“The men don’t get it.” This clever slogan advertising a credit card exclusively for ladies certainly expresses a distinctive difference between the genders. We men really do not understand women. They are emotional, irrational, and impossible! We fret when they cry and wonder why the tears seem to gush out so easily.

As my wife has frequently reminded me whenever she shares a problem that she is not looking for a solution but empathy. Of course, representing the typical male species, I am a problem solver. That is our default mode and we think that offering solutions is the most practical and “loving” thing to do. Indeed, marital relationships would be much smoother if husbands realize that a listening ear and an empathetic heart are what our wives really need first and most of the time. Solutions and answers can come later on but the emotional dimension is the key to a woman’s heart and mind. Maybe I am stereotyping but that is what my wife tells me!

Perhaps we are not all that different. Deep down inside, men and women have similar needs for acceptance, affirmation, applause, and adulation. We simply crave to love and be loved. It is just that we express it and seek for it differently. Indeed, discovering and speaking “love languages” has become an effective way for couples to understand each other and grow in maturity in their marriages or relationships.

Jesus certainly went against prevailing traditions and attitudes toward women. Men did not speak to women in public, yet He spoke to women in the open, such as the Samaritan woman in John chapter four. Unlike His Jewish and pagan contemporaries, Jesus was not derogatory about women’s nature, ability or religious capacities. At each of His encounters with women in the Gospels, Jesus treated them as people intrinsically intelligent and worthy of God’s grace. He did not view women in terms of sexual temptation or as objects of sexual gratification. He encouraged women to serve without specifying boundaries. Jesus certainly has gotten it!

This issue seeks to highlight the challenges and prejudices that women face today as well as celebrate the role and contribution of the women in life and society. Most men have at least two significant women in our lives – mother and wife. Without them, we will never be. Got it?