While it perhaps can be said that genetically all women are created equally, not all women are treated equally.

Even in this time and place on our planet, it is still not the greatest world out there for millions of women (and mothers).

There are recurring reports of women (and innocent girl children) still being beaten, stoned, raped, mutilated, neglected, forced into servitude, and eliminated for being female, for showing a face, for daring to make their voices heard, for ending up caring for children, having children, and raising children because there is no one else, for being in a minority culture, for being a young girl or a widow with no one to protect her, for just being.

Females are sold for financial dowries, then dumped like manure in a field when their useful shelf life is over; impregnated on a constant basis to produce the male heir; stripped of personal dignity by gynecological disasters from untreated childbirth trauma and cultural circumcision; sickened and dying of dreadful sexually transmitted diseases, and ostracised from their community when they produce children that they had no choice in conceiving or bearing due to by-products of war and dictatorships.

Things were not much better for so many women, in earlier times, and often, anguishingly worse. Yet, in every era out of terrible personal experiences, there arise heroes and heroines overcoming severe obstacles, persevering while working toward the greater good for people - and the Lord.

Ain't I A Woman?

She was born into a slave family, property of various owners before their final destination in the state of New York. There, because of the colour of her skin, she faced a life of forced servitude from the time that she could carry a bucket of water. She watched her parents lose their children (and her siblings), one by one, to the slave auction block.

Denied marriage to her first love, he was sold away from her, she aligned herself with a husband, after his first two wives were also sold, and started a family of sorts. As the oldest child reached the age of six, in the cruelest of acts imaginable (and in repetition of the events years before with her own mother), this daughter as well as her young son of three years old were sold away from them. In her own words, as dictated of necessity because she was illiterate, and edited by Olive Gilbert (1850), they grieved as though a death had occurred, because of course it had, they never saw these children again.

Later, winning her freedom at emancipation, she determines that she will win back her young son who was sold illegally after the act by representing herself in a US court of law. She became a legendary figure.

Standing tall, the same height as our new elegant US first lady, she took on a revolutionary role, preaching for women's rights and anti-slavery campaigns. Can we begin to imagine - surrounded by our creature comforts and loving families - a woman (a freed slave) having the courage to campaign for equal rights for all men and women even after enduring a grievously painful personal life?

Her name was Isabella Baumfree, but she formally changed her name to Sojourner Truth, the same lady that First Lady Michelle Obama honoured last week for her courage and tenacity in pursuing the dream to be free.

After gaining her freedom in 1827, she became a well-known anti-slavery speaker.

Ain't I A Woman? " is the name given to a powerful speech, delivered extemporaneously, by Sojourner Truth, (1797-1883) at the Women's Suffrage Convention in Akron, Ohio in 1851. In an excerpt: "That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman?

"I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne 13 children, and seen them most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?"

The following contemporaneous account is taken from Gage's History of Woman Suffrage: Amid roars of applause, she returned to her corner leaving more than one of us with streaming eyes, and hearts beating with gratitude.

She had taken us up in her strong arms and carried us safely over the slough of difficulty turning the whole tide in our favour. I have never in my life seen anything like the magical influence that subdued the mobbish spirit of the day, and turned the sneers and jeers of an excited crowd into notes of respect and admiration.

Hundreds rushed up to shake hands with her, and congratulate the glorious old mother, and bid her God-speed on her mission of "testifyin' agin concerning the wickedness of this 'ere people."

We cannot know, or even begin to understand what a terrible life this singularly strong woman in history must have had and the sorrows she had to endure. But, we can promote awareness of the dreadful existences that thousands, possibly millions of women still have.

We have no way of determining what fate has in store for us; none of us were able to choose our birth parents or our born circumstances, we do have a choice over how we play the hand we are dealt. Women contribute more than our share of 50 percent of the world's DNA pool, but for so many, it is as if the intellectual, physical, social and spiritual embodiment of human life just does not count.

We, ladies, for the most part in the civilised world, enjoy real privileges as women and mothers. Are we truly thankful for what we have, the right to buy little treats for ourselves, to have someone love us, to have a child in a 'real' hospital, to be surrounded by friends, family, and community, to share in God's goodness with little strife and conflict compared to those millions of women who for getting up each day is a feat of heroism.?

Maybe this is the year - for those of us who haven't been able to give much back - that we decide we don't need that new designer purse, and possible give that money (or time) to the Sunshine Home and other causes. Maybe this is the year that we become even better role models.

This is a challenge to us all, women and mothers (me included) - at such a beautiful place at such a beautiful time in this world, can't we do more for those who have less?

Syrupy tones too much, my apologies! But those that need, are so much more in need.

For a very real harsh, but inspirational, educational and historical reflections of a life lived in adversity, but eventual freedom, see Sojourner Truths's Life Story below. It is there to read on the Internet.

Secondly, go to the New York Times, journal blog of Maira Kalman: May it Please the Court, and her reflections of lonliness and courage and justice - a superb artistic and verbal gem of a creative artistic work about women.

A blessed Mother's Day to you all. In memory of Anna Clarine Sawyer Harris. 1918 - 1997

Sources: Sojourner Truth, Ain't I a Woman - Wickipedia New York Times: Maira Kalman: April 23, 2009, May it Please the Court: And the Pursuit of Happiness Sojourner Truth's Life Story: The Narrative of Sojourner Truth - Dictated by Sojourner Truth (ca.1797-1883); edited by Olive Gilbert; Appendix by Theodore D. Weld. Boston. This book has been put on-line as part of the BUILD-A-BOOK Initiative at the Celebration of Women Writers through the combined work of: Laura LeVine, Margaret Sylvia, and Mary Mark Ockerbloom.

http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/truth/1850/1850.html#28