Respecting yourself means accepting you as you are, establishing this as the base line to work from. Valuing your worth to society or your own support group, and avoiding stereotypes others might try to put you in.
The single parent is for example by some looked at as a drain on public funds, yet they are doing a valid task bringing up the next generation, while lawyers who get fat off legal aid fees are often doing harm to people, yet receiving far more from public funds. If the single mum also helps others, and helps to improve the life of others then they are as much a valued member of society as absolutely any other.
Many women even today still look at themselves as the wife of a person, reflecting the position they feel the husband holds, while not having any real respect for themselves. When the marriage breaks down they feel that they have lost the respect of the position, and will often stay in a poor marriage so as to maintain wealth and reflected respect.
To increase the respect you have for yourself involves no increase in income, no change of housing, just a feeling that you act honorably that whatever the situation, keep confidences, and undertake some task that is beneficial to others. Historically the more of a position people have had or more wealth the more acceptable it has been for them to act sexually liberal, while the poorer and lower classes where told that such behavior was not respectable.
Every one of us is equal, be they a member of the royal family, a soap star, a member of the hierarchy of business, politics or religion, or the single mum, freshly divorced living in a flat in some back street no one has heard of. Therefore respect yourself and stand tall when you meet others.
