The Confident Woman: Start Today Living Boldly and Without Fear Read online

  Mary McLeod Bethune

  Mary McLeod Bethune (1875–1955) was one of the most remarkable black women of her time. A graduate of Moody Bible Institute, she opened a school for black girls in Daytona Beach, Florida. It later became co-educational, and Bethune became increasingly involved in government work. From 1935–1944 she was a special advisor on minority affairs to President Franklin Roosevelt. She was the first black woman to head a federal agency and worked to see that blacks were integrated into the military. She also served as a consultant on interracial affairs at the charter conference of the United Nations. Bethune founded the National Council of Negro Women and was director of Negro Affairs for the National Youth Administration. The fifteenth of seventeen children born to slave parents, she came to have unrestricted access to the White House during Roosevelt’s life.6

  Please note that Mary Bethune was the first woman to head a federal agency. I admire those who are the first to do anything simply because the one who goes first endures more opposition than those who follow later. They are pioneers, and they open the way and pay the price for future generations.

  Margaret Thatcher

  Margaret Thatcher (born 1925) became Britain’s first woman prime minister in 1979 and continued until 1990 when she voluntarily stepped down. She was the first prime minister to be elected three times to office in the twentieth century. Thatcher came up the political ladder with little encouragement. She was the daughter of a grocery owner and Methodist lay preacher and won distinction at Oxford earning degrees in chemistry and law. When she became active in Tory politics, she served as Secretary of State for Education and Science. She expressed her philosophy of leadership this way: “There can be no liberty unless there is economic liberty. . . . Extinguish free enterprise and you extinguish liberty.” She also said: “In politics, if you want anything said, ask a man. If you want anything done, ask a woman.”7

  I get irritated with people who are proud of all their knowledge and degrees and yet never do anything remarkable. They especially irritate me when they judge those who are less educated but accomplish great things.

  A confident woman may be a deep thinker, but she will also be an activist. She will take action when it is needed. Don’t be the kind of woman that thinks something to death. There is a time to think and a time to act, so make sure you know the difference. Margaret Thatcher had a brilliant mind and was highly educated, but she was also a doer.

  Mary Fairfax Somerville

  Mary Fairfax Somerville (1780–1872) completed all of one year at a woman’s boarding school and is considered one of the greatest scientists of her day—but she had to learn her science the hard way. The only daughter of a Scottish admiral, she studied Elements by Euclid and an algebra text obtained from her brother’s tutor. From this unpromising beginning, she worked her way up to Newton’s Principles and went on to study botany, astronomy, higher mathematics and physics. Her textbook Mechanism became a standard in astronomy and higher mathematics for most of the nineteenth century, and Physical Geography caused her to be recognized throughout Europe. She became an honorary member of the Royal Astronomical Society.8

  Mary proved that there is always a way for the determined woman. She did not give up in the face of difficulties and what seemed to be insurmountable disadvantages. Don’t give up your dreams either. Keep pressing forward!

  Theodora

  Theodora, Empress of Byzantium (502–548) married Justinian, who ruled from 527–565, but it was his wife, a former actress, who saw to it that important legislation was passed and demonstrated the initiative to save her husband’s rule by resisting a revolt in 532. Justinian was ready to flee when Theodora persuaded him to defend the capital. In the end he won power for thirty more years, during which time Theodora’s name appeared in almost all important laws, including prohibitions against white slavery and the altering of divorce laws to make them more humane to women. When it came to religion, she strongly supported expressions of the Christian faith upholding the divinity of Christ. After her death in 548, her husband passed practically no important legislation.9

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  I wonder just how many men have gotten credit for the accomplishments of the great women standing behind them?

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  They say that behind every great man there is a great woman. I wonder just how many men have gotten credit for the accomplishments of the great women standing behind them? How many great inventors and creators were women forced to turn in their patents and ideas under their husbands’ names? History has not been fair to women. If it had been, we would see our history pages filled with accounts of great women who have done remarkable things.

  Harriet Beecher Stowe

  Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896) wrote what is probably the best-selling American novel of the nineteenth century, a truly Christian work by the title of Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

  A daughter of the famous preacher Lyman Beecher, she took an early interest in theology and works for social improvement. The large Beecher clan moved to Cincinnati where Lyman took over Lane Theological Seminary. There, Harriet Beecher came in contact with fugitive slaves and learned from friends and from personal visits what life was like for a black in the South. When her husband Calvin Stowe was named a professor at Bowdoin College in Maine, she was encouraged to write a book about the evils of slavery by a sister-in-law. The resulting classic sold over 300,000 copies in a year, a sales number absolutely unheard of at the time. The book was later turned into a play by G. L. Aiken and had a long run throughout the country, both before and after the war.10

  At a time in our country’s history when politics and cultural change were still very much a man’s world, Harriet made her own mark as one of the most well-known writers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. She stood up to misguided and misinformed cultural and racial notions of the day and worked hard to ensure that people everywhere could experience freedom, regardless of their skin color. She was also credited with even bigger things. President Abraham Lincoln, when meeting her in 1862 during the Civil War, reportedly said “So you’re the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war!”

  Dorothea Lynde Dix

  Dorothea Lynde Dix (1802–1887) initiated the most widespread reform for the mentally ill that occurred during the nineteenth century, both in America and in Europe. Her father was an alcoholic preacher and her mother was not in good mental health herself. From early in life she taught school, encouraged by her fiancé Edward Bangs.

  Though she decided not to marry him, and in fact remained single throughout her lifetime, Edward continued to encourage her in her teaching and in her social work. Her first experience in mental health reform came about as a result of an opportunity to conduct a Sunday school class in a Cambridge, Massachusetts, jail where she found mentally ill people kept in unheated cells because “the insane do not feel heat or cold.” Her reforms first carried the day in Massachusetts, helped along by her friends Bangs and the governor, who knew her personally. From there she traveled throughout the eastern United States, presenting careful research to legislators who usually enacted some kind of reform. One of the conclusions of her research, which had an impact on mental health care both in America and in Europe, was that by merely improving the living conditions of the mentally ill their illness could be greatly alleviated. One source states that Dix played a major role in founding thirty-two mental hospitals, fifteen schools for the feeble minded, a school for the blind, and numerous training facilities for nurses.11

  All that must happen in order for a tragic injustice to crumble is for someone to confront it. That person must have perseverance and must not be easily defeated by opposition. Dorothea had the qualities that were necessary. It is totally amazing what one woman can accomplish if she will press forward confidently rather than shrinking back in fear and assuming that she could never do the job that needs to be done.

  Rosa Parks

  Rosa Parks (1913–2005) was the unknown seamstress wh
o started the modern American Civil Rights Movement. On Dec. 1, 1955, she refused to move to the back of the bus after a white man got on board and wanted to sit in a front seat in the city of Montgomery, Alabama. What is not so well known is that this act of defiance to segregationist laws was long planned by a woman well qualified to go into history as initiating the civil rights movement. Born Rosa Louise McCauley in Tuskegee, Rosa was eleven when she attended the Montgomery Industrial School for Girls, a private school founded by women from the northern states. The school supported the philosophy of Rosa’s mother who believed “you should take advantage of the opportunities, no matter how few they were.”

  Rosa also related in later interviews that her lifelong acquaintance with fear made her determined and gave her courage to appeal her conviction during the bus boycott that followed her arrest and conviction. She had already worked on numerous cases with the NAACP before the bus incident. Following Parks’ arrest, blacks boycotted the bus system for 382 days until an agreement was worked out. The U.S. Supreme Court also ruled that segregation on buses was unconstitutional. Parks was the first woman to receive the Martin Luther King Nonviolent Peace Prize.12

  From Rosa’s life, we see that if one person is courageous enough to step out and attempt to do something about a problem, other people with the same desire will also come forward. Rosa refused to live in fear; she was determined to have what was rightfully hers and her determination sparked government reform for all.

  Judging from some of the testimonies we just read, I would say that women are definitely not “the weaker sex.” Their contribution to the world has been magnificent and cannot be ignored any longer.

  The Differences between Men and Women—and Weakness Has Nothing to Do with It

  God made men and women to be different in many different ways, but muscle mass is just one of those differences. Though men are usually physically stronger than women, this fact certainly does not make women “the weaker sex.” It should not apply to our intelligence or our emotions and we should not allow it to!

  Whether you are married or single, you will encounter and need to deal with men throughout your life. I believe it is important for our confidence level as women to understand ourselves and the differences between us and men. We need to remember that those differences aren’t better or worse, they’re just different; once we accept those differences, we can understand and appreciate what each of our genders offer.

  Let’s start with physical differences. Women’s hearts beat faster. Men’s brains are larger but women’s brains contain more neurons. Depending on whether you’re studying the brain of a man or a woman, different areas of the brain will light up in response to identical tasks. Even the rate at which we visibly age is seen differently in men and women.13

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  I don’t have to compete with a man for his position, I have my own position and I am comfortable with it.

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  In his best-selling book, Love and Respect, Dr. Emerson Eggerichs points out that the obvious differences found in men and women can be seen in something as simple as looking into a closet. Eggerichs writes about a couple getting dressed for the day:

  She says, “I have nothing to wear.” (She means, she has nothing new.)

  He says, “I have nothing to wear.” (He means, he has nothing clean.)14

  Some women have such a competitive spirit with men that they forget to be women. Recently a minister whom I greatly respect paid me a tremendous compliment. He said, “Joyce, you are a woman in ministry that still knows how to be a woman. You are not trying to act like a man or preach like one.” He went on to share that he felt I was strong but feminine and he admired that. He told me that throughout his years in ministry and church leadership he saw many women fail in ministry because they tried to act like men and it caused them to be disliked and rejected.

  I am sure we have all heard the saying, “It’s a man’s world and if you want anything in this world you have to fight for it.” I choose to believe it is my world also and I don’t fight—I trust God that He will help me be all I can be. I don’t have to compete with a man for his position, I have my own position and I am comfortable with it. I like being a woman and I don’t want to be a man. But, I must admit there are mornings when I wish all I had to do was comb my hair and shave instead of doing my skin care routine, putting on makeup, curling my hair, arching my eyebrows and trying on three outfits before I finally feel it is safe to go outside.

  The Bible says that people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge (Hosea 4:6). I believe marriages, friendships, and business relationships are destroyed due to men and women not understanding the differences that make us unique. In our pride we usually think that we are a shining example of what is right and we expect everyone to act as we do and like what we like, but that is fantasy, not fact.

  One man said, “I know I’m not ever going to understand women. I’ll never understand how you can take boiling hot wax, pour it onto your upper lip, rip the hair out by the root, and still be afraid of a spider.”

  Let’s look at some other ways men and women are different from each other:

  Women offer unsolicited advice and give direction, but men usually don’t take advice very well. The woman thinks she is just trying to help, but the man thinks she doesn’t trust him to make the right decision.

  When a woman disagrees with a man he takes it as disapproval and it ignites his defenses. Men only want advice after they have done everything they can do. Advice given too soon or too often causes him to lose his sense of power. He may become lazy or insecure.

  Men are motivated and empowered when they feel needed. Women are motivated when they feel cherished.

  Men are visual creatures; once an image is in their head, it’s hard to get it out. Women are more inclined to remember emotions or how something made them feel.

  Men tend to go into their cave and want to think about what is bothering them, but women want to talk about what’s bothering them.

  In one survey, more than 80% of men, four out of five, said that in a conflict they were likely to feel disrespected. Women, on the other hand, would feel unloved.15

  Because a woman’s vocal cords are shorter than a man’s, she can actually speak with less effort than he can. Shorter vocal cords not only cause a woman’s voice to be more high pitched, but also require less air to become agitated, making it possible for her to talk more with less energy expended.16

  Communication experts say that the average woman speaks more than 25,000 words a day while the average man speaks only a little over 10,000. One business executive said, “The problem is, that by the time I get home from work I have already spoken my 10,000 and my wife hasn’t even gotten started.”

  Men don’t feel like they have to share everything while women usually share everything and more. I’ve seen this occur in my own marriage when I don’t feel well and have a virus. Of course, I tell my husband Dave the moment I am not feeling good, and I’ve been surprised to find while sharing my symptoms in detail that he had the same virus one week earlier and never said one thing to me about it.

  When a man and woman have had a problem and the man is ready to reconnect, the woman waits for him to initiate a conversation about what upset him. However, he doesn’t need to talk about his upset feelings because he is no longer upset. He wants to forget it and move on, she wants to talk about it and make a list of ways they can avoid having it happen again.

  Before I learned better I always wanted to try to figure out why we had the problem or argument to begin with and Dave simply said, “It is part of life.”

  Men are simple . . . women are not simple and they always assume that men are just as complicated and intricate as they are. The whole point is that guys don’t think deeply all the time like women do. They are just what they appear to be.

  I recall once getting irritated with Dave and telling him that we needed to have deeper conversation. I shared that I was tired of conversations wit
h no real depth or meaning. He looked very confused and asked me what in the world I was talking about and then went on to say, “This is as deep as I get.”

  While I have always been a deep thinker and absolutely love to sit and talk and talk and talk about all the possibilities of a situation, Dave keeps it very simple and merely says, “We’ll see what happens.”

  Women want to be loved, respected, valued, complimented, listened to, trusted and sometimes, just to be held. Men want tickets for the World Series.

  Women want affection, men want sex.

  Most women cry an average of five times per month. I haven’t seen my husband cry five times in forty years. Women are simply more emotional than men. Men are very logical.

  Understanding does make all the difference in the world. My husband, for example, is very protective of me and is constantly telling me how to do things to prevent me from getting hurt. Before I understood why he gave me instructions on everything from how to get out of the bathtub to how to go down the steps, I thought that he thought I was dumb. I often said, “You don’t need to tell me that, I am not stupid.” He would look hurt and say “I’m just trying to help you.”