feminine-genius

Bookmark

Just this last weekend, I spoke to some lovely women in Maine, the wives of members of the Knights of Columbus who had their annual state convention at Sunday River (Newry). Beautiful -- it even snowed! Subsequently, a woman wrote to me to ask if there are recorded talks anywhere, but other than the talks given to the women in the TASTE program in Baltimore and some recent talks to the "Women of the Blessed Sacrament" in Los Angeles, I don't know of any recordings.

But, this Bookmark audiofile should give a good sense of my message, if you're looking for a good summer read or a speaker for Fall/2012. By then, my new book on forgiveness will be out, and a day-long retreat would be a wonderful way to renew your faith. Also, remember that the book about which Doug and I spoke has a free study guide, if you want to go through it with a book club or prayer group.

New book on the horizon

As a follow-up to The Authentic Catholic Woman, Servant will publish Set Free: The Authentic Catholic Woman's Guide to Forgiveness (due out October 23rd). Now would be a good time to set up a presentation on this important topic. I'd love to address your prayer group, book club, study circle or larger women's organizations. The topic works wonderfully as an all-day retreat (here is some feedback). Talks are appropriate for women from all walks of life, but the new book material is specifically geared for women who are suffering from the ravages of the sexual revolution. After speaking on the topic for 15 years, I've discovered that forgiveness -- which is foundational to our faith -- is often terribly misunderstood. This book is well-grounded, entirely Catholic and very, very practical. Let's share the healing message! 

Looking for a Lenten project?

I have a review at Catholic Lane of an excellent study for women -- it would be perfect to do alone, with friends in your living room or even in a more formal parish setting. With larger events swirling about us and making us wonder about how we'll be able to live our faith (with integrity) in the coming years, we would do well to remind ourselves of those who did the same over the centuries in the most trying of times. These books will be a practical and well-grounded help for all of us!

Jack the Ripper

I confess, I've never followed the story of Jack the Ripper closely, but like most, I knew that it involved a mystery killer and dead prostitutes. Even so, I never expected this:

A British newspaper features a new story that has the head of a UK pro-life group suggesting that the infamous Jack the Ripper may have been a prominent abortion practitioner in London.

“New evidence has emerged which may identify an abortionist as Jack the Ripper, the notorious serial killer of women in Victorian London,” says John Smeaton of SPUC. “A knife and samples of uterine tissue belonging to Sir John Williams, a famous surgeon who performed abortions, have been discovered by one of his relatives. Sir John was recorded to have had performed an abortion on one of the Ripper’s victims.”

Well, it's no surprise that those who traffic in prostitution and abortion will have other skewed ideas about the dignity of women and the value of human life. There may also be the twist of envy, which may have resulted from the fact that "Jack's" wife was barren. We'll see where this theory leads, but it all makes sense. I'm impressed that the man's descendant had no trouble being honest about these leads, as despicable as they are. One cannot take responsibility for one's ancestors, and knowing the dark side of the family tree should only intensify our prayers for the dead.

[There is an added wrinkle in that the doctor was Queen Victoria's surgeon. I have repeatedly expressed my antipathy for that woman, but must stress that this does not have a bearing on her. It's just an unfortunate coincidence. That said, I've discovered an excellent profile of her son, Edward VII, which seems to lay out her maternal deficiencies rather well. Not her fault, entirely, but toxic nonetheless.]

"Women were pretty mean to me"

That's the experience of Annette Charles after taking the role of "Cha Cha" in Grease, which you may remember (here's a little help). Even as a teenager, I despised the movie when I first saw it in the theatres, and I have only come to dislike it more as the years pass. (It doesn't help that every year Catholic schools across the country love to perform it with younger and younger casts.)

The movie was a riot of adults behaving badly, of teenagers lacking guidance, and of vice conquering virtue. Remember, just as bad boy Danny (John Travolta) realises that he should straighten up if he wants to win the pure Sandy (Olivia Newton-John) she likewise has a change of heart (and a change of costume) and embraces her inner sleeze.

This was just one in a long string of films that proved that the straight-laced 1950's was a hot-bed of hormones just waiting to spill over (Animal House was another in this genre) and that those who weren't complete hypocrites were just morons. The frustration may have been related to the often vapid, vaguely-Christian promotion of conformity and "good behaviour" as thin gruel--more important for social order than actual imitation of Christ. There was also a near-puritanical horror of sexual urges, and if we've learned nothing else in the last ten years, it's that Jansenism is no way to form children in authentic chastity.

I may be simplifying it too much, but something caused the culture to topple, and the Protestant ethos of the public square had no ability to push back. In fact, it buckled and caved. That said, we pray for the soul of Annette Charles. This starring role put her on the map, but her destination was somewhat confused after that--as was the nation that latched onto such entertainment at an enormous cost.

 

 

The "work-life balance" myth

Suzanne Venker has posted a very good piece at NRO about why careers will naturally be negatively impacted by decisions that prioritise family. It's the nature of reality.

What we never talk about is where this feminist utopia [of balancing work and family] leaves employers. Employers can not — they must not — be responsible for helping parents manage their family lives. If employers can afford to offer part-time employment, fine. If they can afford to allow their employees to take off an endless string of days and still make money in the meantime, more power to ’em. But come on: such businesses are few and far between. Employers are in business to make money. They may be sympathetic to the The Problem, but they cannot solve it.

This piece is similar to what I found in her new book, The Flipside of Feminism. While I promised a review, I'm not usually in the habit of doing negative reviews (at least not for the "good guys"). The book was good -- as far as it went. It was hard-hitting, enjoyable and completely conservative, but also entirely secular. There was a thin veil of Protestant virtue about it, but that veil hasn't sufficed to keep the country on track thus far, and it wasn't enough to recommend the book (though as a gift to non-religious recovering feminists, it would be great).

We know how America is supposed to work, and we know what rules should govern the workplace. All of that was covered very well, but Catholics know that there's more to life than a secular work-life dichotomy, and that secular paradigm never attempts to factor in vocation, a family wage, the hidden cost of vice, and the priorities that faith demands, etc. Apart from realigning the public sphere along Godly principles (which isn't going to happen any time soon) we will have to settle for these secular guidelines -- while providing a witness for something transcendent in our own lives. A challenge, indeed, but this wasn't the book to help with that quest.

Feminine genius?

I could watch Father Barron for hours, tackling topics in the popular culture and the sciences. I found this oldie (2007) which I had missed, perhaps because Fargo is not a movie I would watch. He boils it down to its essence, which provides another unlikely example of woman as icon if the Church:

 

Slavery hasn't ended

From London's Telegraph:

If you are of the opinion that television has exhausted its power to shock, think again. Next Monday Channel 4 will show a drama set to truly stun audiences. Part of the channel’s Slavery season, I Am Slave is the story set in the present day of a young Sudanese woman, Malia, snatched from her village in the Nuba mountains and sold into domestic servitude, first in Khartoum, then in London. While the cruel treatment of 12-year-old Malia by her female master in Khartoum is deeply unsettling, what will make viewers’ jaws drop is seeing 18-year-old Malia’s enslavement against the backdrop of a gloomy British winter in a red brick London home, “so terribly familiar and rather boringly suburban,” says the film’s writer Jeremy Brock.

Some readers may remember that this also happened to Saint Josephine Bakhita, who was snatched as a child, ended up in Khartoum, and was eventually brought by her last master, the Italian ambassador, back to his home when his assignment ended. There she was freed and joined the Canossan Sisters.

This film has had an arduous seven-year path, since the television executives didn't think that it would hold an audience. Interestingly, once the slaves hit England, they virtually disappear into everyday life with few realising what's happening in their very midst. No shackles or bruises are visible -- this could happen next door without one knowing it. The hope is that this production will make westerners consider this their problem, too.

Mende Nazer's book is here, and we'll see if the movie becomes available in the United States. Prayers for these dear souls to find love and to discover the dignity that is theirs. I'll close with a couple paragraphs from my own book, which included a section on Sister Josephine's witness after her horrific ordeal:

It was her fifth owner, the Italian consul at Karthoum, who first showed her kindness and ultimately brought her to Europe, where she discovered Christ. While taking care of the young daughter of a family there, she was introduced to the Canossan Sisters with whom she eventually found a home as a religious sister. Fifty years of quiet consecrated life allowed her to witness to others the deep abiding peace that faith and forgiveness can bring. Seeing God’s hand even in the difficult path of her life, she noted, “If I was to meet those slave raiders that abducted me and those who tortured me, I'd kneel down to them to kiss their hands, because, if it had not been for them, I would not have become a Christian and religious woman.” At her beatification, Pope John Paul II praised her as “Our Universal Sister,” pointing out that she offers us “a message of reconciliation and evangelic forgiveness in a world so much divided and hurt by hatred and violence.” Note that Bakhita didn’t say that what the slave traders and her owners did to her was right – it most certainly was not. But she recognized that through her wounds she found salvation, which she could not ignored.

There are many forms of slavery, including those that do not have visible chains or leave outward marks. We suffer from them as long as we cannot name them, claim our own dignity which comes from being created in the image and likeness of God, and renounce them from holding us captive. The liberation that forgiveness can offer is as stark as the sundering of iron fetters and the opening of a prison door—it is for the one who suffers to choose freedom and wholeness of heart, despite her surroundings. The graces of God are available to all even in the darkest hours and each cross bears within it the seeds of Easter for those who cling to Christ.

That all may find this peace despite what they've suffered.

Good analysis

Maria Elena has a nice review/analysis of Best of Everything, which comprehensively looks at a variety of details from the woman's vocation to office decor. The theme sounds remarkably fresh, and I was gratified to see that she could see evidence of what feminists decry as "the male privilege."

It is interesting how the girls mostly saw the secretarial jobs as something to do while waiting to get married, not as careers. Some of the older executives took liberties which today would result in a lawsuit. On the other hand, the way women allow themselves to be used by men under the guise of romance and independence is an element of the film which finds an echo in our own time.

Perhaps it's maturity or simply eye-opening experience, but the more I watch old movies, the more I pick up the subtle themes of the darker side. Despite convention and a greater slavishness to pretence, I'm getting the impression that not much has changed in the last five hundred years or so -- there's just more technology to heat the rooms, defrost the meat and cover up for the mistakes.

This might make a good pick for movie night over the holidays with extended family -- an real conversation starter, as it were. I'll put it in my Netflix queue for an evening when my girls are all together.

Unique book

A certain holiday is fast approaching -- a day when Someone's birthday leads most folks to exchange gifts, if you know what I mean. Melanie at Wine Dark Sea has a warm review of a book sent her way that may just provide the right present for someone on your list. Sounds lovely.

As long as I'm taking a moment for reviews, we watched The Lives of Others last night. Riveting account of the German Stasi spying on a playwright and his girlfriend in the early 1980's. A couple of overtly sexual scenes make it unsuitable for anyone under 18, I'd say, but they weren't gratuitious. Integral to the story line was the emptiness of some lives, the commodification of sex, and the perennial search for meaning .