HALF OF US

On this April 6 in the year of our Lord two thousand and eleven, approximately half of us on this planet are uniquely breeders, nesters, caregivers, comforters, teachers, supporters and everyday wisdom on the trail. I speak of and for women...!

The long twisting history of the female of the species begins metaphorically with Eve. And while the men who wrote the holy books may have wronged her, it seems thereafter that goddesses not gods were most honored. This because primitive man understood that all life comes forth from the woman.

In time, though, gods-from-the-air replaced the goddesses-from-the-earth in the pantheon. Women became subordinate to men. And the stories have ever since reflected this hierarchy. Woman has been seen and codified not only as secondary, but very often seditious. Consider history's hall-of-shame featuring the wiles of Eve, Helen of Troy, Cleopatra, Mata Hari, all the way to the seductive sirens-of-the-screen to an innocuous Monica Lewinksy.

The French police have for generations summed it up neatly and naughtily: "Cherchez la femme!" Whatever the crime, first look for the woman.

And yet, reports from the front suggest a different tale. For all the male's brute strength, there has been the female's quiet endurance. While their men conquer nature and enemies, the women give these conquests their value. In the form of homes, schools, churches, and all those civilizing characteristics that sublimate mere conquests into victories worth living with.

They had no word like Feminism in the past, for there seemed to be no other way. Men wove the narratives in which men were portrayed and accepted as naturally and divinely endowed. Women...? well everyone, including them, were understood to have-their-place.

Regardless of how one wants to debate this historical plotline, one would have to grant that something's not quite right when half the world's population has been allowed -- ordained, really! -- to stifle their talents and gifts in the name of the-way-things-are.

And speaking of "stifling," that was ol' Archie Bunker's favorite reaction to Edith. As a result, Archie -- and all the world's other Archies -- have been running the world for a long long time. Results to date can easily justify the women of the world asking: "How could we have done any worse...?"

So long as you don't watch offerings like "The Housewives of New Jersey," chances are you'll agree. The world's women could hardly have done any worse