Elect All Women Candidates

by ALEX P. VIDAL

“The desire of the man is for the woman, but the desire of the woman is for the desire of the man.”  - MADAME DE STAEL

Now is the right opportunity for us to choose more women to reinforce our nation building. We can best manifest this desire by helping elect all women candidates in the local, regional and national elections. 

In global perspectives, more advanced countries pick women as leaders. Women nowadays are getting much attention in the corporate world; some of the best minds in medicine, diplomacy, legislative assembly, information technology, world politics, education, engineering, among other fields traditionally ruled by men, are women.

Some of us might differ greatly in our attitude toward the status of women as leaders, but I believe that both men and women embody the perfection of the human species. We must start to regard women  in every way the equal of men, save for the petite difference. In this Aquarian age, it can’t be denied that some women have eclipsed men in some respects.

Our culture is developed in a patriarchal dominance. In fact, it was both the Old and New Testaments in the Bible that placed women in a subordinate position abetted by some ancient philosophers who were little kinder to them. A woman was a mere helper to man, and she was expressly put under man’s dominion at the time of the expulsion from the Garden of Eden. 

SUBMISSIVE

The Bible says St. Paul enjoined women to be submissive to their husbands, and imposed silence and passivity on them in matters of church, government and doctrine.

I personally admire Aristotle whose philosophy was adopted by St. Thomas Aquinas, but history shows he was wrong on two major issues: astronomy and women. Aristotle, a tutor of Alexander The Great and Plato’s student, believed in the geocentric astronomy which was proven wrong by Galileo’s heliocentric theory. 

Plato disagreed with Aristotle on women. Plato’s advocacy of social and political equality for women is the most famous break in the solid front of the ancients against feminine equality. Plato, whose philosophy was adopted by St. Augustine, believed that “there is nothing that a man can do in public affairs that a woman cannot do equally well. 

In Plato’s view, intelligent and competent women are superior to men who lack some qualities, and “it is a waste of human capacities not to use her in the administration of the state.” 

ANCIENT

Aristotle, who represented the typical ancient view, rejected Plato’s doctrine in the Republic when he insisted women were necessary for society to run smoothly. Aristotle considered the male naturally superior to the female. The female is a kind of mutilated male, suffering from a natural deficiency, according to Aristotle.

Cervantes’ Don Quixote pictured woman as an imperfect creature whose path to virtue, which is her glory, is to be made as easy as possible. Let’s listen to the gentle knight:

“She must be treated as relics are; adored, not touched. She must be protected and prized as one protects and prizes a fair garden full of roses and flowers, the owner of which allows no one to trespass or pluck a blossom; enough for others that from afar through the iron grating they may enjoy its fragrance and its beauty.”

The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpation on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her. Now is the right time that we reverse the hostile treatment on women and elect them as our leaders. /MP