Think we’ve got a few issues on our collective plate these days? In the community, the nation, and the planet, conflict and catastrophe prevail. I don’t have to enumerate the disasters, some generated by nature and many by human obstinacy. We’re all grieving night and day.

Now that the holiday season has arrived, a traditional time for gratitude and charity, the mailboxes, e-and snail, bring loads of daily reminders that suffering begs a response from me–generously, immediately, AGAIN if I happen to be on their donor list already. I’m glad to say that not so many of these pleadings have to do with politics anymore. That’s suffering of a different order.  No matter how much I give and to what, I still have those drop-in-the-bucket misgivings.

This morning’s Celebrity Cypher, a decoding puzzle I like to figure out, triggered the reflections that follow. Here’s the quote, from revered musician B. B. King: “I don’t care for the music when they’re talking bad about women…women are God’s greatest gift to the planet.”

Talking bad about women. Yes. And how about abusing, subjugating, enslaving, ignoring, buying and selling, devaluing, disenfranchising, and (you name the way) by which all cultures of the world (I won’t say men) relegate women to secondary-human status. You think the idea of “the weaker sex” no longer exists?

In today’s Kansas City STAR, I learn that my state, Missouri, has the second highest number in the nation of women murdered by men, half the time with guns. Many of these murders occur within a domestic relationship. Efforts to deprive abusive men of their weapons have been thwarted by the state legislature. Thompson and Willis [advocates for protection for women and children in Springfield] said “legislators in Missouri have been reluctant to move toward stricter policies out of a misguided belief that victims exaggerate and lie about their abuse.”

Talking bad about women? Yes, that is still fully accepted in the Men’s Club, which often includes legislatures, courts of law, executive suites, and neighborhood bars. Do women talk trash—and worse—against men? Oh yes. But where’s the power?

I’ve been on the planet for only 74 years. In that short time, my experience holds evidence that progress has been made: huge things like being able to get a credit card in my own name, even though married. I made a pretty big stink about that with a major department store back in 1970. Bigger issues, however, still prevail, such as workplace compensation and health care equity. Women have made considerable progress in politics where our votes and the ability to give money advance our power. What about the economic discrepancies revealed in caregiving professions, education, and child care roles traditionally relegated to women?

Deep down in the innards of human nature, a flawed separation continues in effect around the world. Evolution is too slow. If I could claim one God-like power, it would be this: Make men and women in the same image, undivided, created as one for the ongoing advancement of the universe. By some lights, that’s how things were supposed to be.

Talking bad about women. If ever there was an Original Sin, that’s it.