The aim of the British marksman was true, killing the Irish Republican Army soldier. That didn't end the incident on Aug. 10, 1976, in Belfast, however. The IRA member was driving a car when he was fatally shot. It spun out of control, killing three children nearby.
First on the scene was Betty Williams.
"As little JoAnn Maguire lay dying in my arms, I promised that I would not let another child die without doing something about it," she recounted in Logan, during a speech she made 11 years ago as part of Women's History Week.
Williams was soon joined on the scene on that 1976 day by Mairead Corrigan, the children's aunt. Their determination to end the violence resulted in the formation of Mothers Against Violence in Northern Ireland.
"We went door to door asking people to sign petitions for peace and to join in a peaceful march against violence in Northern Ireland, and our marches soon attracted hundreds of thousands of women and some men," Williams said.
Williams and Corrigan received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1977. Both are still dedicated to helping children. During a speech last year in Omaha, Neb., Corrigan told the audience how they could make a difference:
To "build a society of nonviolence," peace needs to start in individual communities. "Don't say, 'If I was in Bosnia.' Blossom where you are planted, bloom where you are."
This is the stuff women are made of.
They're healers, not destroyers. Williams, Corrigan, the late Mother Teresa and many other women dedicate their lives to helping others.
Whatever the reasons, women seem to be on an elevated plane in a lot of areas.
They have a better sense of priorities. Money and power, thankfully, don't affect them the way they do men. It's hard to imagine a female Saddam Hussein or Adolf Hitler. It's also hard to imagine women engaging in the types of atrocities that are taking place in Sierra Leone, even if they had the power to do so.
It wasn't the women who were embarking on ethnic cleansing campaigns in Bosnia and Kosovo.
When a woman becomes president of the United States, she most assuredly will not disgrace the Oval Office because she can't control her personal conduct.
Women have proved that they can be tough-minded in leadership roles while still maintaining their dignity. Margaret Thatcher, the former British prime minister, and Golda Meir, the former Israeli prime minister, proved that.
But as Mother's Day 2000 nears, there are far too many parts of the world where women not only are not appreciated for their divine gifts and attributes but are denigrated. Not being allowed to vote is the least of their worries in some of these backward places. They are regarded as "property" with few rights.
Consider the following chilling account that human-rights lawyer Mufti Ziauddin gave to Boston Globe columnist Ellen Goodman in March regarding his native Pakistan:
"Suppose I kill my wife," he explains. "I walk like a king to jail. People come and hold a march for me. And I go free."
If the woman has been accused, justly or not, of some infidelity from flirting to an affair — even if she has been raped — she's "defiling the honor" of the man who claims her as his property. That's reason enough for murder, socially approved homicide. "They consider themselves heroes."
That, fortunately, may soon be changing. Pakistan's military ruler, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, last month announced a series of steps to improve human rights, including legislation to treat "honor killings" of women as murder.
The devaluing of women is an international disgrace. As long as it continues, the world cannot truly be considered civilized.
E-mail at jrob@desnews.com