Appraising Women’s Role In Societal Development, by Fatima Mustapha Ali

Women are the pioneers of any nation. The Nigerian culture attaches great importance to women, comprising half of world’s population. According to a report of the Secretary General of the United Nations, women constitute 50% of human resources, the greatest human resource next only to man having great potentiality.

Women are the key to sustainable development and quality of life in the family. The varieties of roles the women assume in the family are those of wife, leader, administrator, manager of family income and last but not the least important the mother.

As a wife, a woman is the man’s helpmate, partner and comrade. She sacrifices her personal pleasure and ambitions, sets the standard of morality, relieves stress and strain, tension of the husband, and maintains peace and order in the household. Thereby she creates a necessary environment for her male partner to think more about the economic upliftment of family. She is the source of inspiration to man for high endeavour and worth achievements in life.

She stands by him in all the crises as well as she shares with him all successes and attainments. She is the person to whom he turns for love, sympathy, understanding, comfort and recognition. She is the symbol of purity, faithfulness and submission and devotion to her husband.

A well-ordered disciplined household is essential to normal family life. The woman in the family assumes this function. She is the chief executive of an enterprise. She assigns duties among family members according to their interest and abilities and provides resources in-term of equipment and materials to accomplish the job.

She plays a key role in the preparation and serving of meals, selection and care of clothing, laundering, furnishing and maintenance of the house. As an administrator, she organizes various social functions in the family for social development. She also acts as a director of recreation. She plans various recreational activities to meet the needs of young and old members of the family.

Woman acts as the humble manager of the family income. It is her responsibility to secure maximum return from every pye spent. She always prefers to prepare a surplus budget instead of a deficit budget. She is very calculating loss and gain while spending money. She distributes judiciously the income on different heads such as necessities, comforts and luxuries. The woman in the family also contributes to the family income through her own earning within or outside the home. She has positive contribution to the family income by the work. She herself performs in the home and uses waste products for productive purposes.

The whole burden of child bearing and greater part of child rearing task are carried out by the woman in the family. She is primarily responsible for the child’s habit of self-control, orderliness, industriousness, theft or honesty. Her contacts with the child during the most formative period of his development sets up his behaviour pattern. She is thus responsible for the maintenance of utmost discipline in the family.

She is the first teacher of the child. She transmits social heritage to the child. It is from mother that the child learns the laws of the race, the manner of men, moral code and ideals. The mother, because of her intimate and sustained contact with the child, she is able to discover and nurture child’s special traits aptitudes and attitudes which subsequently play a key role in the shaping of his personality.

As a mother she is the family health officer. She is very much concerned about the physical wellbeing of every member of the family, the helpless infant, the sickly child, the adolescent youth, senescent parent. She organizes the home and its activities in such a way so that each member of the family has proper food, adequate sleep and sufficient recreation. She made the home a place of quite comfortable and appropriate setting for the children through her talent. Besides, she cultivates taste in interior design and arrangement, so that the home becomes an inviting, restful and cheerful place.

The mother is the central personality of the home and the family circle. All the members turn to her for sympathy, understanding and recognition. Woman devotes her time, labour and thought for the welfare of the members of the family.

The woman performs the role of wife, partner, organizer, administrator, director, re-creator, disburser, economist, mother, disciplinarian, teacher, health officer, artist and queen in the family at the same time. Apart from it, woman plays a key role in the socio-economic development of the society.

They should act as leaders of the society to raise voice against women violence, exploitation in household as well as in work place, dowry prohibition superstition and other social atrocities.

They should be members of religious institutions to deliver spiritual speech to adolescent boys and girls in order to eliminate juvenile delinquency problems from society.

Moreover it is the women who have sustained the growth of society and moulded the future of nations. In the emerging complex social scenario, women have a vital role to play in different sectors. They can no longer be considered as mere harbingers of peace but are emerging as the source of power and symbol of progress.

Mustapha Ali is a serving corps member with PRNigeria, and wrote in from Wuye