos Nigeria.. She is the founder of Dorcas Foundation, an NGO that caters for widows and the needy. She could be reached at Pastor_mrsdada@yahoo.co.uk, Seun63dada@yahoo.com.