Women must apologize dearly for their strengths
BY the same breath, men should apologize more often than womunnecessary. That’s because “apologizing is a strength, not a weakness,” says leadership strategy specialist Stephanie Sarkis, a PhD contributing writer for
To this, I must concur with a balanced twist: “Men must apologize for their weaknesses. And women must do the same for their strengths.”
In the Book of Judges, a story is told about Samson that repeats a less known lesson in man’s history: “Men are not as strong as they think they are.” This was illustrated by Samson, although he was physically strong and known to have killed a lion with bare hands and massacred an entire army of Philistines using only the jawbone of a donkey, was “inwardly weak” with women, including Delilah whose name has become synonymous with treachery.
Samson was enamored with Delilah up to the point of telling her top secret on what makes him strong. She was successful in learning Samson’s secret, but only after her third attempt. “No razor has ever been used on my head,” he said, “because I have been a Nazirite dedicated to God from my mother’s womb. If my head were shaved, my strength would leave me, and I would become as weak as any other man.” (Judges 16:17).
If men are physically weak, then what it means for them to be inwardly strong? What men could learn from Samson? “Not only on Sundays” has the answer: One, men must think they’re not strong as they think they are. Two, men must be aware of their weaknesses. Three, men must take responsibility for their actions. Four,
power is made perfect one’s weakness.
Now, let’s get real. Let’s pretend you are an employer managing a small factory. Just like every employer, you balk by the amount of populist laws that gives social protection to women workers, including more than three
is in knowing months of maternity leave. Would you stop hiring women considering they’re often absent due to family obligations, maternity care, dysmenorrhea and other related medical issues?
Don’t even think about it. Gender or sexual discrimination is against the law. Therefore, the only thing you can do is to hire women workers and bear their additional costs with pleasure. Treat your women workers well and support their needs as long as you have the capacity to help, but not necessarily limited to giving material assistance.
In other words, hire more women. After all, “women are more productive than men,” according to the World Economic Forum ( WEF). Quoting a research by productivity platform Hive, WEF claims that “women work 10 percent harder than men in today’s
of two other statistics. First, both men and women actually complete about 66 percent of their assigned work. However, women are assigned 10 percent more work than men these days — that they achieve the same completion rate tells us that they’re being more industrious.”
Even when women workers chat a
study of University of California, “(o) verall, women chat 20 percent more than men, but — given that they get 10 percent more done — chatting doesn’t seem to be an issue for their productivity. In addition, they only dominate person-to-person chatting.”
Of course, that study was done in an American context, which might lead you to wonder if we’ll have the same situation here in the Philippines. But then, how could you argue against the Filipino women workers who chat a lot? It’s public knowledge. Even outwomen workers chatting a lot.
Go visit any shopping malls on ordinary days and you’ll see merchandisers, even cashiers and their baggers do chat a lot. In fact, many workplaces are like well-oiled machines that are humming with activities powered by everyone’s saliva. Filipina chatters have even inspired a viral video running on social media about a white van that champions itself as “
(gossiper-catcher). Whatever you say, gossip ( aside from chocolate cake) is what makes Filipino women stronger than their male counterparts. This is proven by the World Health Organization (WHO): “According to the latest WHO data published in 2018 life expectancy in Philippines is: Male 66.2, female 72.6 and total life expectancy is 69.3 which gives Philippines a World Life Expectancy ranking of 123.”
In conclusion, many of us have problems understanding why women are stronger and even healthier than men. It’s like dealing with the invisible. Look at this. When we are healthy, we rarely think about being sick. When we wake up in the morning, many of us are not thankful to the Lord for being given another day, another blessing in life.
Or, if we arrived safely at home from the daily hassles of commute, we don’t stop to notice that we were not mugged by criminals or met an accident on the road. We simply do the usual rounds at home and be thankful for all the women around us. For us men, there’s no easy answer. That’s because we still refuse to acknowledge that women are stronger than men.
Therefore, if you are a man reading this. My advice is as simple as this: Be man enough to be your own toughest critic.