THIS is not an anti-men column. In fact, if I had even marginally enough cougar inclination, I would be stalking Usain Bolt. Not only is he one of the greatest athletes of all time, he is the funny, authentic and down-home country boy who, like the proverbial fine wine, is getting better as he gets older. And, there are other fine upstanding men who are playing transformative roles in many areas of national life.

I have to declare early since the tendency is for many to see an affirmation of women and the special challenges we face as anti-male. Anna Quindlen, in a 2006 article in Newsweek, explained this in reference to the struggle for gender equality. “The perception,” she said, “was that the fight for equality was a war against men. But the battle was really against waste; the waste of talent, the waste to society, the waste of women who had certain gifts and goals, and to suppress both. The point was not to take over male terrain but to change it, because it badly needed changing.” In said manner, I am declaring that this is not a war on men. I merely want to pay tribute to our hard-working, smart, long-suffering women, particularly a few who have been on my mind recently.

Woman Constable Crystal Thomas, 24, of the Denham Town Police Station, was brutally slain when gunmen hijacked a passenger bus on Spanish Town Road in Kingston in which she was travelling, July 14. I mourned for her and for her mother Jacqueline Brown, who described her this way: “She was a person…who, despite the challenges, stuck to the task and was just days away from collecting her first degree, only to have criminals cut her life short…It hard, it hard…; what mi going do now? No more seeing my baby; the man dem just kill off mi daughter like that…”

I saw in Brown’s face the strength and the hardships endured by poor Jamaican women, coupled with the forlorn look of one who has lost something irreplaceable – a child — and the hope she represented as she tried to make it in the tough world of Jamaican policing. I offer sincerest condolence to her and I pray that she will find the strength and support she needs to keep going.

Novlene Williams-Mills, the woman whose blistering run secured a gold medal for Jamaica in the 4 x 400-metre relay in the just-concluded Beijing World Championships, is a cancer survivor. She had a double mastectomy following her breast cancer diagnosis in 2012, and her sister’s death from ovarian cancer two years prior. She took home a bronze medal from the London Olympics, all the time keeping her diagnosis to herself and preparing to begin treatment as soon as the games ended. She epitomises extraordinary grace, dignity, and courage and she is supremely worthy of our highest praise.

Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce evokes a different kind of emotion. The joy she gives me is not just about her winning. I am sane enough to realise that, as much as I admire her from a distance, my emotional well-being should not be premised on her winning every race. I know she will not win all the time, because there are other athletes all over the world who are making every effort to beat her, just like they are trying to beat all our other athletes. I know that it will get harder as she gets older, and I know that on one big competition day, she will wake up and no matter how much medication she takes, the cramps and nausea, or other symptoms of dysmenorrhoea, will not go away. Female athletes have these very predictable challenges and they cannot take just anything, lest it violates the drug protocols. I wonder how they cope on those bad days?

Shelly-Ann’s appeal is her narrative of genuine hardships overcome, her child-like joie de vivre, and her generosity of spirit overflows by how relentlessly she promotes and cheers on her fellow athletes. I salute her and her mother, Maxine Simpson, who she said “encouraged me a lot…When nobody was there, she always made sure to provide for us”.

In a whole other category, Senator Kamina Johnson-Smith, a relatively new politician, is growing on me — just by her determined effort to present herself as a thoughtful professional who wants to earn the respect of those she is attempting to serve. She is trying to get the formula right. Keep it going!

Not much compares to these women. Please do not ask me to admire anyone because of their hairstyle, the shape of their nose, the colour of their skin, the height of their shoes heel, or the content of their wardrobe. And, if you see this as manufacturing grievances, again I say you are entitled to what your limitations allow. I think of myself merely as someone who will counter whatever the dominant narrative is. In my world, every narrative requires questioning and we cling stubbornly to some of the most nonsensical.

Marcus Garvey and Bob Marley begged us to emancipate ourselves from mental slavery. This means the ability to distinguish between celebrity and significance, and understanding that the latter matters, the former does not. It means respecting people because of the content of their characters, not because of anything that is the consequence of birth/genes.

It means holding up to the next generation authentic images that celebrate women as fully human and not, first and foremost, as sexual or commercialised objects, defined primarily by their bodies, clothed or unclothed.

It means understanding that the most important tool in the struggle to become a developed and progressive country is not anything external. It is the quality of thought.

Grace Virtue, PhD, is a social justice advocate.