The Dignity and Vocation of Women
.Despite the efforts of the feminist movement and the advances made by women's rights groups and their activist members, modern culture has insisted - relentlessly - on demeaning females
The reality is that the female being has not been liberated from the world of utility because the start and end points for modern culture are the sexual element of femininity. As a result, a subjective sexual self is considered by too many women to be the totality of the female nature. Of course, this kind of subjective femininity leads nowhere, except to prod women to run around in circles chasing the illusions of power, pleasure, prettiness, or physique.
PrintHOOKSET, NH (Catholic Online) - Women! Women of today! Modern culture tells you WHAT you are. However, you should really get to know WHO you are.
Despite the efforts of the feminist movement and the advances made by women's rights groups and their activist members, modern culture has insisted - relentlessly - on demeaning females. This is true especially in the public media: television, movies, advertising, and on the Internet.
Modern culture starts and ends with presenting the female as a biological entity only. And always, in one way or another, the female body is connected to the sexual as a means of instructing women how to obtain power, how to engage in pleasure, how to secure beauty, or how to preserve their physique.
The reality is that the female being has not been liberated from the world of utility because the start and end points for modern culture are the sexual element of femininity. As a result, a subjective sexual self is considered by too many women to be the totality of the female nature. Of course, this kind of subjective femininity leads nowhere, except to prod women to run around in circles chasing the illusions of power, pleasure, prettiness, or physique.
Despite all the cultural honors bestowed on the ideas of absolute equality, rank individualism, and autonomy for females, there still persists the public portrayal of women in unflattering terms.
So, let us begin with the basics. Every person, especially a woman, loves. No woman does not love. However, since modern culture begins with the WHAT, it cannot settle on an answer to the question "What is love?" It cannot because it does not know the lover: the WHO.
To speak of love, one must start and end with the person, the WHO, who is one with their human nature. To speak of a lover, one must recognize that a person is a unique and unrepeatable entity, WHO grows and develops within the objective order of their human nature - as it really is - an organic whole.
If women are to understand correctly their female nature, human nature must serve as the first reference point for them. In other words, it is necessary for a woman to see herself as a rational, free-willed being, whose dignity rests in the truth that she is a unique and unrepeatable person.
For, just like a man, it is as a person that a woman is set apart and placed above other living things, such as plants and animals.
Notice that plants and animals are referred to as "living things," not "living persons." The language is exact and for a reason. Plants and animals cannot and do not love because they are living things, not persons.
Human beings love because they are persons. Thus, since she is a rational, free-willed being, a woman is called to love and to be loved for no other reason than, by nature, she is a person.
That an objective order of human nature does exist means that there is more to human living than the subjective order of personal experience.
Women, then, must accept with certainty that they are not isolated gene-beings which develop into alienated individuals without purpose.
Women must ignore educators and media pundits who consider it their moral obligation to lead women to "qualified" professionals, such as psychotherapists, so they can explain to women the unrelatedness of human existence and why there is a sense of disconnectedness in the life of a woman.
Women must reject biologists and psychologists who perceive women as self-contained and self-sufficient animals.
Women must spurn every "expert" who claims that females are nothing other than predetermined, autonomous organisms, particular entities that are isolated and set apart from all that surrounds them.
Women must stand up and insist on the reality of a WHO. They are not WHATS!
-----
John D. Meehan has been involved in the lay apostolate of the Catholic Church since the close of the Second Vatican Council. He resides in New Hampshire with his lovely wife Elizabeth.
Despite the efforts of the feminist movement and the advances made by women's rights groups and their activist members, modern culture has insisted - relentlessly - on demeaning females. This is true especially in the public media: television, movies, advertising, and on the Internet.
Modern culture starts and ends with presenting the female as a biological entity only. And always, in one way or another, the female body is connected to the sexual as a means of instructing women how to obtain power, how to engage in pleasure, how to secure beauty, or how to preserve their physique.
The reality is that the female being has not been liberated from the world of utility because the start and end points for modern culture are the sexual element of femininity. As a result, a subjective sexual self is considered by too many women to be the totality of the female nature. Of course, this kind of subjective femininity leads nowhere, except to prod women to run around in circles chasing the illusions of power, pleasure, prettiness, or physique.
Despite all the cultural honors bestowed on the ideas of absolute equality, rank individualism, and autonomy for females, there still persists the public portrayal of women in unflattering terms.
So, let us begin with the basics. Every person, especially a woman, loves. No woman does not love. However, since modern culture begins with the WHAT, it cannot settle on an answer to the question "What is love?" It cannot because it does not know the lover: the WHO.
To speak of love, one must start and end with the person, the WHO, who is one with their human nature. To speak of a lover, one must recognize that a person is a unique and unrepeatable entity, WHO grows and develops within the objective order of their human nature - as it really is - an organic whole.
If women are to understand correctly their female nature, human nature must serve as the first reference point for them. In other words, it is necessary for a woman to see herself as a rational, free-willed being, whose dignity rests in the truth that she is a unique and unrepeatable person.
For, just like a man, it is as a person that a woman is set apart and placed above other living things, such as plants and animals.
Notice that plants and animals are referred to as "living things," not "living persons." The language is exact and for a reason. Plants and animals cannot and do not love because they are living things, not persons.
Human beings love because they are persons. Thus, since she is a rational, free-willed being, a woman is called to love and to be loved for no other reason than, by nature, she is a person.
That an objective order of human nature does exist means that there is more to human living than the subjective order of personal experience.
Women, then, must accept with certainty that they are not isolated gene-beings which develop into alienated individuals without purpose.
Women must ignore educators and media pundits who consider it their moral obligation to lead women to "qualified" professionals, such as psychotherapists, so they can explain to women the unrelatedness of human existence and why there is a sense of disconnectedness in the life of a woman.
Women must reject biologists and psychologists who perceive women as self-contained and self-sufficient animals.
Women must spurn every "expert" who claims that females are nothing other than predetermined, autonomous organisms, particular entities that are isolated and set apart from all that surrounds them.
Women must stand up and insist on the reality of a WHO. They are not WHATS!
-----
John D. Meehan has been involved in the lay apostolate of the Catholic Church since the close of the Second Vatican Council. He resides in New Hampshire with his lovely wife Elizabeth.
- - -
Pope Benedict XVI's Prayer Intentions for January 2013
General Intention: The Faith of Christians. That in this Year of Faith Christians may deepen their knowledge of the mystery of Christ and witness joyfully to the gift of faith in him.
Missionary Intention: Middle Eastern Christians. That the Christian communities of the Middle East, often discriminated against, may receive from the Holy Spirit the strength of fidelity and perseverance.
Keywords: women, women issues, family life, marriage, feminism, john d. meehan
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Spiritus Gladius, I disagree with your interpretation of those Scriptural passages. Yes, God did tell Eve that her desire would be for her husband and he would be her master. But this was after the Fall - one of the consequences of sin entering the world is the discord between men and women, and the domination of women by men. It is not because God created it to be that way "from the beginning". God took a rib from Adam's side to form woman - not a bone from his foot or from his pinky, something beneath or peripheral to man. From his SIDE - because man and woman were designed to be complementary equals in the eyes of God. "Wives, be subordinate to your husbands as to Christ..." Key word is "AS". How are we subordinate to Christ? As slaves? As property? No, as Christ told us himself - as his beloved, for whom he gives his life. Not all of Scripture is prescriptive (i.e., telling us how we should live). Some of it is DEscriptive - telling us how people have lived, with even the chosen people of God screwing things up time and again. The Catholic view is that Mary is the new Eve, Christ is the new Adam (as described by St. Paul), and therefore what was made impossible by sin is now possible in Christ. And that includes harmony and equality between the sexes, with our vocation being tied to our gender because that is part of who we are - not because women are to be lorded over by men. Equality does not mean sameness - we are different, and we rejoice in that, and that is where I part ways with modern feminism and all it defends and represents. But in the eyes of God I am my husband's equal. Of that I have no doubt.
Men and women are endangered species. Men are told that their masculinity is evil, that it is responsible for the woes of this world. Yet women are told to be as manly possible and to assume all roles that men once held, to think like men, to even dress like men, yet to demonize men. Our own Church too, in this century and the end of the last, falls prey to such sentiments. Feminism attacks the man, and it attacks the traditional woman. Feminism will never defeat man, of this I can promise you, because men are warriors, created by God to fight against these exact evils. But the traditional woman is soon to be extinct, unless man finds his masculinity again, and fights for her like God commands. Will our Church in this century stand idly by, and pay lip service to the traditional woman, as merely an option, and not a obligation? Or will She stand strong, condemning the evils, the sheer evils of feminism, of modernism, of liberalism, even in their most mitigated forms, and invoke the strength of man to stand up and save woman, once again, as all the great stories end. The only thing more disgusting then a female feminist who forsakes her true femininity, her responsibilities prescribed by God, is a male feminist who forsakes his masculinity, who lays down his sword in the face of evil, cowering in fear of its disfigured image, retreating, retreating and allowing evil to triumph over good, when he could have given his life to save the world. Such a man is no man, but a coward! DO YOU REALLY FEAR WOMAN MORE THAN YOU FEAR GOD? WE ARE NOT CREATED TO RULE OURSELVES, BUT TO BE RULED BY GOD. MEN MUST ARISE! FIND THE STRENGTH IN YOUR SOUL TO FIGHT AGAINST THE EVILS OF THIS PRESENT AGE, TO FIGHT FOR OUR LORD, TO FIGHT FOR THE FIRST EVE, THE SECOND EVE, AND EVERY EVE FOR WHOM CHRIST COMMANDED YOU TO DIE! Do not the men of this world protect the species which are most at risk? Then of you I beg, protect the traditional woman - the real woman, the only actual woman.
Why is everything about women? What about men? This is the kind of thing that makes me want to explode. Even among Christians, when we fight for our traditional roles in society, we make appeals to women that are politically correct, and merely try to suggest that it is an acceptable option to chose to be a mother and a wife, rather than commanding the truth - that it is a responsibility. Pardon my language, but this is ridiculously stupid. When we talk to each other as Christians, the authority of scripture should be enough to make us submit to the ways of the Lord rather than the ways of the self. Read the Bible. Verse after verse you will see what women are, who they are, and what they are called to do. Start at page 1, and before you even finish the story of Adam and Eve you will have it spelled out for you when God tells Eve that her desire shall be for Adam and he shall be her master. I am getting sick and tired of this politically correct nonsense that has run amok even within the walls of our own Catholic Church since the days of Pope John Paul II. There are dozens of passages throughout the bible that echo this commandment from God to woman, across both the Old and New Testaments. John Paul II, as great as he was, turned a blind eye to these in favour of political correctness, as to not offend any female in his audience. Time to go back to the way God designed it, before man destroyed it, to restore truth to the family. America, do we really fear woman more than we fear God? Catholic Online, how about you write about men once in awhile, without saying they are brutes or brash or ill-tempered, etc. Men are warriors, defenders, providers, they are the leaders. God gave us his Son. Christ appointed 12 men to be his apostles. God appointed husbands to lead wives. He did not appoint wives to lead themselves, or to lead their husbands. This is said over, and over, and over, and over again in scripture. We can't throw it out simply because modernity says to throw it out! As for men, what does it mean to be a leader? Is America so against authority and hierarchy that it equates all leadership with tyranny? Laughable I say. A true leader does not have his subordinates serve him, rather he serves his subordinates. But in order to do so, his subordinates must submit to his authority. It is the role of man, not woman, to lead, and it is the role that Christ Himself fulfilled. Christ was the model leader, serving His Church, providing for His Church, leading His Church, dying for His Church. In return, We all submit to him.
Women are God's co-creators.
Great article! Both men and women need to spend more time discovering our dignity and vocation...our true nature.