Wednesday Wisdom …

For some time you know I have struggled with the word ‘wisdom’ and its application to particular women.  Most women including myself would not always be comfortable with being called ‘wise’ because most of the time our  actions are from necessity. Sometimes the need is increased when faced with adversity and protecting our young charges.  There are women who have run out of peaceful ways to defend their already meagre rights.  Women like the suffragettes and those tied into the cruel slave trade who had to result to militant behaviour.  Long before we had organisations like Amnesty International to wield a more hefty but peaceful arm of the law.   

In the light of my attitude to women and also my interest in illustration my daughter sent me this image from a magazine she discovered this week.

As you know my daughter lives in a favela in Rio de Janeiro.  As an outsider I have to deal with the propaganda that comes my way and temper it to the truthful stance my daughter and her partner hold or the facts I too am learning.  ‘People’ without such information can chuck out well meaning but nonetheless thoughtless half-truths from the media and say things like ‘Why do I allow my daughter to live in such an unsafe place?’ etc.etc.  They question as I do my ‘wisdom’

So with this cockeyed view I look at this picture and suggest that this image could reflect the anguish of citizens in any city in the world at this moment.  

I hope that the woman brandishing the guitar is wise and will contemplate before she strikes anyone and in my heart I believe she will … because she wants her children to be safe and happy and she will do what needs to be done.