In one of her appointments, my wife was the administrator of a women’s residential for university students in the city of São Paulo, Brazil. In this establishment some of the ladies already had their higher education degrees and were working on other post graduate ones.
On the way from the residential to the subway station there was a beer warehouse where some men would always be loading and unloading the trucks with beer bottle crates. These were simple labour workers who, without filtering their words, would shout out vulgar compliments to the girls passing by.
Looking at one of the ladies going to the subway, one of these guys was enchanted by her physical attributes and pronounced an obscene flattery adding an indecent proposal. Right on the spot the lady gave him voice of arrest for contempt and sent him to the police squad. If he had known that the pretty lady was a police officer studying to become a judge he would probably have measured his words.
The sad reality is that this type of episode is too much recurrent just about everywhere and in all levels of society. Men still see themselves as having the right to treat women with vulgarity and inferiority. It is true that the opposite also happens, some women also mistreat men, but the statistics show a tremendous disproportion revealing that the mistreatment of men towards women is way more frequent.
As Christian our greater example is Jesus Christ and he was always respectful, understanding, supportive and affectionate in his attitude and behaviour towards the opposite sex. If we say we follow him, we cannot accept another kind of conduct in our family or in our community, with our own or with the others.
- When does your attitude and behaviour insult the opposite sex?
- What can you change to be more like Jesus?
(Jesus doesn’t discriminated the Samaritan woman, John 4:27 / Jesus trusted Mary Magdalene, John 20:17-18)
Commissioner Torben Eliason is the Territorial Commander of the Southern Africa Territory.
Not only the look, but the words as well. It’s a great challenge for us men to police and call our fellow men to order. When we smile, laugh or remain silent around these events; we perpetuate them without realising it. It is our responsibility as men to not follow that behaviour, to call out our friends and colleagues when they do it – especially when it’s subtle, and teach our sons to not follow that practice.
Thank you for highlighting this.