Revisiting Feminism

Over Thanksgiving break I met up with my two best friends for lunch and one brought up my previous post on feminism. Of course they challenged me about it, which is part of why I love them. Just to make things clear...

One of the points raised was about the objectification of women. My friend asked if you couldn't say that women were objectified before so-called "sexual freedom", before feminism. I don't mean that we should return to the days when a woman could be abused and forced by her husband without any protection by law or society. Those who view(ed) women as subservient to men were and are most certainly mistaken. Yes, women could be objectified, but does that mean we take it to the extreme and move the woman from the role of servant to the role of dominator and even predator? Does that make it okay to remove modesty and chastity from our clothing, from our very minds and virtues and exchange it for that which is revealing and seductive. Is that not just as bad, if not worse? The equality is still not there. Power? perhaps in some warped manner. But certainly true freedom has no part in this. The mastery has simply been taken from men and given to desire, which when given such free reign is even more uncontrollable and over-powering.

What femininity and masculinity are was also questioned. Are gender roles merely created and placed on us by society? Why should we not question what society has forced on us? Well, I approach it from my Catholic faith. Gender roles, femininity and masculinity, aren't forced on us by society. They've been given to us by God. Women are naturally more in touch with emotions, more in touch with others, more compassionate, empathetic, and nurturing. Does that really make us the weaker sex, as society has apparently made us? Pardon my language, but hell no! Emotions are difficult to deal with, difficult to control and understand. What femininity requires takes so much more strength and power than mere physical strength, more than intellect and savvy. It requires a deep soul, firmly grounded in faith, and strength that bares the burdens of us all. The great gift of woman is the ability to truly understand the human heart (understanding of course requires the powers of discernment and intelligence). As for masculinity, where women are with the heart, men are with the body. They are naturally inclined to provide for the physical needs of others and protect. If these characteristics were forced on us they would not be so natural to us. So why should we fight it? People seem to have a tendency to focus on the idea of a woman being obedient to her husband, but not going beyond that or even deeper into it. It's not that a woman should blindly follow her husband in all things, but she should trust in him and support him (she does after all understand him in ways even he may not). More than this though a man is meant to cleave to his wife. Men are called to remain faithful, in body and mind, to protect and love his wife. This doesn't mean that all women have to be housewives, relying soley on husbands, but whether or not a woman has the means to provide for herself, it is still a husbands responsibility to be able to support a wife.

Men and women are different, but that does not make one better or superior to the other. It makes them compatible. Society seems bent on continually warping our roles, both pre and post-feminism. Exchanging one perceived extreme for another is no way to fix the problem we are faced with.