feminine-genius

Men's feminine side?

Sister Prudence Allen is a genius when it comes to the theology of the body, and this most excellent piece has been posted on the Pontifical Council for the Laity site. There is so much more that I'll be highlighting in the coming weeks about it, but how about this essential point:

At the same time, Pope John Paul II took a different approach to masculinity and femininity than did his predecessor Stein. He did not then, nor did he ever, suggest that a man may have femininity or a woman masculinity. Instead, he argued that masculinity is a man’s way of being and acting in the world, and femininity is a woman’s way of being and acting in the world: "masculinity and femininity [are] . . . two ways of ‘being a body’” (Original Unity, pp. 61-91).

I've debated that point so many times (coming down on the side of JP2) but how much easier it would have been had I had that succinct quote!

Vive la difference!

Not many would draw broad lines around "male" characteristics and "female" characteristics, but having been exposed to competetive sports for women for most of my life, I would say that there are some differences between the sexes beyond upper body strength. Coaches know that it's infinitely harder to energise women, compared to men. (This has also been a factor in the military.) Men in general love challenges, and name-calling often lights a fire/enrages them to the point that they'll work hard to spite the one insulting them. Women need coaxing, which builds their confidence and allows them to excel.

For example:

Coach of men: "Come on you panty-waisted gold-brickers, my granny could outrun all of you -- now let's go!"

Coach of women: "I know you ladies have worked hard, are the best on the field, and want it more than they do -- now let's go!"

[As an aside: the problem in the military is co-ed ranks -- which method do you use?]

In sports, to make men excel, you bring out their competetive best which assumes a level playing field as a forum; for women to excel they must deny their collaborative bent, their concern for the person, and their desire that everyone feels good at the end. Thus, while "fairness" is crucial to both men and women, I think that men and women understand fairness differently. Also and over the years, the women who prioritised winning often were brutal and crude to their fellow players, which causes an internal strain. Men can leave rivalry on the field (as part of their ability to compartmentalise), women can't. It's a tough environment in which to stay feminine, meaning "attentive to the good of the other."

With all that said, consider this fascinating softball scenario, in which a player comes up lame at first base, after hitting a tremendous home-run.

With two runners on base and a strike against her, Sara Tucholsky of Western Oregon University uncorked her best swing and did something she had never done, in high school or college. Her first home run cleared the center-field fence.

But it appeared to be the shortest of dreams come true when she missed first base, started back to tag it and collapsed with a knee injury. She crawled back to first but could do no more. The first-base coach said she would be called out if her teammates tried to help her. Or, the umpire said, a pinch runner could be called in, and the homer would count as a single.

Then, members of the Central Washington University softball team stunned spectators by carrying Tucholsky around the bases Saturday so the three-run homer would count - an act that contributed to their own elimination from the playoffs.

Central Washington first baseman Mallory Holtman, the career home run leader in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference, asked the umpire if she and her teammates could help Tucholsky.

The umpire said there was no rule against it.

So Holtman and shortstop Liz Wallace put their arms under Tucholsky's legs, and she put her arms over their shoulders. The three headed around the base paths, stopping to let Tucholsky touch each base with her good leg.

It was beautiful -- in a personal sense, and yet a disaster professionally for the team.

"She said, 'You deserve it, you hit it over the fence,' and we all kind of just laughed."

"We started laughing when we touched second base," Holtman said. "I said, 'I wonder what this must look like to other people."'

"In the end, it is not about winning and losing so much," Holtman said. "It was about this girl. She hit it over the fence and was in pain, and she deserved a home run."

I salute this as the feminine genius, which somehow the sport didn't completely drub out of them. They'll always remember the game fondly, and truly, their priorities were in order. If guys did this, heads would roll and they'd have to hide for years, n'est-ce pas?

Confirm, don't deny

In my thesis of "woman as icon of the Church," I note in various concrete ways how the lives of women should mirror the sacraments, and in this case, we would look specifically at the sacrament of Confirmation. Additionally, just as Mary was the conduit between God and man, women have the privilege in being bridges between children and their fathers. What we say matters, what we do matters, and how much innate respect we hold for the men in our lives is telegraphed to our perceptive children: daily, hourly.

Years ago, Son One exhibited a growing frustration with the depiction of men in the media. Using his normal teen eloquence, he asked, "Why do the women always own the men?" I don't think the vocabulary speaks of titles and deeds, but rather one-upsmanship, in which women were always clever and men, er, not. He had a good point.

The professionals are coming around to his point, and things may change.

The way the advertising industry portrays men has drawn increasing scrutiny in both the trade press and the mainstream media. Defenders of the status quo -- in which men are depicted as irresponsible fathers and lazy, foolish husbands -- are starting to feel outnumbered. It's an understandable feeling.

According to Leo Burnett Worldwide's 2005 "Man Study," four out of five men believe media portrayals of men are inaccurate. The study found that men care more about the way they are viewed than was generally believed.

When Kate Santich of the Orlando Sentinel did a feature on "men-as-idiots" advertising in 2004, she says she was "astounded" at the amount of mail she received, almost all of it critical of the way men are portrayed in ads. In a Washington Times article in January, advertising-industry journalist Todd Wasserman described getting a similar reaction to a recent article he wrote on anti-male ads.

The evidence is clear: "Man as idiot" isn't going over very well these days.

The stereotype that men have ruled for so long that they deserve a little kick in the shorts is not borne out by the statistics.

The vast majority of learning-disabled students are boys, and boys are four times as likely as girls to receive diagnoses of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. Girls get better grades than boys and are much more likely than boys to graduate high school and enter college. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, women earn 60% of all bachelor's degrees and 60% of all master's degrees.

That adult men are "privileged" over women is also questionable. Yes, men do make up the majority of CEOs, politicians and powerbrokers. They also make up the majority of the homeless, the imprisoned, suicide victims and those who die young.

The article goes on to note how many kids live without fathers, and thus the way that fatherhood is depicted in the media is more important than ever -- it may be all they see of the vocation. Why would they want to commit to families given the poor showing they've witnessed, at home and on the screen?

Advertisers are realising their mistake and have launched some campaigns that show men in a positive light -- for the sake of female consumers:

Our campaigns have drawn widespread support from women, who generally do not like to see their sons, husbands and fathers put down. As Rose Cameron, senior VP-planning director and "man expert" at Leo Burnett, says: "One of the great markers [society] looks to about the intelligence of a woman is her choice of husband. So if advertisers position men as idiots in the husband scenario, then you're commenting on her smarts. Women have told us, 'If you want to get on my good side, you do not show my husband as the idiot.'"

Great. Women are holding the industry to a certain standard. Would that they lived it behind closed doors where it really counts. Women can do so much as brokers between growing children and their perceptions of manhood. It's a privilege--and a responsibility--to do it right. Let's turn this corner.

Confess -- it's true!

An excellent [light-hearted] summary of men and women.

Isolating ickiness

Being sans television, I was only vaguely aware that the Flying Nun had popped her cork and loosed a tirade against testosterone. It was nicely summed up today by Pia de Solenni here:

Trivializing something as serious as war by suggesting that it's all the fault of some icky boys is counter-effective to any substantial gains that women have made in the past century. It leaves us back in the elementary school playground with the boys and girls separating themselves and afraid of catching each other's cooties. That's okay as long as it's a short phase in your life. Accomplished adults should be beyond that.

Her premise, nicely arrayed at the beginning, is that women aren't especially known for peace and tranquility. In fact, Pia's memories match my own -- cat fights, silliness, masked aggression, and fangs (carefully bared so that other women catch them, but the men over which they fought often missed the spat). I was even taught (in my brief attempt at learning Chinese) that the language, which uses pictographs, portrays "chaos" as three women under one roof. Everyone got it -- immediately.

Even the Quiet Man played on that theme, as several townsfolk collaborated to convince Will Dannehur to allow his sister to marry Sean Thorntin (John Wayne) as a prelude to Will's courting the rich widow -- since that woman would never consent to enter his house with another woman there.

Yet Sally Flynn ranted that wars were the result of bickering men, which woman -- if given a chance to rule -- would put to flight.

Field got caught somewhere in the midst of her various television and movie roles. Her Gidget and Flying Nun characters epitomized the warm, fuzzy, trite characterization of women that the feminists decried. Make no mistake, Field has played a lot of strong characters, but she's throwing it all away to suggest that all women really are like women in Gidget-land.

Pia explains nicely the complementarity to which men and women are called. Both are called to collaborate for the good of the community, beginning with the smallest community -- the family. Sometimes the community benefits when those who care about them step up to defend the weakest. Sometimes that includes a call to arms. Sally forgot a few things, having lived a few years in Silly-land. Her Gidget experiences were trite -- and indefensible. Let's not allow the playground silliness to make us forget our very serious call to collaborate.

Nature abhors a vacuum II

One of the arguments against the feminisation of our culture is that men are oppressed and that touchy-feely emotions are the foundation of the way people are called to interact. Boys' "hyperactivity" is suppressed, physical excess is discouraged, and everyone is encouraged to sit around, singing kumbayah-style songs. The beauty of the feminine, womyn proclaim, is that females know how to be peace-makers, that they encourage collaboration, and consensus is preferred to conflict. Well, maybe.

We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Women often avoid conflict, but it can easily be veiled and manifest itself in other ways. Women may not like hierarchies, but they certainly tear down others through gossip, detraction, and ostracism. They can be vicious in their own way and have a way of back-biting that could make one long for a good, clean round of boxing.

That said, all-women environments have a way of morphing into very anti-feminine realms, where peace flees and violence prevails despite the lack of men. This Plymouth case is highly troubling (warning: very disturbing events depicted) and unfortunately is not unique.

There are whole areas populated by female-only households without a committed father to be seen; where the children are wild and violence is their first instinct; and where many of the women are bitter, truculent and aggressive. The grandmother in the Plymouth case was unrepentant since she thought the children’s dog fight would ‘harden them up’ — and said she had done the same with her own children.

What we are seeing is nothing less than a cascade of abuse and neglect down through the generations, so that the instinct that makes morality possible — the ability to feel someone else’s pain, so there is a desire not to hurt them — is wholly absent.

I admit I was stunned by the situation, and yet upon reflection have to conclude that it makes sense. If the thesis holds (woman is first in the order of love, she receives the human person and teaches him to love -- guarded by the father's essential outer layer of protection) then when that layer of protection is absent, she not only loses her center, her peace, but she devolves into a wild thing herself who cannot deal properly with the vicissitudes of life. NOTE: if she herself had a good father and felt safe, even if her husband abandons her with children, she has a sense of God the Father and how to keep the children safe. If she had no father, has no husband, and is left prey to the elements, what can she pass along to the children except the notion, "it's a jungle out there, kids; ain't no one to defend you."

Concerning this, Melanie Phillips concludes:

This has produced generations of women-only households, where emotionally needy girls so often become hopelessly inadequate mothers who abuse and neglect their own children — who, in turn, perpetuate the destructive pattern.

This is culturally nothing less than suicidal. A society reproduces itself by nurturing and protecting its young. If it abuses and harms its children instead, it will end up abusing and harming itself.

If we lose the ability to care for each other, we will lose any sense of a common humanity and stake in a shared future. That is, indeed, what we are doing.

All very dark, and yet in the hands of God. Let's pray that we only add light and salt to the world.