“Women are the real architects of society!”
I know it’s hard for many men to admit, but if you would simply step back and be honest with yourself for a minute – minus the ego and pride – you would admit that Harriet Beecher Stowe, the abolitionist author who wrote the world famous Uncle Tom’s Cabin, was right when she made this statement back in the 1800s, that has since become a popular and often-used quote.
According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, an architect is “a person who designs and guides a plan or undertaking.”
As a businessman, whenever I think of a beautifully designed building or home, I can’t help but think of the architect(s) who envisioned it and designed it. You can’t have a finished building or home, without an architectural design. The same applies to our country. We can’t “Make America Great Again” as a country, without having the real architects of society being a major part of its growth and development – those architects are women.
Sometimes, we as men need to get that reality check about who really runs the world.
Women don’t force their way into leadership, they just organically find themselves in a leadership capacity because it is in their DNA to be leaders, even if they don’t have the title, pay or position that reflects the level of leadership they are displaying.
Women are the real architects of society.
One of my favorite scenes in a movie is from the movie 300 when Queen Gorgo, who is the Queen of Sparta and the wife of King Leonidas, responds to a disrespectful question that was asked by a Persian messenger to King Leonidas when he asked, “What makes this Spartan woman think she can speak among men?” to which she responds:
“Because only Spartan women give birth to real men.”
Wow! She basically told him that the men of Sparta were only as great as the women who gave birth to them, because those women are strong and resilient. In other, words, you can’t have one without the other, and real women know this. It’s time for real men to know this as well.
We can’t do anything in this world without women and that is a fact. As a matter of fact, there is only one instance in the history of mankind where one could make the case that a man didn’t need a woman to do anything here on Earth, and that involves God and his creation of Adam.
But even with that, the Bible says in Genesis chapter 2, verse 18, that God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him,” and in Genesis 2:22, the Bible says, “Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.”
Even God Himself knew the world wouldn’t be the same without a woman being a part of the process of living in this world, developing it and cultivating it, because men alone weren’t sufficient to do it by themselves. Now you know you can’t argue with God, right? LOL
At a time where we are seeing so much blatant disrespect and hearing so much demeaning chatter about women from many males in leadership roles and positions, it is imperative that we, as men, highlight and honor women for their consistent courage and tenacity in the face of continuous adversity, especially as they continue to advocate and fight for equality in the areas of business, education, economics and healthcare. We, as men, must stand with and fight for women, in the same way many of them have stood with us and fought with us for centuries.
Think about something for a second. Although the U.S. Constitution was signed in 1787, women did not officially gain the right to vote until 1920, when the Nineteenth Amendment granted American women the right to vote – a right known as woman suffrage. It did, however, take men to stand with women and pass legislation that gave them a long-overdue right.
In 1878, Senator Aaron A. Sargent, a friend of women’s rights advocate Susan B. Anthony, introduced into Congress a women’s suffrage amendment, which began the conversations that led to the Nineteenth Amendment becoming law more than 40 years later. That level of advocacy and support must come from today’s male legislators and elected officials, with a greater sense of urgency, however.
Can you imagine what life would be like without the influence, leadership and guidance of women who have taken up a specific cause or started a successful business or led a movement?
None of us would be here if it weren’t for a woman giving birth to us, which is one of the most painful, inconvenient and sacrificial acts that any person could ever endure. Yet it takes a tremendous amount of strength to carry out that sacrificial act of love. Women have a strength and boldness about them that is second-to-none, and we must acknowledge that.
Former First Lady of the United States Eleanor Roosevelt is attributed with saying, “A woman is like a tea bag – you can’t tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water.”
Newsflash to all men…guess what?
We need women, not just to give birth to our children, but to continue to be the visionary, organizational, strong, bold, logistical, service-focused, considerate, philanthropic, business-minded and civic leaders we have always needed in this country, and that we need today in America. Without women, we are absolutely nothing, and we are definitely not able to operate at our highest potential without them.
So as we celebrate National Women’s History Month this year, and every year, let’s stand in solidarity with women and celebrate their successes, while advocating for their rights, because at the end of the day, y’all, we need women – The Real Architects of Society.
Jeffrey L. Boney serves as Associate Editor and is an award-winning journalist for the Houston Forward Times newspaper. Jeffrey has been a frequent contributor on the Nancy Grace Show and Primetime Justice with Ashleigh Banfield. Jeffrey has a national daily radio talk show called Real Talk with Jeffrey L. Boney, and is a dynamic, international speaker, experienced entrepreneur, business development strategist and Founder/CEO of the Texas Business Alliance. If you would like to request Jeffrey as a speaker, you can reach him at jboney1@forwardtimes.com