Most of us participate daily in our "traditional" roles as women. We cook, some of take care of children, or elderly parents. We shop, we grab a bite to eat, we run errands. If we are single we also, pay all the bills, take the car to the shop, and make arrangements for home improvements or to let in the landlord to make repairs.
We help with homework, take our kids to outside activities, get ready for church, and eke out time to get our hair done (a day long affair for some of us.)
Then we go to work for someone else or go to our self-run businesses. If we are married we have to make time for our husbands, if we have a companion, squeeze in a date--and if we are looking for a significant other--make sure we get out on Saturday night.
From this menu it looks like we are busy before we even get started! Where can we find the time to read? unless we are authors, and then we only read books that pertain to the subjects we are interested in exploring to write about!
Considering that women have and hold such power,it's a shame that more of us do not continue to inform ourselves, politically and socially. We either ride on the information received in college or go by what the news media (black or white) , and that which word of mouth feeds us.
In a time when the "dumbing down " of America has been duly noted and exposed, would it not behoove us to continue the educational process the rest of our lives? We fall victims to the power of the status quo when we do not have all of the information in our heads that would allow us to challenge issues that affect us. Since the dumbing down of America includes just about every ethnic group, wouldn't this be a great time to overtake the uninformed?
The issues I refer to are ; education, health care, general discrimination, and marginalization not only as women but as people in the Diaspora. Education is a great equalizer.
It does NOT have to be in a form of a college degree at all--most graduates of hard sciences do not have a clue as to how our government works, what being a human in the world really means, peace, fairness, conviviality, are just words as they cannot connect the human aspect of degrees in Accounting, law, engineering, business admin,medicine, IT, Graphics Design etc.
While I am not advocating that these degrees are not to be achieved, I am advocating that we stretch and continue to educate ourselves until we can no longer read.
Re-read your textbooks from 20 years ago and compare how the information has changed, buy the newer textbooks at thrift stores and keep up with today's information.
Along with all that we do as women, we can read for relaxation, and it does not always have to be a novel. Develop different times and and states to read. We can curl up with a good fantasy but we can also curl up and be informed about our country, and the world. Happy reading!
Posted By: Marta Fernandez
Tuesday, March 10th 2009 at 10:27AM
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