There is a problem in our global community — and it is women. I am not talking politics or women in politics, they are an unknown gender having become like their male cohorts: What they say today, they won’t repeat or recall tomorrow. Let’s just say that today’s politicians deal in illusions. It is done with smoke and mirrors. Polls, all askew and slanted, make their minds see-saw. Politicians have become the mythical shape shifters you read about in science fiction.

I am talking about personal power. Women have forgotten that we shape the world. Women are the hearth; women create the home, women nurture. History down through the ages has proven that if man is left to his own devices he will destroy himself. Enlightenment comes from women. Women must stand beside men and whisper wisdom into their ears. According to the ancient Kabbalah, women are the spiritual centers of marriages.

We birth the babies — we populate the world — we can and should shape the world. The world is on fire and women can help put it out. We can steer the men of the world to “Seek another way.” Women can shift the world back to reason and compassion. All women are responsible for shaping the world, “the hand that rocks the cradle — shapes the world.” There are so many ways to nurture and support. Men are destroying themselves and our world. It is their nature to fight. Men must be shown another way for our survival on this planet. It is time for peace and it is up to women to change the world and restore order.

The hard-earned freedoms most Western women enjoy today were not easily bestowed. At the turn of the twentieth century, suffragists ran the risk of being involuntarily admitted to mental asylums. In 1917 women picketed the White House. President Wilson’s administration had them arrested and jailed. When they went on a hunger strike they were force fed. Briefly, the leaders of the Suffrage Movement established a third political party, The Women’s Party. We do not want to go back fifty or 100 years; and we do not want to wait fifty or a hundred years for our sisters to awaken or catch up.

Why do 21st century women wear robes that are ancient symbols? They are relics from ancient eras and whereas 40 years ago Americans thought this style of dress was an oddity and quaint, now we see them as dark symbols of oppression.

Knowing human nature as we do, there cannot be one simple answer. Some women take pride in wearing the “chador” because they show their status in society; other tolerate them and wear them with the same sort of reverence as Catholic women who wear lace veils to Mass. Still others must hate wearing them. As for me, I am proud to sit in church hatless. It is my way of saying, how grateful I am I was not created bald.

The wearing of the ancient robes becomes more commonplace as you move into extremely impoverished countries like Afghanistan or extremely repressive and fundamentalist societies like Saudi Arabia. Women are so much more than their wardrobe. Women have spirit and wisdom that needs to be unleashed. Now.

American women were trained as Home Guards during World War I and we rolled up our sleeves and went to work in factories and shipyards during World War II.

Today, we are doctors, lawyers, accountants, and first and foremost, mothers. While the world casts aside axe murders and terrorists, who stands beside these unfortunate souls, who cries over their graves — their Mothers.

God did not intend for women to take a secondary role or to quietly accept second class citizenship. How can a woman accept the statement, “I divorce you; I divorce you; I divorce you,” without recourse? Without equality, without an education, we are slaves.

This is the time to encourage women all over the globe to be heard. I am not suggesting that women should turn from their chosen religion or remove their chadors, but I believe it is time to bring feminine energy to a world on fire. And this requires all women to be joined in unity for world peace. Women should never allow themselves to remain uneducated, and we should fight like rabid tigers to see that our daughters do not face the same fate. When the Taliban burns a girls’ school we should all rise up in outrage.

Jihads and religious fervor are holding back social evolution in the Middle-East. In plain talk, their energies are out of sync. Its Yin and Yang are lop-sided. The Yin and Yang of life is out of sync in the Middle-East. When men hold complete domination over women — their society is out of balance. The circle of Yin and Yang is a Chinese symbol of perfect balance. When either sex dominates, a country’s Yin and Yang is unbalanced. It is time to take a little Yin out of the Yang and bring the world back in balance.

Where do we begin? One place would be to follow the solution offered by Athenian women in the Aristophanes’ Greek play, “Lysistrata.” The plot is simple. Athenian women fed up with the Peloponnesian War go on a sex strike to force their husbands to vote for peace with Sparta. At that time, the Peloponnesian War had lasted twenty one years —

The simple solution should begin at the top echelons of our society. Laura Bush must stop sleeping with George W. and Tony’s Blair’s wife should follow suit. Lynne Cheney should make the same choice and lock Vice President Cheney out of the bedroom. How hard could that be? Mrs. Rumsfeld could seek refuge in a spiritual retreat until Rumy seeks another solution to war. Wives and mistresses of all Senators and Congressmen should lock the door to their boudoirs. Tony Snow’s wife should lock him out of his house just because he disrespectfully blamed today’s mess on the President’s father, President George Herbert Walker Bush I.

And in the Middle-East wives should band together and carry wrought iron frying pans under their chadors. It is amazing the damage a well-seasoned iron frying pan can have on a man’s thinking. And consider this, when a man has several wives — he is outnumbered. As my good friend, Mabel, used to say, “My husband would never hit me. He has to sleep sometime.”

When women forget their power and grace — the world slides into darkness. Hundreds of women die in the Middle-East each year because they cannot see oncoming traffic through the tiny slits that reveal their eyes.

Women must give birth to peace in our global community. Ask any self respecting young Southern female driving a Dodge Hemi how she would respond to demands from her boyfriend that she walk three paces behind him, stay home while he goes out and parties, or that she was no longer allowed to read or write. She would “run him over.”

Dignity is a basic human right. There is nothing dignified about being subservient. Our Arab sisters deserve better. Sisters, snap the locks shut, buy a cast iron skillet and look forward to driving your first Dodge Hemi.