I didn't choose to be a woman, but I am. I didn't choose to be a mother, but I am. I don't like to see those around me fall, but I do and at the same time offer my hand. I've never chosen to stumble, but have, and pulled myself up because the same hand I offered wasn't handed to me. My biggest life lesson; learning not to negatively chastise the hands that passed me by. It's a sad truth that women are not equal in our world, regardless of race or ethnicity. Each group has their "slave", and in each group that "slave" is usually the female. I cry aloud shamelessly for women of other country's, often times half a globe away, and cry even louder for those in my neighborhood. It is a shallow and dangerous thought to think if something is "out of sight" it's "out of mind" or not happening. Eventually the hand that is not fed, clothed or educated sufficiently WILL affect even the most distant recipients in our globally expanding world. Even Ray Charles can see that...