If a man whistles at you, woman or girl, what does he think he's saying?

You may like to think he's saying, "Hail, bright Artemis, fleet-footed goddess," and there's one possibility in a million that he is a Greek scholar. But the likelier translation is less scholarly. After a while you may begin to grow indignant: "What does he think he's whistling at! I'm no cliché. I'm me."

I'm me.

This—when all the hullabaloo dies down—is what the social revolution is about. Women's liberation, black power, student tests, Chicanos, Indians on Alcatraz—struggling, inchoate, incisive, brilliant, strident, wacky, deeply poignant—all are pleading: See me truly. See my true potential. Take an honest look. See me true!

Christian Science demands not only this kind of unprejudiced thinking; it also demands better seeing—seeing that is spiritual, unlimited, seeing the very man whom God created. Seeing that heals.

The turmoil of the world is more than a crisis of values, more than a crisis of justice, more than a need to expose inequality, arrogance, the unwillingness of entrenched groups to mitigate and share. It's a crisis of seeing with the eyes of Love, until, as a hymn says, "the symbols disappear." ^{Christian Science Hymnal, No. 108;}

Women's liberation is merely a symbol. It's an attitude, an unsentimental look at the economic, social, emotional condition of women —and of men—in the last third of the twentieth century. It's an umbrella term for a number of organizations that consider one question from a dozen angles: "What does it mean to be a woman, in fact and in fantasy?"

In fact, as Christian Science teaches, there are no limitations to the potential—or the standing—of womanhood. Since the qualities of both female and male are God-created and equally necessary to the divine scheme, there is no spiritual basis for an inferior status for women.

But, historically, being a woman has usually meant subservience throughout the centuries. Even the most enlightened monotheists saw God as purely masculine.

In the eighteenth century, the Shakers registered a boat-rocking protest against this concept of a male God. In the nineteenth century, Christian Science took the logical and decisive next step: the full definition of the Godhead as infinite Soul, Mind, Spirit, Principle, Life, Truth, Love; and Mrs. Eddy writes, "In divine Science, we have not as much authority for considering God masculine, as we have for considering Him feminine, for Love imparts the clearest idea of Deity." ^{Science and Health, p. 517;}

Women's liberation movements have been around for a long time, because for a very long time many women have refused to agree to social or economic or cultural or religious preconceptions about themselves. In 1848, for example, an American group made a Declaration of Sentiments that held "these truths to be self-evident that all men and women are created equal." ^{Woman's Rights Convention, Seneca Falls, New York}

But it's still a man's world, say supporters of women's protest, who make their points stridently, quietly, brilliantly, foolishly, debatably and undebatably. And there's little doubt that women have still got to be freed from many of history's fairy tales.

"In natural law and in religion," Mrs. Eddy wrote eighty years ago, "the right of woman to fill the highest measure of enlightened understanding and the highest places in government, is inalienable, and these rights are ably vindicated by the noblest of both sexes." ^{No and Yes, p. 45;}

But what's happening today in these "highest places"? Tokenism is happening—a token handful of women in government and diplomacy, a token percentage in the professions and arts.

Woman's free choice, her right to excel without having to over-excel, remains a long distance off.

Anatomy is not destiny (in spite of the pronouncements of a certain Viennese psychiatrist), yet in many places women may not own property or engage in business without an arsenal of restraints. Advertising tediously promotes the notion that woman's sole place is in the home (mainly the kitchen and laundry room); automobiles are sold "to make a woman feel like a woman," films and plays hammer the message of woman, the sex symbol, and even certain hard-shelled churchmen affirm that true womanhood's appointed destiny is subservient wife, mother, homemaker—and that's it.

Who appointed this destiny? Who decided that "real women" limit themselves to the home?

If Christ Jesus had thought that a woman's only place was in the kitchen, would he have praised Mary and challenged Martha? If Mrs. Eddy had given all her years to homemaking, who would have discovered, founded, and established Christian Science?

To agree that men are the natural masters of the world is to blame men for the world's plight. Are modern men responsible for the ancient cult of the male in which manhood depends on violence and victory, sexual and ideological? I'd say that men have been the victims of this cult even more than women have. Perhaps their freedom is even more urgently needed than women's.

For over a hundred years Christian Science has been pressing for a more profound sense of liberty, especially for those who feel trapped by sex, color, age, or physical condition. There are no such traps for the children of God, Spirit, all-active, unhindered, genuinely equal.

Mrs. Eddy had remarkably illuminating things to say about the end of black slavery, which she saw as prophetic of the end of worldwide enslavement to all the limitations imposed by human ignorance of man's divine rights.

"Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." ^{II Cor. 3:17;} As we express this "Spirit of the Lord," women and men will find their freedom from social or cultural limitations. This makes possible the appearing of the true male and female that God created, each one reflecting all the divine qualities, with no sexual rivalry whatever.

Women don't want to change places with men or to dodge any responsibility. Many deeply love their roles as wife, homemaker, mother. They just want their responsibilities extended. It would be a very offbeat woman indeed who didn't agree with Mrs. Eddy when she says, "Home is the dearest spot on earth, and it should be the centre, though not the boundary, of the affections." ^{Science and Health, p. 58;}

The first nation to free humanity's greatest unused resource— womanhood—will be the first nation to approach its own potential.

Women's protest movements call for cultural revolution.

Christian Science calls for something much more profound: spiritual revolution.

Women's liberation attacks domination of one sex by the other.

Christian Science abolishes all domination. It agrees with Paul that for those who "have put on Christ ... there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus" ^{Gal. 3:27,28.} —enjoying the wholeness of being.

Christian Science neither scorns nor is afraid of any challenge to the social clichés of our times. It welcomes them as spurs to thought and occasions for healing. For aren't they preparing the way for the greater overturning of thought?