The Wisdom of Mrs. Fischer

Oh boy oh boy oh boy do I love Simcha Fishcer. She blogs. She writes for the National Catholic Register. She raises a troupe of kids. She wears pants. I'd like to give some sort of caveat, like: "I don't always agree with her, but I find her compelling" but the truth is, I usually do agree with her, and don't find her compelling, I find her hilarious and filled with common sense. Like:

+ Also, some men never think twice about marriage or babies until they find themselves 90% of the way there with the right woman—and then they step up and amaze everyone. So what you see when you’re dating is not necessarily exactly the same as what you’ll get when you’re married. And man and women grow and improve during the life of a marriage, too. The truth is, it’s kind of a crap shoot. We can make reasonable choices, but much about relationships is unpredictable... --Should I Marry Him

+ "I’m not, as I mentioned, especially hung up on men opening doors, specifically. But the idea that men do some special things for women, and women do some special things for men—sounds like a plan to make life tolerable." --The Art of Getting Hysterical About Gender


+ "Poverty saves you from foolish expenditures (unless you’re foolish enough to go into debt over things you don’t need): never once have we tasted the bitterness of buyer’s remorse as we survey the bill for the wrong kind of premium cell phone, useless time share condo, regrettable L-shaped leather couch in sea foam green, or one of those luxury alligators. Thanks, poverty!" --The Blessings of Poverty

+ "Only people with a mental illness would truly believe that you can achieve anything. People who actually get things done are the people who look at themselves and say, “Okey-doke. There are some things I’m good at, and many thousands more things that I am and always will be utterly unqualified to do. Starting tomorrow, my job is do the least amount of thrashing around and wasting of my parent’s tuition money as possible, while I figure out the difference between my very few strengths and my billions of weaknesses.

"'Then, I need to figure out if there’s any possible way I can do what it turns out I’m good at, and also be a decent human being. If possible, it would be wonderful if the things I’m good at, and which allow me to be decent, are also things which will earn me a salary.'

"And after you have that conversation with yourself, and preferably after you come up with a better plan than scrawling “FIX LIFE” on your memo pad, then you can go out drinking with your buddies.

"Because here’s the deal, you poor deluded masses of inchoate ambition: Freedom is for something." --My Dear Graduates

And don't miss a jewel of a piece, which is so fitting for us at TMS, What is a Catholic Feminist?

Linkfest

I've got a whole pile of links waiting to be posted, so here you go:

Neat analysis of the first of Titian's famous Noli Me Tangere (above) paintings shows that originally Christ was dressed as a gardener, and his back was turned to Magdalene. Read more here.

It was once looked down upon to have a career. Then it was bad to not have a career and have lots of kids. What are we supposed to think anymore? Virginia Postrel discusses this in the WSJ. Related: Is the male-female wage gap a myth? (via First Things)

We've quoted and discussed much of Kay Hynowitz's work before. Here's a interesting interview from earlier this spring about her controversial new book Manning Up: How the Rise of Women Turned Men into Boys. Related: Read her WSJ excerpt from the book.

Don't blame Ambercrombie if your girls dressing sluttily. The blame starts with the parents who fund them. So argues Pia de Solenni. And while I tend to agree, I don't think they really account enough for the profound influence of advertising and peer pressure. Related: One-third of clothes marketed to young girls are "sexy" according to a Kenyon College Study (via The Atlantic).

Since we've all been a bridesmaid way way way too many times, I wanted to suggest to you ladies this cool new service from bridesmaid company Dessy. Called New Maid you can send in your old bridesmaid dresses, and they will give you a coupon for 30% to 50% off one of their lovely LBDs. Which you really can wear again.

James Matthew Wilson has some thoughts on college administrations counseling students to live chastely.

And, after all that heavy stuff, here's a little fun via the webcomic xkcd:

Clearing the Desk Linkfest

Sorry for my extreme silence on the blog. Life has been busy. But I've piled up a big list of links to share with you all, and am finally together enough to post them. I am so glad Julian brought up the Kay Hymowitz article, and will write my thoughts about it shortly. But I wanted to clear the decks first of all these piled up links. The final 3 have something to do with the Hymowitz article, too.

NOBODY GETS MARRIED ANYMORE by Gerry Garibaldi, City Journal:

Here’s my prediction: the money, the reforms, the gleaming porcelain, the hopeful rhetoric about saving our children—all of it will have a limited impact, at best, on most city schoolchildren. Urban teachers face an intractable problem, one that we cannot spend or even teach our way out of: teen pregnancy. This year, all of my favorite girls are pregnant, four in all, future unwed mothers every one. There will be no innovation in this quarter, no race to the top. Personal moral accountability is the electrified rail that no politician wants to touch.

ZIONIST SECT MARRIES GAY MEN TO LESBIAN WOMAN, by Yair Ettinger, Haaretz via First Things:

Rabbis from the religious Zionist community have launched an initiative to marry gay men to lesbian women - with some surprising successes.

...Etti and Roni, both religious, were married five years ago. Though they were honest with each other about their sexual orientations from their first meeting, to the outside world, they portray themselves as a normal heterosexual couple. Today, they have two children, and are thrilled with the results.

"It's incredible," they wrote. "Six years ago, we didn't think we would ever be this happy. We thought everything was black, that we'd lost our chance of a normal life. But today, things are good for us. There are gaps, but that's true in every case. And we fill them with the great love we give to and receive from our children, and also enjoy the simple human love we give each other, such as any two people can give and receive."

SLACKING AS SELF DISCOVERY by Rita Koganzon in The New Atlantis:

Extrapolating primarily from the statistics on the increasing age of marriage and childbearing in the United States and refusing to lament them, Arnett argues forcefully that emerging adulthood is a positive development. Free from external constraints (and often supported financially by their parents), twentysomethings have the opportunity to try an array of temporary jobs, relationships, educational paths, and residences to find which of these are most to their preference. In winnowing down the options, they are also able to “find themselves,” a discovery that will serve them well as adults, assuming they ever decide to become adults. Armed with the self-knowledge gained from a decade of working at Starbucks, joining the Peace Corps, and sharing a basement studio in Brooklyn with four other emerging adults, those at the end of emerging adulthood will better make the family and career decisions they had been putting off, resulting in a future of greater life satisfaction and stability.

...If this all sounds a bit confused, fluffy, and New Agey, Robin Marantz Henig, the author of the Times Magazine piece, has Arnett’s studies and vague neuroscientific speculation about brain maturation to back it up. Emerging adulthood, she argues, isn’t merely a description of the way a narrow sliver of affluent and well-educated people are choosing to spend their twenties, but a seismic shift that will have political consequences.

THE POWERLESSNESS OF THE SINGLE WOMAN by Drs. J.R. Bruns and R.A. Richards II, in Psycology Today:

These same forbidden themes of women's desire for marriage and their frustrations with men and dating have been box office magic in recent "Chick Lit" movies like "Bridget Jones Diary " and "Sex In The City". Feelings of fear, powerlessness and alienation are safely released as long as it is in fiction or pictured on the silver screen.

It turns out that today's liberated women want to marry. The problem, as Whitehead points out, is that the social infrastructure that was designed to help young women meet marriageable men no longer exists. Once upon a time the American courtship rituals of the Senior Prom and sorority formals accomplished their task of getting young men and women paired off. That era disappeared along with platform shows, bell bottom pants and mood rings.

Since many women are pursuing marriage after they have left high school and college with their pool of available men, these single women must take on this chore by themselves. Instead of dating and mating with men they grew up with or at least shared classes with, many are now dating and mating with strangers.

This new system is tailor-made for the mirage man. He doesn't even have to promise young single women to go steady to achieve his short term goals. He either "hooks up" or is "joined at the hip." The "hook up" is friends with benefits, meaning sex without commitment. The other option is "joined at the hip", where a couple that doesn't know each other very well commits to a sexual relationship and spends all their time together. Neither hooking up or being joined at the hip leads to many strong relationships that can weather the storms of life...

SEX IS CHEAP by Mark Regnerus in Slate:

We keep hearing that young men are failing to adapt to contemporary life. Their financial prospects are impaired—earnings for 25- to 34-year-old men have fallen by 20 percent since 1971. Their college enrollment numbers trail women's: Only 43 percent of American undergraduates today are men. Last year, women made up the majority of the work force for the first time. And yet there is one area in which men are very much in charge: premarital heterosexual relationships.

When attractive women will still bed you, life for young men, even those who are floundering, just isn't so bad.

ON DATING NICE CATHOLIC GIRLS by Max Lindeman on Patheos:

I was approaching carved-wood status, though not quietly, when I met—really met—my first nice Catholic girl. It was at a vocational discernment retreat. I was standing on the monastery porch, peering through the French doors toward the living room, wondering whether I should bolt now and apologize later, or vice-versa. I heard tires on gravel. Turning, I saw a girl step out of a Honda wearing a tight pair of jeans. They were not, I hasten to add, skinny jeans; they were cut '80s-style, high at the waist.
When the girl faced me, I saw that her glasses, too, were cut in the style of the Reagan Revolution: square, in every sense. But her legs—timeless. Perhaps her ensemble seems to spell out a mixed message? Not for me. I read: I am beautiful, but either don't know, or don't care.

Why, you could be my vocation, I thought, as she skipped past me, smiling.

It's moments like this when I love the Church. The world condemns bolts of magical thinking as lunacy. The Church dignifies them as the beginning of discernment. In I went.

Motherhood in Modernity

Just to start off: I am not pregnant. But one day, once I find a good man and marry him, I most certainly hope to be. Many times over, God willing. I have been learning so much about the difficulty of raising children in today's society from my wonderful "mommy" friends. I have one friend who got pregnant as a teen-ager, married the child's father and now has 5 kids! God has graced their marriage abundantly. She is a rock star as far as I am concerned. She is raising them to be gentle to each other; she homeschools; she nurtures: again, she is a rock star! But she is also quite young (27-28ish) and takes a lot of slack from others, including other mothers! "Oh, you have your hands full!" (To which she quite appropriately replies, "Actually, I don't. Look (open palms). They are empty!") Or the "Are they all yours? But you are so young!"

Oh, the trials of modern motherhood! And often times, society certainly does not encourage those of us who want to be mothers. I remember reading in a woman's magazine some years ago an article about having children. There was a photo of a mother with several children at the beach. The mother was holding a baby in one arm and was watching over two other little ones as they played about in the splashing waves. Sounds idyllic, right? Well, it should have been, but the mother was overweight and billowing out of her bathing suit under the headline: HAVING BABIES MAKES YOU FAT. So much for encouragement, world! Thanks! (According to my mommy friends, baby weight does in fact come off.)

So, when a friend of mine sent me this disturbing recent story, my initial reaction was much like when I was forced to read Kate Chopin's The Awakening....barftastic. (And yes, I have certified that word!) This is the story of one Rahna Reiko Rizzuto, who is a mother of two and (was at one time) we can assume happily married. But here she is (at the video clip linked above) shamelessly promoting herself and her latest book about how she left her family after taking a fellowship to study in Japan and then realized "why she never really wanted to be a mother anyway." She then in the next breath states that her children are fine and normal...meaning that they presumably find it emotionally (not to mention morally!) acceptable not only that their mother has written a book detailing how being their mother stifled her, but then went on national television to say the same thing. But don't worry, the kids are fine.... Who is she kidding?

Ms. Rizzuto states that motherhood was just too "all-encompassing" and she left her two young children and husband of 20 years to go essentially find herself in Japan. After an eye roll, a head-shake, and a shriek of "Are you serious?" I decided to take her seriously. Perhaps she does bring up a valid point about women feeling pressure to maintain the perfect household at all times. Maybe such a fear is contrived. I don't know. But her Nietzschean garbly-gook about having to find what was best for her is very disturbing indeed, and I think it reflects some of the very real failings of our society today: the contraceptive mentality, the hook-up culture, etc. all point to one teaching: I am the only who matters. And this is very disturbing. Very disturbing indeed.

Then we have the equally disturbing celebrity gossip magazines touting about which Kardashian is going to have "a baby on her own" or the story about Nicole Kidman who just had a baby with surrogate. What is wrong with us? Are our babies just a cute accessory that we carry around to give the paparazzi something to snap at? And a surrogate? Not to mention that is Catholic Nicole Kidman who did this! For any of you readers who might be thinking about egg donation, implantation, or being a surrogate, I urge you to watch the documentary Eggsplotation about the latest form of exploiting women and children.

Stories like these always bring to mind the fundamental questions of what it means to be a woman, and particularly what it means to be a Catholic woman who is a witness to femininity in the world today. I think we have a particular vocation to love as Christ did: in giving of ourselves to others. If we, like the Ms. Rizzutos of the world, feel stifled and unable flourish in our individuality in giving of ourselves, then perhaps we are not giving in the first place. Perhaps we are just like the celebrities who use their children as accessories or a photo-op.

One of my favorite mom stories is a little passage in the Gospel of Matthew. It is the passage from Matthew chapter 8, verses 14 and 15. It is about Peter's mother-in-law who was sick with fever and Christ heals her. Immediately, she gets up and ministers to them. And this is NOT stifling to her individuality nor insulting to her femininity. It is the perfect expression of what we are called to do: serve the Lord and others in the Lord, starting with the members of our own families. Let's pray especially that some of our more confused sisters will recognize this feminine privilege!

Photo Credit

On Dating, "Frenemies," and 40 Days for Life

So, I have decided. Even though I certainly continue to pray for my future husband, whenever I should meet him, I simply don't have time for dating right now. I had three parking tickets in a week and almost burned my house down because I was so tired that I passed out while cooking something on the stove. My life is so busy going between three cities, that I decided dating is not an option - who has time to foster a romantic relationship when I cannot even remember to pay my parking meter. Not Edith.

However, I have been working to foster female friendships. I think these are such important relationships for us as single women. Say what you will about Margaret Mead, but I just heard a quote from her that hit the nail on the head: "There is a special place in hell for a woman who won't help another woman." And I think she is right. That is why this whole concept of "frenemies" makes 0% sense to me. To those of you who don't know, a "frenemy" is someone who acts like your friend, but secretly hates you behind your back. You can read about the phenomenon here (warning: since the whole entire thing is kind of trashy, don't be alarmed that this article is linked to Cosmopolitan magazine - one of its editors wrote the book).

Let me explain. I have been reading from Wendy Shalit's Girls Gone Mild wherein she discusses the importance of fostering a woman's authentic sense of self. This authentic sense of self is warped, according to Shalit, when women are forced to take the "bad girl" oversexualized persona that is so jammed into our brains in this culture: think Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Kesha, Rihanna. Each one of these pop singers has one thing in common: sex. That is how they define their music, and that is what is incessantly blaring out of our radios.

I mean - I am going to go on a bit of a rant here - Rihanna's latest song is about how she loves Sado-masochism. Rihanna has a song where she belts out that she wants her lover to make her feel like she is the only girl in the world, the one who is in control, and the only one who makes her one night stand feel like a man. Through out the song, you get the sense that while she is desperately begging her lover to make her feel like the only person in the world who matters, when she wakes up the next morning, the feeling will be gone. And, just in case you were in any doubt, it will be gone in the morning - and he will too. Do I even need to talk about the others?

But, I digress. The point at hand was to explain why the concept of the "Frenemy" a. makes no sense to me and b. is linked to rampant promiscuity in women. You see, when a woman treats herself as a sex object, she actually becomes more shallow, less confident, and becomes obsessed with pleasing men. That is why many modern womens' magazines revolve around fashion, make-up, and sex - because really, if all you are is an object, what is left to talk about anyway? When women are encouraged to be sexual objects, they not only lose the ability to appreciate the goodness in men (they become jaded and lose hope in finding true love), they also lose the ability to bond with one another and see one another as sexual competitors. Hence, they become "frenemies." Scary world indeed.

As single women, I think we have a responsibility to foster authentic friendships with one another - the kind of friendship that builds a person up, that encourages gifts, talents, strengths, and yes - the kind of friendship that is genuinely happy when a friend accomplishes something awesome and when a friend finds a good man. In this way, we can help to build a civilization of love that respects the life of every person.

This Lent, I am observing the 40 Days for Life in Chicago. It is my hope to build friendships through this prayer and fasting campaign. I hope to build a better friendship with Christ as I discern my vocation and to foster friendships with all my fellow sojourners - both male and female. I believe that by fostering authentic human relationships, we can, by the grace of God, change people hearts about abortion. We are not frenemies. No, indeed we are not. We are called to love, as St. Paul tells us in Romans 12: "Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves."

Feminists for Life

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending a lecture where Serrin Foster, President of Feminists for Life was speaking, and I then had the honor of speaking with her in a more intimate setting over dinner with some other university students. It was awesome! Her talk centered around the theme that feminist philosophy is simply incompatible with the practice of abortion. Sound crazy? Yes, it does, because contemporary feminists - those of the second and third waves of feminism fixated on 'reproductive' rights and 'control' over their 'destinies' by controlling their bodies.

Well, perhaps this is some truth to this. After all, no woman should be subjected to being a sexual object or to having her body used in inappropriate ways by a man - even if it is her husband. But also, she should not allow herself to treat her body inappropriately. Feminists for Life argue that abortion is the most tragically inappropriate treatment of a woman. They believe that it simply goes against what the first feminists sought to establish, viz. equality for all. After all, some of the first feminists, such as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were abolitionists who sought out justice for those enslaved because of their race and for those discriminated against because they were women. And both women (as well as many others) felt abortion was not the solution to the discrimination of women in society.

Susan B. Anthony in her publication entitled Revolution stated about abortion: “I deplore the horrible crime of child murder … We want prevention, not merely punishment." (taken from here) This quote encapsulates the philosophy behind Feminists for Life - to seek preventative measures so that women do not feel pressured to have an abortion. One of their major activities is to establish resources for pregnant women on college campuses. They even work together with pro-choice groups to attain these ends! Read their story about what they did at Georgetown University here. This group is doing what I want to do: giving women other choices, so they don't feel like abortion is their only option. Pray for me as I seek out a way of living out this vocation too! We all are called to help one another, especially because we all deserve better than abortion.

Blasted Nature

You know that song "I Enjoy Being a Girl" Here it is just in case:
I pretty much feel this way sans the seductive looks and dancing in lingerie, but give me pink, frills, poofs, and curls any day!

But other days, I just want to be a metaphysical rebel - like rebel against the very metaphysics of being a woman. Seriously - why do I have to be hung up on the feeling of being loved and loving someone else? Women, I believe, experience this in a way totally different from men. I believe that our desire to be loved by that "brave and free male" that our lovely lady above sings about is so utterly and metaphysically female. And I hate/love it! I hate it because of my previous experiences this year, as you might guess. I hate not being able to shut off my emotions sometimes and I just want to rebel.

Does anyone else feel a little split like me, or am I just one of the crazies? Probably the latter....So perhaps you might be able to give me some suggestions!

Radical Feminism + Motherhood

This article, written by Rebecca Walker, the daughter of feminist writier and author of The Color Purple, Alice Walker, is a real eye-opener.

"How my mother's fanatical feminist views tore us apart" tells of Rebecca Walkers joy in having a son, her mothers hateful dismissal of her grandson, and the backwards childhood of the daughter of a feminist icon. It is fascinating, hard, sad, and revealing:

But the truth was I was very lonely and, with my mother's knowledge, started having sex at 13. I guess it was a relief for my mother as it meant I was less demanding. And she felt that being sexually active was empowering for me because it meant I was in control of my body.

Now I simply cannot understand how she could have been so permissive. I barely want my son to leave the house on a play-date, let alone start sleeping around while barely out of junior school.

A good mother is attentive, sets boundaries and makes the world safe for her child. But my mother did none of those things.

Although I was on the Pill - something I had arranged at 13, visiting the doctor with my best friend - I fell pregnant at 14. I organised an abortion myself. Now I shudder at the memory. I was only a little girl. I don't remember my mother being shocked or upset.

...I know many women are shocked by my views. They expect the daughter of Alice Walker to deliver a very different message. Yes, feminism has undoubtedly given women opportunities. It's helped open the doors for us at schools, universities and in the workplace. But what about the problems it's caused for my contemporaries?

...The ease with which people can get divorced these days doesn't take into account the toll on children. That's all part of the unfinished business of feminism.

Wow. Read it all here. (HT: TMS reader Paul)

Have You Found Your Ideal....

Not, I don’t mean the ideal man. But of course, there’s that too. What I mean is the ideal woman’s magazine. I’ve been reading lots of magazines lately when I want a study break, and I just find myself having to read lots of different ones (which is not so bad, after all) to get what I crave: a mixture of faith, fashion, cooking, and all things feminine genius. Let me give you a rundown: I love Real Simple - great recipes, has fashion, beauty, home décor, all the stuff we ladies love. But what does it lack? Serious intellectual discourse. For that I turn to First Things, an intellectual journal - not a woman’s magazine. Then there’s Oprah’s magazine, which I admit, I did look through for her amazing give-aways - I mean, who does not want to enter a chance to win a $5,000 shopping spree to Ann Taylor or a nine day all expenses paid tour of Israel? Yes, those are actual give-aways. But the magazine always includes some snide remark about the Catholic Church - whether it be on the Church’s “outdated” stance on birth control or some story about “Pope Joan” and that alone is enough to repel me.

Then I found Martha Stewart’s magazine called Whole Living (it used to be called Body+Soul) and I really like it - it depicts all kinds of creative ways for green living, natural eating, and health lifestyles. However, it absolutely touts a New Age approach, complete with marking the Dali Lama’s birthday and depicting which yoga moves will put you in touch with the divine goddess in you. Ugh. And who does not love InStyle? All about style - no tips on sex tricks like almost all other fashion magazines. However, even InStyle includes ads that depict over sexualized, scantily clad models for a designer selling jeans or handbags. Or how about those ads for sterility drugs and birth control? I am so sick of seeing glossy ads that depict young, happy, healthy women for birth control ads, giving out the message that “if-you-use-our-drug-you-will-happy-and-free-and-all-your-dreams-will-come-true-you-can-even-be-a-princess!” Yes, unfortunately, those ads are in ALL women’s magazines.

Then I saw one on the market for Protestant women that includes daily Scripture verses, recipes, home décor, beauty, and lots of fluffy sermons from prominent Protestant ministers. That got me thinking: What we need is a Catholic woman’s magazine: one that shows true beauty, modestly, includes recipes, home decorating tips, beauty tips, but had no birth control or sterility drug ads, no New Age - no trash. It would include articles on theology and perhaps some essays on contemporary issues from our perspective. Why don’t we have such a magazine? And moreover, would you read it if I started such a thing - cause I am pretty tempted!!!

Woman in Iran Condemned to Death...by Stoning

CNN posted this news story a couple days ago about a 42-year-old mother of two who has been condemned to death of an alleged adultery. Five years ago, she received a punishment of 99 lashes for this 'crime.' It is unclear that she is guilty, but as far as Iranian officials are concerned, she has been re-arrested, jailed, and condemned to death by stoning. She will buried to to her waist and stoned with rocks big enough to cause pain, but not large enough to kill her immediately.



If you want a very raw look at this punishment, check out the film The Stoning of Soraya M, based on a true story from the 1980's. Soraya was a mother of 4 and her husband decided he wanted to divorce to marry a 14-year-old girl with a rich family. Soraya refuses the divorce and her husband successfully convinces the men of the town (through blackmail) to find her 'guilty' of adultery and stones her. After the stoning, the husband decides he does not want to marry the young girl anymore. The film is based on a book written by journalist Freidoune Sahebajm. Yes ladies, this still happens and it WILL continue to happen. Let's all get on our knees in intercession for this woman and so that the scales will fall from their eyes to the evil of death by stoning.

"Lady" Gaga

Even the name is confusing. A lady? Seemingly far from it. Gaga? A reference to baby language or men's ogling eyes? Just what does this 23-year-old think of herself? And is America really paying attention?

In the piece that I shared with the Magdalene sisters, several points have emerged that I think are worth thinking about as modern, Catholic women (and by the way, Edith, the beats at the very least are helpful in cardio workouts, so I think you can cut yourself some slack).

1. In a postlapsarian world, women use sex (or at least their "wiles") to manipulate men to get what it is that they want. This sin is not new, ladies and gentlemen. Gaga has not invented it. Here I disagree with the author:

The genius of Gaga is to make it seem obvious — more so than even Madonna once did — that feminine sexuality is the perfect shucking knife. And Gaga is explicit in her insistence that, since feminine sexuality is a social construct, anyone, even a man who’s willing to buck gender norms, can wield it.

What is rather shocking to me, though, is the explicit, grandiose, and very "in-your-face" manner in which Lady Gaga is using her sexuality (and oftentimes a violent sexuality) to assert power, self-expression, and liberation from any cultural stereotypes of a woman. I think we have arrived at a place where even her actions are not as shocking to us as they should be. We are becoming comatose in the face of such wild sexual escapades. What will happen when our children think these images are normal to see and experience? What will happen if men (even good, Catholic ones) continue to expect rather extreme behavior in the bedroom to be turned on? What will happen when my young, female students think it is normal to hum, "I want your horror/I want your disease/I want your everything as long as it's free" at a younger and younger age?

2. A Catholic feminist must know that Simone de Beauvoir does not offer the answer for the liberation of women from being objectified by men.

The goal of “The Second Sex” is to get women, and men, to crave freedom — social, political and psychological — more than the precarious kind of happiness that an unjust world intermittently begrudges to the people who play by its rules. Beauvoir warned that you can’t just will yourself to be free, that is, to abjure relentlessly the temptations to want only what the world wants you to want. For her the job of the philosopher, at least as much as the fiction writer, is to re-describe how things are in a way that competes with the status quo story and leaves us craving social justice and the truly wide berth for self-expression that only it can provide.

No, Nancy. Men aren't going to objectify women an less if we throw out a "age-old" norms of what it means to be a woman. I think lumping sexual gratification of men into the same category of other "gender norms" is a mistake. De Beauvoir not only "re-defines" femininity, but she says that femininity is not even a reality. However, there are some realities to femininity that can't be dismissed, or redefined, or relegated to social conventions. Instead, they should be celebrated by women. The gifts we have are actually very powerful, and can be used very powerfully for the good. The problem, as I see it, is that Simone de Beauvoir and Lady Gaga both fail to escape becoming objectified by men. Both are on a quest to move beyond stereotypes and to break from from what they find to be oppressing. The problem, though, is that what is oppressing them both is a failure to see their value precisely in their creation as women -- ladies, even. To be a lady is a privilege and a responsibility, and it requires more guts, more confidence, and more self-respect than what is being offered today by pop star or philosopher alike.

Today's Feminism: Grappling with Gaga or Going Gaga?

Well, I could never have anticipated the day that the Magdalene sisters would post about Lady Gaga. But Julian brought this interesting NYT piece on Lady Gaga's rather, well, bizarre brand of feminism to our attention. Now, I'll admit (even if I loathe to do so), two of her songs have grown on me. In some bizarre way, I feel that I can relate to her song "Bad Romance" given my past experience, which was not a good one. And I love dancing to her "Telephone" in my Zumba class (which, by the way, I have found extremely therapeutic - Zumba, that is, not Lady Gaga). Yes, be shocked. I, Edith Magdalene, just admitted to liking two Lady Gaga songs and even relating to one of them. Trust me, no one is more shocked about that than yours truly. And at the same time, I am utterly repulsed by her vagrant sexuality, horrific outfits, and slight meglomania. (Oh, wait. Can meglomania be slight? Perhaps nothing ending in 'mania' can ever be slight...)

And yet, Tufts Professor Nancy Bauer and many others (not least of all, Lady Gaga herself) consider her a cultural icon, taking modern feminism to whole new level. Just consider the most recent edition of Rolling Stone magazine. Lady Gaga is scantily clad, with the most prominent piece of clothing she dons being a bra with two, um, assault rifles attached. What kind of message of female empowerment does something like that send? It makes those bra burning feminist of old look peaceful. I've also read that Lady Gaga is working with scientist to acquire corpses to put on state at a show next year. That makes Madonna look quite tame.

In her NYT article, Nancy Bauer uses Gaga's wackiness to describe the feminism of today's young women, who are perhaps suffering from the "Lady Gaga Syndrome". On one hand, today's young women have everything they could ever want. According to Bauer, they excel academically and fill the highest level university classes. On the other hand, after class, these same girls go home, put on the scantiest outfit they can find and go out for a night of sexual exploits (where they are usually the ones who are exploited). As Bauer puts it: "Is this an expression of . . . strength as a woman or an exercise in self-objectification?" Here's what else she has to say:

Lady Gaga idealizes this way of being in the world. But real young women, who, as has been well documented, are pressured to make themselves into boy toys at younger and younger ages, feel torn. They tell themselves a Gaga-esque story about what they’re doing. When they’re on their knees in front of a worked-up guy they just met at a party, they genuinely do feel powerful — sadistic, even. After all, though they don’t stand up and walk away, they in principle could. But the morning after, students routinely tell me, they are vulnerable to what I’ve come to call the “hook-up hangover.” They’ll see the guy in the quad and cringe. Or they’ll find themselves wishing in vain for more — if not for a prince (or a vampire, maybe) to sweep them off their feet, at least for the guy actually to have programmed their number into his cell phone the night before. When the text doesn’t come, it’s off to the next party.

What’s going on here? Women of my generation — I have a Gaga-savvy daughter home for the summer from her first year of college — have been scratching our heads. When we hear our daughters tell us that in between taking A.P. Statistics and fronting your own band you may be expected to perform a few oral sexual feats, we can’t believe it. Some critics of “hook-up culture” have suggested, more or less moralistically, that the problem is that all this casual sex is going to mess with girls’ heads. But whatever you think of casual sex, it’s not new. What’s mind-boggling is how girls are able to understand engaging in it, especially when it’s unidirectional, as a form of power.

I think even Carrie Bradshaw cannot compete with this. And it is really, really, scary. Even Bauer, who's quite liberal, sees that today's young women are consciously choosing exploitation and self-objectification as a form of female empowerment. The Lady Gaga Syndrome is even more destructive than Carrie Bradshaw et al. Thoughts?

"The Horror, The Horror"

So reads one review of the Sex and the City 2, according to this NYT article. I admit it, readers. I saw the first movie. I never really did follow the series, but I did catch a few episodes here and there. I think the whole thing is a travesty and that Carrie Bradshaw et al. are emblematic of what is wrong with women today.

I won't see this one, but reading about it makes me want to - well - SCREAM! From a gay marriage scene to dirty one liners that are absolutely unrepeatable to the whiny, bored with Mr. Big Carrie Bradshaw - I cannot imagine anything more tortuous. When I see women running out to see this on opening night, I cannot help but wonder - what is wrong with us ladies???

A Feminism for Generations Y and Z

Just last week I began to introduce my sophomores to some of JPII's "new feminism." We've been exploring the role of the laity in the Church and their specific calling to holiness. The holiness of the lay person doesn't look like the holiness of the priest or the religious insofar as the means to achieving sanctity are quite different. I watched quite a few girls have "a-ha" moments when they realized that they could grow in sanctity precisely by being virtuous students, friends, daughters and siblings.

I figured that I could smoothly transition into growing in holiness through femininity, since all of my students are female. So far, not so good! I've noticed a few trends in their answers, which seems to indicate that they need to be exposed to very different images at any earlier age than they have been.

Many of my students are convinced that gender is something that is relative, subjective, and conditioned. While they are willing to recognize biological differences between men and women, they do not, for their lives, want to associate biology with gender. They don't want to name anything essential to masculinity or femininity. I think this still stems from a fear of being pigeon-holed into pursuing certain careers or having limitations put on their dreams.

Now, it's really difficult for me to teach the anthropology and philosophy of John Paul II, Edith Stein, and Benedict XVI (another blog post on his writings on femininity is forthcoming!) to fifteen-year-olds. They can't yet think abstractly enough, and their experiences are still limited.

Has anyone attempted to break this down for this age group and been successful? Any thoughts on a helpful approach to helping young woman see their femininity as a privilege, opportunity, and blessed responsibility?

Bronte Sisters Power Dolls

Women and the Church

True to my promise in a post from couple weeks ago AND in reply to our commentator Anthony from my What Would Mary Do? post, I want to revisit the theme of femininity and masculinity particularly as they pertain to roles in the Church.

First let me propose Anthony's challenge to me in the aforementioned post:

So if I am reading this correctly, you are saying that women are NOT equal to men and are not WORTHY to lead the lay people in their faith in the way that men are?? You mention that feminists would be opposed to what Lisa Miller said, but I'm pretty darn sure Miller herself is a feminist, and I can't think of a single feminist who in her right mind wouldn't agree with Miller.

Can I just say, Thank you, Anthony for bringing up this intriguing critique. You beg the burning question: Are men and women equal? Are the equally worthy to lead the Church? To at least that first question, I would emphatically answer YES, men and women are indeed equal in dignity before the Lord and very much equally human. I think that second part of the question is where I, and perhaps other women who are feminists of my thinking might have some issues. Let me explain.

Last year, Julian wrote a post summarizing a common interpretation of the feminist movement that posits four distinct waves of feminist thought. I won't go into too much detail about them here, but I will say that with few exceptions, I can say that the first two waves of feminism promoting women's suffrage, property rights, and equal protection under the law, are entirely acceptable to me. The problem is with that messy 'third wave,' which took a rather radical turn and, as far as I can tell, is internally contradicting itself. This third wave of feminism claims men and women are equal - equal rights for equal pay. Yes, I am on board there, of course, as long as equal work is really being done. But, then it goes on - Equal everything, women are just like men, we can do all things men can do without exception, etc. And yes, the abortion rights - absolute control of sexuality, birth control, sexual liberation, the "right" to have sex like a man - etc.

Here is where I find myself scratching my head and bewildered. Men and women are of course equal in many ways, but they are well...different, aren't they? So, should they be forced to do all things the way men do them? Well, you can think of some scenarios where that is probably not optimal. For example, friends in the military have told me that when a woman gets shot in military duty, it lowers morale of the troops significantly more than when a man gets shot. While that is anecdotal evidence, I think can we understand that, right. There's just something different about a woman being wounded than a man. In terms of sexuality - is a woman capable of 'having sex like a man' (Carrie Bradshaw's opening question in the Sex and the City series) or of being 'sexually liberated?' What does that really mean? Well, we can look at the fruits of it: increase in STD's,increase in divorces and unfaithful marriages, increase in teenage pregnancies, increase in abortion, low birth rates, etc. That does not seem to be liberating to either men or women, it seems to have merely enslaved us all our sexual appetites. I'd love to hear some other perspectives on my assertions here.

Now, what about women in the Church? After all, that is what Lisa Miller was writing about in her Newsweek article. Why should not women be priests? After all, I have asserted that we are equal in dignity before the Lord and equal before the law. Why shouldn't they be equally allowed to be priests (or priestesses). Here, I'd like to refer to my beloved namesake, Edith Stein, from her Essays on Woman. Regarding priesthood for women, she writes:

If we consider the attitude of the Lord Himself, we understand that He accepted the free loving services of women for Himself and His Apostles and that women were among His disciples and most intimate confidants. Yet He did not grant them the priesthood, not even to His mother, Queen of Apostles, who was exalted above all humanity in human perfection and fullness of grace.... It seems to me that such an implementation [of women priesthood] by the Church, until now unheard of, cannot be forbidden by dogma.

However...the whole tradition speaks against it from the beginning. But even more significant in my opinion is the mysterious fact emphasized earlier-that Christ came as the Son of Man.... Yet He bound Himself so intimately to one woman as to no other on earth; He formed her so closely after His own image as no other human being before or after; He gave her a place in the Church for all eternity as has been given to no other human being. And just so, He has called women in all times to the most intimate union with Him: they are to be emissaries of His love, proclaimers of His will to kings and popes, and forerunners of His Kingdom in the hearts of men. To be the Spouse of Christ is the most sublime vocation which has been given, and who ever sees this way open before her will yearn for no other way. pp. 83-84

I hope, commentator Anthony, this begins to explain my position in the previous post on feminism.

To explain a man's view, I found this article from Inside Catholic particularly poignant. I'll give you a taste and hope you'll read the whole article (and I might write more on this later because I find it fascinating.)
The author asserts,

We may yet have a male-only clergy and hierarchy, but where the rubber meets the road -- in those mundane areas of church life where laity and institution most commonly interact -- the flavor is feminine. Whether you want to speak in terms of liturgy, ministry (lay and clerical), religious education, or sheer congregational numbers, official ecclesial power may not rest in the hands of women, but considerable unofficial influence clearly does, and has for some time. And we in the Church have been subject to its effects.

Not all these effects, as we shall see, have been bad. But one of the worst has been a subjugation of traditional masculine virtue: the concept of distinctly and properly manly Catholicism repressed, stigmatized, covered up, or otherwise forgotten for lack of practice. And the more "feminized" Catholicism thus became -- the more its pews became recognized as the province of wives, children, and the effete -- the more likely were men and their post-pubescent sons to stay away. All of this is making today's Church, according to Leon Podles, author of The Church Impotent, "essentially a women's club with some male officers."

The author brings up a point not often meditated upon: overly-feminized leadership in the Church keeps the men away from it. Sometimes we women can be so indignant about what we perceive to be grievances against femininity, that we forget that what we do as women, and especially as women within the Body of Christ, has a profound effect on men.

Photo found here.

The Glass Ceiling

I want to share with you a fascinating article from Jezebel Online Magazine. Do you read Jezebel? I'd encourage you all to do so. There's a lot of crap, I'll grant, and a lot of stuff I find very wrong-headed, but it certainly has its finger on the pulse of modern women. Modern secular women, that is. Anyway, in this article author Latoya Peterson discusses many recent articles that look at the lack of women in executive roles on Wall Street and in the business world.

It's an interesting article, and worth perusing; it puts the blame on culture which I think is fair, but not nuanced enough. Yes, our culture still hasn't figured out that balance between equality for women in the workplace and encouraging our natural inclinations towards motherhood. But it's not an either or question: it's a both and answer.

That is: women of equal merit should have no barriers to earning the same salary, to obtaining the same positions, etc. as men do. But, society also ought to support the choice to be a mother. Nor should it put motherhood in opposition to careers (and both sides do this!) This is a huge problem, and one I hope to start discussing more on the blog because, as a young women who doesn't have motherhood in her immediate future, and is trying to make a life for herself (and that necessarily means a career), I do have to grapple with these questions, and often.

But I don't have an answer today. But its something I want to begin discussing pretty regularly on the blog. In the meantime, lets roll up our sleeves and get to work.

UPDATE: Sorry gals, here's the article.


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Speaking of women in the workplace--though the FOX show House, M.D. is almost totally unrealistic--one could do worse than modelling oneself after Dr. Cutty, Dean of Medicine, and an all around tough-as-nails-won't-get-pushed-around administrator, and yet still has the heart of a women. In a recent episode, they showed the whole day from her perspective. "5 tom 9" was the best episode of this season, and a real treat to watch:

Abortion Postscript

Here is a great article I came across on the abortion debate and the need to understand where women are coming from on all sides and what we can really do to free ourselves and other women illusions about sex and babies.

Carrie Bradshaw and the Feminists

I didn’t really tune into Sex in the City until it was in syndication on TBS. I’m glad too, because I can’t stomach the vulgarity of the full HBO series. TBS’s edits made the show much more palatable to me.

All the same, I followed news of the show while it was running. It fascinated me because a) it had captivated several generations of female viewers and therefore seemed to have its finger on something we yearn for; b) as a TV series it had the time to dive into the characters and show whether these four very different women really could have it all; and c) well…I did love the clothes.

When I started watching the show, I was intrigued. It was daring, carefree, and women centered in a way no other show had been before—and no show has really been since. And it did try to broach significant issues for women—affairs of the heart as well as of modern culture, connectedness, etc. But time and again Carrie picks the selfish route, the writers used Sex as shorthand for a genuine relationship, and I got tired of all those crop tops SJP wore. And while in the final episodes we see four women who are coming to terms with their lives (3 of whom living selflessly—for their families, their children, or in Samantha’s case, learning to depend on another—the movie took that all away and turned what little power there was in the series into commercialism and shoe porn.

Because pop-culture often breeds strange bed fellows, I was fascinated to learn that many feminists are also rejecting the ideal Carrie Bradshaw has to offer. Via First Things, I learn that: “even the feminists who paved the route on which Carrie Brandshaw treads in her Manolo Blahniks are growing disturbed by the consequences of the sexual revolution. A veritable cottage industry of books and articles is now being produced by Friedanesque, first wave feminists, wringing their hands over what their movement has devolved into.”

One such writer is Cassandra Jardine of UK’s Daily Telegraph, who says:

Walter, for those not up to speed on the feminist canon – and who is, these days? – wrote The New Feminism, published in 1998, which delighted in the progress that had been made towards an equal society. ''Here's feminism as phoenix, as blazing torch lighting the way to a new century,'' wrote Michele Roberts in a breathlessly enthusiastic review. Now all that optimism has turned to dust. Living Dolls analyses the increasing sexualisation of feminity and the extent to which young women are led to believe that their bodies are their only passport to success.

Far from relations between the sexes flourishing emotionally and physically, against a backdrop of mutual respect, understanding and equality, a generation of young girls is interpreting liberation as the right to behave like top-shelf models. These women, interviewed by Walter, are also committed to no-strings sex, celebrating one-night stands as notches on their designer handbags. For them, STDs are almost a badge of honour, eating disorders commonplace and men who talk of love and commitment are sneered at for "going soppy"

What eventually turned me off Sex and the City was the fact that ultimately the lives these women lead are selfserving and unfulfilling, because they are centered on personal pleasure and desire--especially Carrie, who tried to be introspective and ended up being whiny.

It is fascinating to me that feminists are disappointed in the same way. Do you get the same feeling? Have you read anything similar? Discuss!

The Feminine Countdown

I am a sucker for end-of-the-year countdowns. Seriously, give me any list of things in countdown from the previous year, and I'm content. A major guilty pleasure!

This year, many people are not only thinking back over the year but over the past decade. Can you believe the first ten years of the 2000's are behind us? I thought it might be fun to think back over these years and to think about how my experience of my own femininity has changed.

When the decade began, I was halfway through my high school years. Ah, those were interesting times. I was really driven and putting a whole lot of pressure on myself. Beauty consisted in watching everything I ate so that I was rail thin, and I would have given anything for my crushes to think of me as more than the nice girl or the smart girl. Miraculously, I emerged from those years as a poised 18-year-old, confident that the next four years of my life would be life-changing. And were they ever.

My college experience is something that I will be thanking the Lord for for years to come. It was there that I first treasured my filial relationship with God as my Father, where I encountered lifelong friends who were also aware of their faith journeys, where I met several men who formed my heart, where I studied the deep truths of history and of my faith, and where I was surrounded by nurturing professors and peers. I entered a teenager and emerged a young woman. Before I entered college, my mother told me that the years between 18-22 are extremely formative for a woman's heart. She was right. But while her college experience ended with a marriage to my father, my heart was to be formed in many more ways in the years that followed.

In the next four years to round out the decade, I have learned vital lessons and been formed as a single twentysomething out in the "real world." The first two years after college I spent in graduate school. These years I met some of my favorite friends, including Agatha, but they were actually very lonely years. I went from an environment where I was thriving socially to an environment in which I was studying nearly all of the time. My best friends lived far away, my mother couldn't really understand what it was like for a woman to leave college and to be single, and my dearest friends of this time were all married. I think I went on a total of 3 or 4 dates in 2 years. It was me and God, all of the time, and boy, did I wrestle with Him. Oh man, it was a tough, although certainly rewarding and formative time.

And now, I'm learning what it means to be feminine as a teacher and a "spiritual mother" to teenagers in an all-girls high school. I am learning through dating escapades what it means to be treated like a woman. I'm continually developing an interest in feminine fashion. I'm embracing providing for myself financially and having to take responsibility for my present and my future. It's a good time in my life, a difficult time. But I'm really, for the first time in the whole decade, embracing my own particular femininity. And for that, I'm grateful for all of the experiences that have led me here.

Here's to the next ten years, God willing. I can't wait!