feminine-genius

So much for sisterhood

The daughter of a prominent feminist speaks out, in love, but with total honesty:

Feminism has betrayed an entire generation of women into childlessness. It is devastating. But far from taking responsibility for any of this, the leaders of the women's movement close ranks against anyone who dares to question them  -  as I have learned to my cost. I don't want to hurt my mother, but I cannot stay silent. I believe feminism is an experiment, and all experiments need to be assessed on their results. Then, when you see huge mistakes have been paid, you need to make alterations.

Astonishingly, this is Rebecca Walker, daughter of Alice Walker, whom she accuses of child neglect, cruel pettiness, self-absorption, and wide-ranging hypocricy. I will only excerpt here with strong urging to read and file the entire piece.

My mother's feminist principles coloured every aspect of my life. As a little girl, I wasn't even allowed to play with dolls or stuffed toys in case they brought out a maternal instinct. It was drummed into me that being a mother, raising children and running a home were a form of slavery. Having a career, travelling the world and being independent were what really mattered according to her.

I love my mother very much, but I haven't seen her or spoken to her since I became pregnant. She has never seen my son  -  her only grandchild. My crime? Daring to question her ideology.

Well, so be it. My mother may be revered by women around the world  -  goodness knows, many even have shrines to her. But I honestly believe it's time to puncture the myth and to reveal what life was really like to grow up as a child of the feminist revolution.

Rebecca adores her toddler son, and has received an abundance of grace to be where she is now. It could be construed as pettiness on her own part to air family laundry so publicly, but I think there's room for this disclosure. She is a writer, whose career is publicly assaulted regularly by her own mother, and the world has beatified Alice through carefully constructed lies. It is a service to Rebecca's son -- and to those aspiring feminists of this new generation who are still assigned Alice's works in school -- to say there's more to the story. It's harsh, I take it as a dose of tough love.

Great family fun

In Boston, $10 can get you into a great football game, if you don't mind that it's not the Patriots. Welcome to the Independent Women's Football League, with 40 teams. The Boston Militia is the local squad, fielding an an all-women full-contact team from a range of jobs and backgrounds:

These women throw, kick, run, pass, and tackle. After one recent game, [quarterback Allison] Cahill's arms were blotched with bruises from shoulder to wrist. "Everything happens pretty fast," she says, surveying the damage. "The ball's hiked, and people twice your size are coming at you."

 

But really, she says, her bruises are nothing compared to what could happen out there. "This isn't the Lingerie Bowl," she says. "It's legitimate. It's highly competitive. The girls grab each other. They push and shove. They pinch when you're on the bottom of the pile. Girls are ruthless. I've even heard of them spitting."

Women's lib -- aint it great? I still think people hold such things in the category with dancing bears and dog's who can bark Christmas carols. One respected man I know said that he thinks many men find such spectacles (women wrestlers, boxers, etc.) as a titillating form of pornography. Who knows. This seems to be a deep-seeded desire of some women, which holds a certain merit. The lesbian contingent is a part, as they admit. Baffling (from this admitted couch potato).

Title IX in the lab

Sports and other arenas have applied the hammer of Title IX to enhance the profile of women (and the expense of men, natch) but "injustice" still reigns in the science and mathematics fields. With "freedom of choice," men choose those professions in greater numbers than women do, so parity has to be brought through the force of federal law.

At a recent House hearing on “Women in Academic Science and Engineering” Congressman Brian Baird, a Democrat from Washington State, asked a room full of activist women how best to bring American scientists into line: “What kind of hammer should we use?” The weapon of choice is the well-known federal anti-discrimination law “Title IX,” which prohibits sex discrimination in “any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” Title IX has never been rigorously applied to academic science. That is now about to change. In the past few months both the Department of Education and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) have begun looking at candidates for Title IX-enforcement positions.

Feminists admit that there is no entrenched discrimination, but rather an "unconscious bias" which discourages and intimidates women. I submit that calculus, astro-physics and differential equations intimidates lots of people -- including men. But there's more than the difficulty factor at play here:

In a recent study by Neil Gross of Harvard and Solon Simmons of George Mason University, 1,417 professors were asked to explain the relative scarcity of female professors in these fields. Nearly three out of four respondents, 74 percent, attributed it to differences in the subjects that characteristically interest women, while 24 percent put it down to sexist discrimination and 1 percent to women’s lack of ability.

Translation: women aren't as interested in numbers and protons as men are. Well, that needs to be fixed.

A large and growing quantity of social science literature supports the 74-percent opinion. According to this research, not bias but natural propensities and preferences explains the disparity. Yet the majority (some would say crushingly obvious) view has not been heard at the congressional hearings, where legislators have been inundated with testimony and petitions from equity activists presenting unsound advocacy research on “hidden sexism” against women.

With all the glories of the women's gold medal in soccer in mind, it seems as though choice will no longer reign supreme in these academic fields. Women will become interested -- by hook or crook, and NASA's future successes will be subject to the government's cattle chute of mandated outcomes.

UPDATE: Fancy that. Just this morning, I received this email from my daughter's high school:

The Boston Museum of Science is hosting a program entitled, "Inspiring Minds: Meet Women in Science"  on Thursday, May 1 - Saturday, May 3. Young women who may be interested in pursuing careers in Science are invited to meet dynamic women who excel in fields such as meteorology, medicine, animal science and archeology. Attendance at this program will enable students to talk to these women, see their work and find out why they love science and engineering. They will also have the opportunity to try our experiments and new technologies. Info here.

[Sons with scientific bent are SOL. They'll have to find their way without this sort of help.]

By what standard?

In a similar vein to the story highlighted below, this piece on the status of women in Muslim nations is unhelpful:

According to the Global Gender Gap (GGG) report, the planet's ten-worst offenders are: Yemen, Chad, Pakistan, Nepal, Saudi Arabia, Benin, Morocco, Turkey, Egypt and Oman. Of the ten, nine are Muslim-majority states. At the other end of the spectrum, the planet's best countries for women to live in are: Sweden, Norway, Finland, Ireland, New Zealand, Philippines, Germany, Denmark, Ireland and Spain. Not even one of the top-ten is a Muslim-majority state

The study used four criteria by which to assess the status of women across the globe:

• Economic participation
• Educational attainment
• Political empowerment
• Health care

Obviously women [appear to be] doing well in the Nordic countries listed above because of universal access to birth control and abortion and gender quotas throughout business, academia and government.

Certainly, health care for women is an essential thing, but as this story shows, full-disclosure of contraindications are also essential, because without them, you're opening a pandora's box of problems down the road.

Likewise, no one argues against female education, but interestingly, the UN uses this as a propaganda tool against marriage and motherhood, which are important foundations for strong communities.

I simply want readers to realise that there are challenges from both angles as we promote what is in the best interest of women. It's tricky, when we argue against the violence and indignities against women within some religious traditions, because some take this to be a green light to trash all religion -- as though the secular state, with its version of "health care" (often highly eugenic in nature) will lead the way.

Benedict reminded us to participate in the public square with our firm support of all that honours the human person. Our delicate path amidst the ruins of failed ideologies is to show authentic dignity which requires collaboration between men and women, between Church and state, and unswerving support of the vulnerable among us.

One more thought

One commenter responding to the MercatorNet post notes one possible backlash:

Discrimination against men in the divorce court is so rampant now that all of the young guys I know are refusing to ever get married or ever have children. In fact almost all will probably live alone the rest of their lives.

Highly doubtful. This standoff in its present form is temporary, I believe. The greater likelihood is that men (and boys) are going to stop deferring to women, playing rules according to their whims and tempers. They will lash back with a vengeance, and then women will really know what mysogyny is. (Of course, another factor is the Muslim question, with its contribution to the equation.)

Either women can come to their senses now and hand over to men what is rightfully theirs, or men will snatch it in a very ugly way. The relevant principle is found here.

JP2 and word-play

Dawn Eden does a good job of providing a backdrop to the question about whether JP2 was endorsing a new feminism (here). She isolates his singular use of the word in Evangelium Vitae, and cites and excellent quote from Chesterton:

"Feminism will always oppose chivalry, but chivalry is rather in favor of feminism." One can also see this in the similarly arm’s-length approach John Paul took with liberation theology: condemning what the term stood for, yet approving a document by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith that acknowledged the goodness within its’ adherents’ ideals (“the powerful and almost irresistible aspiration that people have for ‘liberation’”).

Here we have another example of the standard graciousness found in those sincerely seeking the truth and assuming the same of others. I've elsewhere noted that it's men's chivalry that allows women the freedom to take the time to "find themselves," despite the risks run in the search and the possible dead-ends along the way. ("Dead-ends" feeding the "culture of death" in many instances.)

There is another discussion on Mulieris Dignitatem taking place on Commonweal, where "feminism" is bandied about, juxtaposed with thoughts from 1912, as though there's only one or the other. Hyperbole in both directions is dangerous:

Heresies gain their power from a grain of truth, and, likewise, feminism emerged as a response to a real evil. The Industrial Revolution put great strain on families. More husbands worked away from home, while wives lost much of their power, as family financial decisions, formerly within their sphere of control, became reserved to their husbands and the husbands' employers.

Bingo. Feminism didn't come out of thin air, and yet it is an overreaction to the errors it sought to alleviate. Course corrections often take time, and it's the beauty of JP2 and his theology of the body that takes the initial errors, grinds them down to their elements, and restores the truth on a better footing. It is sad that feminists cannot set aside their prejudices in order to discuss this rationally , but such is the nature of woundedness, esp. when the wounds touch the essence so deeply.

Enjoy Dawn's essay, and note the shallowness of feminism, which relies on the market, the protestant view of the person, and even [later] Marxist constructs to explain the universe. Original sin and redemption are far better touchstones to explain our predicament, and only the fullness of our Catholic faith offers the maternal paradigm by which all can be reborn in Christ. But healing takes time. Make sure the time is well-spent.

Keen assessments

Two items came to my attention which deserve a look. First is a MercatorNet piece which is a brilliant summary of Where We Are with feminism. Barbara Kay, of the National Post (Canada), writes:

As a result of feminists’ promotion of career equity with men and unrestrained sexual experimentation over early and faithful commitment, women are having fewer children later, and many are having none. Consequently, birthrates are down in all western countries, in many below the replacement levels. Canada’s current fertility rate is 1.54 per woman, behind one-child China’s 1.7.

Sadly, many women realize they want to have children, but too late. They were not warned by their Women’s Studies teachers or by feminist commentators that fertility peaks by age 25, or that late pregnancies carry elevated risks, or that induced abortions pose a risk of pre-term delivery in future pregnancies.

Abortion is now such a commonplace here that it is used as a backup form of birth control. Abortions in Quebec have doubled in the last 10 years: in 1998 16 percent of pregnancies resulted in abortion. Today 30 percent do. You don’t have to be a religious Christian to find that statistic disturbing.

All of these realities are directly traceable to feminist doctrine. Feminists’ original goal may not have been the intention to preside over the actual demographic decline of western civilization. Their goal was to empower women. But as the old saying goes, when you are up to your neck in alligators, it’s difficult to remember that your original intention was to drain the swamp.

The whole thing is worth your time. My comment (which hasn't appeared yet) added a few cents concerning the ideology behind radical feminism, which is decidedly Marxist. That's why they cannot collaborate with men. The dialectic demands that they do battle, allowing the next stage to emerge: androgyny. They've worked hard on this, according to formula, which helps explain things.

Secondly, there is an excellent interview with Lorraine Murray, whose book Confessions of an Ex-Feminist has just been released from Ignatius. I've reviewed it, and the piece will appear in an upcoming issue of Homiletic and Pastoral Review. (Hint: highly favourable review!) Consider:

What sort of feminist were you and what were the essential beliefs of the feminism you practiced?

Murray: I was a radical feminist, championing the belief that there was no such thing as innate masculine and feminine natures. I believed that social conditioning produced the obvious differences between male and female behavior. Thus, to equal the playing field between men and women, one had to tweak the conditioning of children. For example, take away toy guns and adventure tales from little boys, and encourage them to play with dolls. Downplay ruffles and dresses for little girls, and deck them out in pants instead. Today, I look at my little nephews, who fashion guns with their hands, and see the utter insanity of these beliefs. However, at the time, I based my conclusions entirely on books.

Also, like many radical feminists, I believed that men were extremely violent towards women and enjoyed subjugating them. This piece of "wisdom" certainly wasn't evident in my own life, since the men I knew were mostly gentle souls, and my own father had sacrificed plenty so I could go to graduate school. But the feminist agenda emphasized that conflict, unhappiness and misery were part of every woman's journey, and then placed the blame squarely on the shoulders of men.

Reference to the dialectic and synthesis comment above. This runs counter to the Church's call for collaboration, based on the complementary nature and vocation of men and women.

Why do so many feminists despise the traditional understanding of femininity and womanhood?

Murray: Perhaps the deepest sin of feminism is envy. So many feminists think that men have a better life and see them as somehow conspiring to keep women unhappy. Feminists deny what the average woman on the street will attest to: Women like being women! We like dressing differently from men, wearing make-up and watching romantic movies. We know it is nearly impossible for women to separate sexual intimacy and love. Women who give themselves to a man know, in the inner recesses of their hearts, that a baby might be the result of such intimacy. This is part of our God-given nature, and it is beautiful. However, radical, gender-bending feminists want to deny the heart of true femininity.

Such an excellent piece. The response to feminists has to be one of love and understanding. We have to receive them into our maternal hearts and listen. Lorraine's journey back to authentic femininity was beautiful to behold, and it was in stages. Patience. Prayer. Forgiveness. Receptivity. And more patience. Liberation on their terms has proven not to satisfy, but the road back is difficult. I recommend the interview -- and the book.

Misunderstanding wisdom

An NRO reference to Alice Walker led me here, which is as unpleasant aesthetically as it is theologically. For the record, I offer a strong rebuttal to the goddess nonsense in my book (which would make a great Mother's Day gift for many women in your life!) and have to note that it all evolves (or devolves) from the strong affinity that women naturally feel for wisdom. Here's an excerpt:

When he established the heavens I was there,

when he marked out the vault over the face of the deep;

When he made firm the skies above,

when he fixed fast the foundations of the earth.

When he set for the sea its limit,

so that the waters would not transgress his command;

Then was I beside him as craftsman

and I was his delight day by day

Playing before him all the while.[1]

If wisdom is a personification of the Bride, which the scriptures make patently clear, then from this portion of God’s own word we can see that she was God’s helpmate in the rest of creation after she was brought forth. It established that that which is feminine is an honor and a dignity far beyond our imagination. While we know that the “pearl of great price” is worthy of every sacrifice, the richness of authentic femininity is our very own jewel, our own treasure that we cannot begin to value enough. Solomon, who wrote ecstatic refrains to the beauty of wisdom, recognized in her that she was the mother of all that is good.[2] Thus, in keeping with the laws concerning spousal love, just as love of God and man should bear fruit, such intense love of wisdom must extend itself and breathe its inherent goodness upon creation.

---

[1] Proverbs 8:25-30

[2] cf, Song of Solomon 7:12

Hint: there is an essential difference between wisdom as an attribute of God, and created wisdom, "His delight." For those who are looking for books for group reflection, I do have a study guide for ACW.

Nailing the goddess

I was surprised to see the prominence that "Starhawk" has maintained, but then I don't get out much. I remember her from the heyday of Father Fox, but of course, she's moved on to the pages of the Washington Post, which is evidently interested in the thoughts of Wiccans. She's responding to a question about racism and sexism, but has managed to point out the glaring error in goddess worship a topic I touched on here.

In the Goddess religions, we see the divine as immanent in every human being. Each of us has an inherent worth that cannot be quantified, denied, or compared to the worth of another. If we restrict one portion of the human race from full participation in society, we limit our collective intelligence and potential...When spirit is split from nature, when God is removed from the world, then this world and all that we associate with it become devalued: the body; those who bring life into the world; the earth that sustains life; and darkness, the color of soil and the womb. Spirit, light, pure mind, intellect, maleness and detachment from the body are seen as closer to God. Within that split universe, we denigrate women, people of color, and those who work with the earth, who till the soil, clean up the messes, rear the children and do the physical maintenance of life.

She attempts to give dignity to the feminine by divinising it, as though being God is the only righteous alternative to, um, not being God.

Well, no. No one is God except -- God. The rest of us are His creatures. The reason God asked us to call Him Father was so that there would be no confusion about the nature of the Divine. Fathers create apart from themselves; mothers create with their very flesh and blood. Fathers do not confuse their identity with that of their children, because the flesh is distinct. Mothers usually have a far more difficult time letting go -- witness the tears with the cutting of the cord, the first day of school, the trip down the aisle, etc. Each event of independence is a wrenching experience for the mother.

Thus, God knew, that if we referred to Him as "mother," then the next thing would be to blur the line between divinity and creature, leading to exactly what Starhawk has done, renouncing the Christian faith for pantheism -- God present in all her creation.

If she would return to the Christianity of her roots, then she could see that the gritty "physical maintenance of life" that falls to women is transformed by the Incarnation, and the restoration of spirit and flesh would be given glory in the hypostatic union present in Jesus. It's all there, if we simply had the vocabulary and catechesis to respond.

[As for her thoughts on women in the ante-bellam South, and the vocation of women, a far better treatment is found here. This was written before the conversion of Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, but it's excellent.]

How brilliant is this?

After a highly publicised marriage and the birth of two children, young pop star Britney Spears has been spiralling out of control, with the gory details at every local check-out stand. While in one of those grocery lines, thoughtful convert and blogger Jen noted:

[She] evidently had a complete nervous breakdown a couple weeks ago and was taken to the hospital. As I flipped through the pitiful pictures of her strapped down to a stretcher, looking at the camera with a dazed, tear-streaked face, I realized that the song playing on the radio was hers.

Jennifer has inklings about what may be going wrong in this poor girl's melting mind, and it may have much to do with the dichotomy between the public's demand for flesh and flash, while the soul seeks authenticity. Now we're not supposed to dwell on the fact that the terrific blogger seems quite familiar with many details of Spears' musical career (pace!) but if she weren't, how would we arrive at such crystallised thought as this?

At the time, I was part of the segment of society where traditional feminine qualities are disdained. As a woman you could express any desire, show any side of your personality, so long as it didn't involve behaviors that humans have always associated with women, like maternal instincts, the longing to nurture others, feeling sentimental, having fluctuating emotions based on your body's rhythms, wanting to be cherished by men, etc. Probably due to a lot of the recent changes in modern society -- high on the list being the constant touting of contraception as a good thing, making us start to feel that what it's "curing" must be a bad thing -- all the nurturing, life-giving aspects of being a woman were scorned. This left a huge elephant in the room around which we had to maneuver, and the result was that the two main options for acceptable behavior from women were either to act like a sex object or a man (or both, a la Sex in the City).

Great insight. Jen labels it the Britney Spears Syndrome, since that wild child slithered into sex object while trying to combine it with motherhood on "fast lane" terms. (Add to it post-partum hormones and hitting the wall was the only logical outcome.) Makes perfect sense to me.

Interestingly, the very integration that is so badly missing from these "liberated" women's lives is embodied in JP2's Mulieris Dignitatem, which is celebrating a birthday this year. Lent's coming -- how about putting it on your reading list and pulling together a study group to while away the time before Easter?