The Tribune

By Michelle Miller

Social change is a broad concept, which may refer to the notion of social progress and/or social evolution. For the purpose of this article, I refer to social change relative to deliberate progress towards improved social outcomes.

As a society, what are our primary social challenges?  Are women effectively communicating our role as catalysts for improved social change?

     A more harmonious social outcome is something we all desire.  Certainly, we cannot continue to observe a deteriorating social fabric and go on with business as usual.

Indeed, if we are desirous of living in a better society then we must become a better people by mustering the courage to change.  Change however, is an inside job. Women have come a long way and this required an enormous degree of change in our thinking, our self-perceptions, and understanding our roles in society.  

Today, there are vast numbers of women leading in many facets of society, whether financial services, education, nursing, the public service, religious and or charity organisations.  

Even so, many may argue that the perpetual glass ceiling still lingers in the shadows.  While there may be some truth to this fact, the real question is what are women doing with the positions that we do hold now?

For example, while many women may not be politicians, religious leaders or business owners, many women are certainly married to men in those positions.

What are they doing with their currency of influence?  And how are we collectively using our currency to engender harmony in our homes, the workplace, and society as a whole?  

The First Lady of The USA plays a key role in lending her voice to social issues.  Currently, Michelle Obama is using her role and influence as the First Lady to engender social change relative to healthy lifestyles for children.

Our first challenge for change is to know what we want to change.  To engage in positive social change, we must have positive information and direction.  We often say that our life is determined by the choices we make.  But I believe there’s a key missing element in this statement.  While your life is based on the choices you make - your choices are based on the information with which you use to make your choices.  

Thus, choices embody two key ingredients, information, and consequences.  We tend to focus mostly on the latter, but the former is more fundamental. The goal is to make informed choices.  Having said that, how are women influencing the information sources from which people are making their choices?  

As social gatekeepers, are women involved in the research, analysis, corroboration, and dissemination of quality information?  Unless we are involved in shaping the information, which bleeds into the minds of the masses, we cannot sincerely engender an improved society.

People behave according the way they are informed to behave.  Those of us who were fed information about the importance of ‘manners and respect’ exhibited behaviours that were mannerly and respectful.  

Look at our current social emotional outcomes.  We seem not to understand that every emotion is a physical experience.  As such, violence by its nature is only an effect of a much deeper cause, which predominantly has to do with emotional pain. Unresolved emotional pain eventually surface as frustration, anger, aggression, and or depression.

Our men are not taught how to effectively deal with their emotions, they learn to mask them, keep them bottled up, or try to bury their emotions (feelings).  

Those suppressed emotions soon become toxic and race to the surface with often-negative consequences.  This being the case, if we as a society are seeking to reduce violence against women, rather than merely counting the number of violent acts committed by men, we ought to sincerely focus on unravelling why so many of our sons are growing into violent men.

     ‘The hands that rock the cradle, rules the world.’ Women are the directors of the social compass.  We are the support beams and nurturers of the hearts and minds of the society.  Whenever the social fabric becomes tattered and torn, women are to get busy collaborating on what, where, who, why and how to mend it.  

Given our critical function, we must stay focus on the things of substance that matter. We must know our roles and recognise that the upkeep of the social fabric is our natural responsibility.  

It is written that ‘it is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a help mate for him’.  In God’s wisdom, women are born to help, support, and sustain life. We house the wombs and we store the milk, which nourishes the heart and sooth the minds of our men.  

Thus, to any degree that our men are becoming more violent rather than more peaceful, we as women must look at ourselves.  We must stand in our own shoes and examine how we are executing our roles, not only as catalyst for social change but also as agents of possibility.  

We have the inborn power to cultivate the confidence that inspires a better possibility for our children and our men.  

As you contemplate today’s question, make today the day that you take the lead to engender an improved social outcome.

     Let us women are to stand with men and vice versa to inspire cohesiveness, cooperation, and collaboration.  Together, towards one common loftier goal is the only true path towards a better society.  

Now is the perfect time to shift your life paradigm.

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© Michelle M. Miller