feminine-genius

Second Millennium

The title indicates that I'm moving into the second millennium of posts, in other words, this is post #1001. Next week will be the second anniversary of this blog -- making it older than some, younger than most. Essentially it's the perfect outlet for a writer who is juggling myriad responsibilities (i.e. incapable of meeting fixed deadlines but has lots to say!)

Thus, it's nice to point out a professional who can meet deadlines (and has for years) and who can write with faith, deep insight, and bubbling affection for her topics: Frederica Mathewes-Green. She has an interesting book on the horizon with Paraclete Press, The Lost Gospel of Mary. Certainly, authors don't always choose their titles, and she remarks on this one that is pejorative to those who observe the canon as defended by the Church:

I feel ambivalent about the title — kind of lurid, isn’t it! But my point was that there are many, many ancient Christian texts that are fully orthodox; it’s not only a matter of New Testament versus gnostics. Earlier generations of Christians read the same kind of supplemental and devotional works we do today: biographies, commentaries, letters, sermons, debates with non-believers…pretty much anything you would find in a Christian bookstore today. ...These works got “lost” mostly because we forgot them—our “family memory” fades after a few decades or centuries. Contemporary Western Christians have a bad case of spiritual amnesia. So I’m hoping to put a few of the more appealing and worthy works back on the shelf. In this book I present three ancient texts concerning the Virgin Mary, with new translations and verse-by-verse commentary. The first is a “gospel”, or narrative biography, of the Virgin Mary’s birth and early life.

Although the Orthodox are more loose than RC's about many things, she makes it clear that she's not placing this in her own "canon" as something revolutionary (which is what most religious books sales do -- trying to stick it to the hard-nosed Church) but wants to flesh out some ideas on Our Lady, providing a richer backdrop using more sources contemporary with the Early Church. As long as it's read in the proper context, it should be fine.

Her main point is that the fascination in that era was not with the resurrexion, but with the actual Incarnation event and with the notion that a woman could be pregnant with God. She offers a tidbit on her site:

It is hard to see Mary clearly, beneath the conflicting identities she has borne over the centuries. To one era she is the flower of femininity, and to another the champion of feminism; in one age she is the paragon of obedience, and in another the advocate of liberation. Some enthusiasts have been tempted to pile her status so high that it rivals that of her Son. Others, aware that excessive adulation can be dangerous, do their best to ignore her entirely.

Behind all that there is a woman nursing a baby. The child in her arms looks into her eyes. Years later he will look at her from the cross, through a haze of blood and sweat. We do not know, could not comprehend, what went through his mind during those hours of cosmic warfare. But from a moment in the St. John’s account of the Crucifixion we know that, whatever else he thought, he thought about her. He asked his good friend John to take care of her. He wanted John to become a son to her—to love her the way he did.

Should be interesting and I look forward to reading it when available.

L'Chaim -- not

Pansy (of Pansy and Peony) posted this disturbing account from her brother, who knew the American soldier:

Please pray for Cpl. Jennifer M. Parcell's family. Cpl. Parcell was a Marine on Okinawa that went to Iraq. She had to search a female victim in Iraq and when she was searching the victim, the victim detonated a bomb attached to her killing Cpl. Parcell and herself.

I did a little poking around and found this in the Baltimore Sun:

"She was a petite young lady, always smiling and gregarious, not the kind of girl you would envision as a Marine," he said. "But she took a military aptitude test in her junior year. To know what you wanted to do mid-high school shows she was focused."

When he learned Corporal Parcell was working toward a college degree and taking online courses while in Iraq, he said it made sense, given her determination.

Pay for your education by signing into the military. Harmless enough and yet I have great difficulty with women doing this. Petite, smiling, gregarious -- a woman called to give life, to foster love, to spread joy. This is the lie at the heart of the feminist movement, when women are called to suppress their natural characteristics like this and become soldiers.

I have no problem with the military, and was a Navy wife for years. I'm not even opposed to the mission in Iraq, leaving the controversy about it to those who know more facts about it than I do. But what I have always disliked about women in combat is reinforced by a book I'm reading at present (review to come) about Mao's plan for China, and one key part of communism was to undermine beauty, family, and motherhood as bourgeois, each to be rooted out. Thus women were to be drafted and treated with no distinction because in the proletariot dream, femininity was the enemy.

So here were are, face-to-face with two lies: the adoption of war and death as in keeping with the feminine vocation, and the adoption of death and martyrdom as a heroic endeavor for the Iraqi woman. Yes, immolation is not spurned for the cause of life and truth in our faith, but neither life nor truth was served by the death of these two women. Two beautiful souls manipulated by others -- so sad. Prayers.

Immolation of motherhood

There are few contemporary women who can shed more light on the privilege of motherhood than Saint Gianna Beretta Molla, who died in 1962 rather than endanger her unborn child with treatment for her own cancer. In 1973, Paul VI referred to her gift of self as a "conscious immolation" in imitation of Jesus on Calvary and in the Eucharist. Her husband and the daughter for whom she gave her life attended her canonisation in 2004.

It was a way of life, rather than a singular decision, which is instructive:

Gianna Beretta Molla made a heroic choice, but it was something her family members and friends testified she prepared for every day of her life. Her heroic virtue, genuine holiness of life, selflessness, and quiet joy remind all of us that God entrusts us with a personal vocation. Each and every day presents us with choices that have the power to prepare us to take heroic action whenever it will be called for. We can do that, however, only if we surrender ourselves and what we desire to God and His will for us.

The website about her offers this prayer:

Jesus, I promise You to submit myself to all that You permit to befall me,
make me only know Your will.
My most sweet Jesus, infinitely merciful God, most tender Father of souls,
and in a particular way of the most weak, most miserable, most infirm
which You carry with special tenderness between Your divine arms,
I come to You to ask You, through the love and merits of Your Sacred Heart,
the grace to comprehend and to do always Your holy will,
the grace to confide in You,
the grace to rest securely through time and eternity in Your loving divine arms.

Saint Gianna, pray for us.

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.

Walking the tightrope

For years, Christians have been lamenting the values touted by the mass media which were reflected in the toys and clothes offered to millions of little girls throughout the West. Since believers have a backwards understanding of modern "freedoms" and an antiquarian approach to life, most of the mass media responds with a sneer to their concerns. But now the APA has given credence to their objections with this:

There’s something undeniably disconcerting about seeing teen and preteen girls dressed to emulate their idols like Britney Spears—decked out in butt-grazing mini skirts and tight, belly-baring T-shirts. And probably the only thing even more alarming than that sight is seeing a similarly sexy outfit on girl who’s still in kindergarten. It’s a phenomenon that has child development experts worried and some parents fighting mad.

“Little girls are being encouraged to immerse themselves in the preoccupations of adolescence,” says Susan Linn, co-founder of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC). “They are going straight from preschool to teenager and skipping over the important development stages that should take place during middle childhood.”

The "just turn it off" response is wearing thin, and even psychologics now agree that there actually may be a vague connexion between ads, pop stars, and television role models and the children who imbibe the standard commercialised fare -- fancy that!

The latest culprit in this culture war is something seemingly innocent—a line of dolls. The Bratz are marketed as dolls with “a passion for fashion.” Fashions that include low-cut jeans and halter tops worn over little girl-like bodies. MGA Entertainment (the company that makes them) says the dolls are geared toward girls ages 7 to 11, but girls as young as 4 are eager to play with them too. And in a culture that glorifies fashion, runway models and celebrity cover girls, it’s no surprise that the obsession would trickle down even to preschool fashionistas. Little girls have always wanted to emulate older ones. But critics claim that the message of the wildly popular Bratz dolls (according to the manufacturer, over 145 million have been sold since they debuted in 2001) is that image is everything. “The dolls encourage girls to think about themselves as sexualized objects whose power is equated with dressing provocatively,” says Linn.

I looked at as much of the Bratz site as possible, which is geared to "fantasy," with an eye to the word "provocative." Interestingly, it was impossible to find a "damning" photo or item which would scream "sex object." I can actually understand the obtuseness of this comment:

“Adults see sex in everything, but kids don’t,” says Isaac Larian, CEO of MGA Entertainment. “Bratz dolls promote diversity and creativity.” He asserts that kids buy them because they are “beautiful,” and scoffs at the notion that there is anything sexual about the dolls.

No -- there's no "plaything" tag, but simply the pervasive tilt of the head, the ubiquitious "come hither" look of the large almond-shaped eyes, the clingy clothes, the high heels, and the groovy pink lipstick. For those of us who endured the 1960's, we remember that all of these things went with liberation from traditional values, a carefree anti-establishment view, and an embrace of All Things Fresh and New. Ultimately, the psychadelic generation stood the world on its head and we're still picking up the shards.

Mr Larian may say it's all innocent fun (with every run to the bank) but he's old enough to understand the undercurrents. And the crux of the argument isn't whether this halter top or that hair-do is provocatively "sexy," but whether such an emphasis on outward charms is healthy and helpful to girls.

The argument is that lines of Bratz clothing (similar to the dolls’ garb) and places like Club Libby Lu, where girls can dress up like their favorite pop idols (complete with hair, makeup and clothing) turn girls into living embodiments of sexy dolls. “At a time in their development when children are trying to understand what it means to be a boy or a girl, they are getting the narrowest possible image of what those gender roles mean,” says Levin. If what girls are learning as early as preschool is that they have to be sexy and attractive, that is supposedly setting them up for self-image issues and eating disorders later on.

That was the conclusion reached by the American Psychological Association (APA) Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls, in a report released earlier this year. The task force defined “sexualization” as a person’s value coming only from his or her sexual appeal or behavior to the exclusion of other characteristics. The analysis of all the available research on the subject showed evidence that this sort of sexualization can negatively impact a girl’s self-confidence, body image, self-esteem, sexual development and mental health.

Despite the attention given to Bratz, there were many other factors also considered which are detrimental to the well-rounded development of young girls:

The report calls out examples from across current popular culture that present equally sexual messages—in advertising, TV, movies, fashion and music. Researchers cited things like thongs sold by stores catering to “tweens” (girls ages 7 to 12) and lyrics to widely played songs (like the Pussycat Dolls “Don’tcha wish your girlfriend was hot like me?”).

Thongs for 10-year-olds? Might that be problemmatic? Here we come to the heart of feminism and the conflicting messages that feminists are content to live with:

1. Women have been objectified by men/culture for too long and need to be taken seriously as equal persons endowed with tremendous gifts and intellectual talents. Every door should be thrown open so that women can prove their competency and adaptability in all realms of society; and

2. Women can only be completely fulfilled by owning their sexual potential and being free to express it in the most controlling and dynamic ways possible. Any constraint on sexual license is oppression of femininity itself.

There is a combustable mean on this scale, and society-at-large refuses to acknowledge it. Many parents have long recognised it, and even the APA here admits that women can't have it both ways. Of course, bottom-line profits rule here (like almost everywhere) so we will continue to be assaulted with the conflicting messages and each girl will be forced to walk a very dangerous tightrope. 

A "battalion of sacrifice"

After one reading, I cannot recommend highly enough the interview with Anthony Esolen on manhood. He provides the insights of a wise philosopher, the backdrop of an entire library of understanding and the detail of a man entirely engaged in contemporary culture.

The man exercises charity by training himself to be self-reliant in ordinary things, not out of pride, but out of a sincere desire to free others up for their own duties, and to free himself for things that are not ordinary.

The man also must refuse— this is a difficult form of self-sacrifice— to allow his feelings to turn him from duty, including his duty to learn the truth and to follow it.

A man loves his own family, but he also loves his family by refusing to subject the entire civil order to the welfare of his family; he understands that if he performs his duty, other families besides his own will profit by it.

A man must consider his life dispensable for the sake of those he leads; he must obey his legitimate superior; if and only if he does so will he become really necessary and really worthy of the obedience he claims, with scriptural authority that need not embarrass anyone.

I love his thoughts on the masculinity of Jesus, the particulars of which we all wonder about on occasion.

Jesus loves women, as all good men must; Jesus obeys his mother at Cana; but Jesus does not hang around the skirts of women; he speaks gently, but as a man speaks gently, and when he rebukes, he rebukes forthrightly and clearly, as a man.

His closest comrades are men, though they are not necessarily the people he loves best in the world. He organizes them into a battalion of sacrifice.

How beautiful is that expression. For to serve is to reign. To love is to lay down one's life for the beloved. Our greatest strength is our humility, and humble manhood -- at the service of those in his care -- is mighty indeed. That was a first reading. I must print it and savour it slowly -- something I highly recommend.

Important discussion

I would like to alert readers who are interested in theology of the body, natural family planning, and the advantages to families who live these teachings of new resources. John and Sheila Kippley have founded a new apostolate, NFP and More and have begun blogging.

For those who are aware of changes in the approach of Couple to Couple League in the last few years, here will be a place to begin to parse the different approaches of the two groups.

We will comment on what is going on in the natural family planning movement and certain aspects of our culture.  John will look for opportunities to support Church teaching, especially when it pertains to marriage and sexuality. Sheila hopes to promote breastfeeding, especially eco-breastfeeding (short for ecological breastfeeding), and to offer more support to those mothers who choose to stay home.

We will comment on the changes occurring at CCL, an organization we hope will reconsider the direction it is taking.  We fear that if CCL abandons the charisms of its founders, it will meet the fate of other organizations observed by Bishop Romer.

For those who may not be aware, the Kippleys founded CCL in 1971. The quote to which they refer is as follows:

“In my 30 years in Brazil, I saw many promising apostolates rise—and then fall as they abandoned the charisms of their founders.”  Bishop Karl Jozef Romer, Pontifical Council for the Family, 2002 CCL Convention.

Since the Kippley's left shortly thereafter, philosophical differences appeared -- some subtle, some not-so-subtle -- in CCL's approach to some aspects of NFP. The Kippleys have since continued their important new work under a new name.

The blog should be interesting, and readers may want to add it to their list in order to keep up with the discussion. Understanding God's gift of sexuality and procreation is foundational to who we are and how we live our faith. Should be fascinating.

Spring fashions

Diogenes has found the ultimate in clerical fashions, which cannot be lampooned. It is metaphysically impossible to make sport of something that stands alone as the height of self-parody.

But there's more than mere physical comfort in play. We're meant to find ourselves in a comprehensive, all-embracing, sense of well-being. Kneelers are out. Pews are padded. The road never forks. We can have our cake and eat it. No decision means a final separation. Everyone's a priest: dad, mom, sis, Aunt Gretchen with the tattoo and the butch haircut ... We can tolerate anything except intolerance. We are a Spandex People.

Versatility -- of both articles of faith and articles of clothing. For those who can't read the fine print, this cute piece can be a cool layer under a suit, stand alone, or be worn as a camisole. What's left to say?