As I speak today, I am aware that there are men in the world who fail to see the uniqueness of women, their immense worth, and the significant role they have played in our daily lives and throughout human history.
Instead of appreciating and honouring women, some men opt to despise, exploit, and oppress women. Wicked men take advantage of women by making “bed interviews” a requirement before hiring them for a job. Our university girls are subjected to “sex for marks” demands, and if they do not comply, they are harassed academically, sidelined in their academic efforts, and subjected to all manner of nefarious plots that are designed to fail them in numerous disciplines.
On the other hand, some women are subjected to oppression through physical abuse and domestic violence. Other women are continually tormented by the marital infidelity of their husbands.
Now for all those men who refuse to see women as God’s gift to the world and instead choose to exploit or mistreat them, I would like to remind them on this Women’s Day celebration of the message of women’s enormous worth that God proved by creating Eve from a man’s rib. Matthew Henry, a famous theologian, makes this point clear. Here’s what he says:
The woman was made of a rib out of the side of Adam; not made out of his head to rule over him, nor out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be beloved.
The behavior of mistreating women is opposed to the image of God in which we were created. Mistreating women is a big insult to God.
God takes the issue of mistreating women so seriously that in 1 Peter 3:7, he says that he won’t listen to the prayers of husbands who treat their wives badly.
For this, and for many other reasons, men should not oppress, undermine or despise women because doing so goes against God’s original design of creating a woman. Additionally, neither the God of history nor the God-in-the-flesh despises, exploits, or abuses women, and as humans created in God’s image, we should be like our maker and honour women like he does.
