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Woman
Related
Roles
A
woman had just returned from a meeting of the National Organization for Women
(NOW) when her five-year-old daughter greeted her with the news that she wanted
to be a nurse when she grew up. “A nurse!” her mother exclaimed. “Listen, Lisa,
just because you’re female doesn’t mean you have to settle for being a nurse.
You can be a surgeon, a lawyer, a banker, President of the
The
daughter looked a little dubious as she asked, “Anything? Anything at all?” As
she thought about it, her face was filled with ambition and enthusiasm. “All
right,” she said. “I’ll be a horse.” ── Michael P. Green《Illustrations
for Biblical Preaching》
As a pastor, a husband and
a father, I have a dread of burying someone else's talents, particularly those
bestowed on women. Accordingly, I have tried to scrutinize my views, the place
of tradition, the thrust of theology and the force of my prejudices.
Repeatedly, I have come back to this fact: If the Lord has given gifts, I had
better be careful about denying freedom for their exercise. More than that, I
need to ensure that the women in my life have every encouragement from me to be
what He called and gifted them to be. A major part of my life must be spent as
a man caring for, nurturing, encouraging and developing gifted women because
they aren't the only ones who will give account for their stewardship. As a man
in a male-oriented church, I may one day be asked about their gifts, too. I
would like to be able to say I did considerably more than burying. A talent is
a terrible thing to waste.── Stuart
Briscoe.
John Cheever was asked if
he would describe life with his wife, Mary. "She has displayed an
extraordinary amount of patience," he answered. He paused, then continued,
"Women are an inspiration. It's because of them we put on clean shirts and
wash our necks. Because of women, we want to excel. Because of a woman,
Christopher Columbus discovered America."
"Queen
Isabella," Mary Cheever murmured.
"I was thinking
of Mrs. Columbus," He said, deadpan.── Source
Unknown.
The Perfect Story: There
was a perfect man who met a perfect woman. After a perfect courtship,
they had a perfect wedding. Their life together was, of course,
perfect.
One snowy, stormy
Christmas Eve this perfect couple was driving along a winding road when they
noticed someone at the roadside in distress. Being the perfect couple, they
stopped to help. There stood Santa Claus with a huge bundle of toys. Not
wanting to disappoint any children on the eve of Christmas, the perfect couple
loaded Santa and his toys into their vehicle. Soon they were driving along
delivering the toys. Unfortunately, the driving conditions deteriorated and the
perfect couple and Santa Claus had an accident. Only one of them survived
the accident. Who was the survivor?
Answer: The perfect
woman. She's the only one that really existed in the first
place. Everyone knows there is no Santa Claus and there is no such thing
as a perfect man.
A Male's Response: So, if
there is no perfect man and no Santa Claus, the perfect woman must have been
driving. This explains why there was a car accident.── Unknown.
Role
of Woman
Here
is a paragraph by Ashley Montague from “The Triumph and Tragedy of the American
Woman,” which appeared in the Saturday Review:
“Women
have great gifts to bring to the world of men, the qualities of love,
compassion and humanity (that is, beauty of spirit). It is the function of
woman to humanize, since women are the natural mothers of humanity. Women are
by nature endowed with the most important of all adaptive traits, the capacity
to love, and this is their principal function to teach men. There can be no
more important function. It could be wished that both men and women understood
this. Once women know this, they will realize that no man can ever play as important
a role in the life of humanity as a mentally healthy woman. And by mental
health, I mean the ability to love and the ability to work. Being a good wife,
a good mother, in short, a good homemaker is the most important of all
occupations in the world. It surely cannot be too often pointed out that the
making of human beings is a far more important vocation than the making of
anything else, and that in the formative years of a child’s life, the mother is
best equipped to provide those firm foundations upon which one can subsequently
build.” ── Michael P. Green《Illustrations for Biblical
Preaching》
An interview with Actress
Jodie Foster from Women.com
Women.com: Back to the
topic of leadership, what else can we be doing to promote leadership in women?
Foster: Well, I have this really outdated philosophy about success in a
corporate structure, and you're going to think I'm really romantic and a fool,
but here it goes. I think that if you are moral and you're right and you have
the right ethics, that eventually somewhere down the line you're going to end
up being successful.
In our business, anyway, you're always going up and down, and at some point
you're going to find yourself down. You're going to need somebody to say,
"Hey, I remember you. You're the one that treated me right, and I'm going
to lend a hand out to you ..." It's your responsibility to conduct
yourself ethically throughout the process ?always ethics first ?so that
somewhere down the line, somebody's going to let you live up to your own
potential.
Women.com: Do you live your life that way as well?
Foster: Yeah, I really do. I mean, I think I try to be the best person I
can. Lord knows I make big mistakes. I make big mistakes all the time. But I
try to be as honest and direct as I can.
── A
conversation with Jodie Foster about being a single mom in the glare of
celebrity, By Tamar Laddy, Women.com, May 2000.
Five major needs of women:
1) Affection, 2) Conversation, 3) Honesty and openness, 4) Financial support,
5) Family commitment.
Five major needs of men:
1) Sexual fulfillment, 2) Recreational companionship, 3) An attractive spouse,
4) Domestic support, 5) Admiration. ── C.
Swindoll, His Needs, Her Needs, The Grace Awakening, Word, 1990,
p. 256.
Because a woman's vocal
cords are shorter than a man's she can actually speak with less effort than he
can. Shorter vocal cords not only cause a woman's voice to be more highly
pitched, but also require less air to become agitated, making it possible for
her to talk more with less energy expended.── Homemade, December 1984.
Some of us are becoming
the men we wanted to marry. ── Gloria
Steinem in Ms.
Today's young women are
more likely to become depressed than their mothers were and at a younger age.
Reasons: increased economic pressure to contribute to family income...changing
role in society...inability to meet their own expectations...a sense of having
lost control. ── Dr. Gerald Klerwan, in Homemade,
December 1986.
Average times per month a
woman cries: 5
Average times per month a
man cries: 1
── Good
Housekeeping, April 1997.
In a Harvard study of
several hundred preschoolers, researchers discovered an interesting phenomenon.
As they taped the children's playground conversation, they realized that all
the sounds coming from little girls' mouths were recognizable words. However,
only 60 percent of the sounds coming from little boys were recognizable. The
other 40 percent were yells and sound effects like "Vrrrooooom!"
"Aaaaagh!" "Toot toot!" This difference persists into
adulthood.
Communication experts say
that the average woman speaks over 25,000 words a day while the average man
speaks only a little over 10,000. What does this mean in marital terms? . . .
On average a wife will say she needs to spend 45 minutes to an hour each day in
meaningful conversation with her husband. What does her husband sitting next to
her say is enough time for meaningful conversation? Fifteen to twenty
minutes--once or twice a week! ── Gary
Smalley and John Trent, Husbands and Wives.