A great many woes have been laid at the doorstep of feminism, but one of the saddest must be the attitude it fosters—mostly among conservative men—: I mean the attitude that women really are inferior, if not in intellect, then at least in temper. Chesterton was notoriously opposed to the involvement of women in politics; he seemed to think that it would coarsen them, that they were in some mystical sense creatures too fine for its smoggy air. For somewhat similar reasons, he was opposed to their being regular members of the workforce. He was extraordinarily prescient.
Today there are men who have embraced the masculinization of women (they are usually called liberals). They fail to grasp the fact that this insistence on women doing and speaking and acting as men do, speak, and act, implies a perfection in masculinity that is as absurdly chauvinist as the psychological fancies of the discredited Sigmund Freud. That a woman might want to be a woman, that it might be better to be feminine, is a thought that does not seem to have crossed their enlightened minds.
The other kind of men (who admit, very loudly, to being conservatives) are rather fond of the Kinder, Küche, Kirche model, though they rarely put it in so many words. Unlike Chesterton, who saw woman’s genius in her universality (in regard to this quality, he compared her to Aristotle—high praise indeed!), they take an inordinate pride in their own specificity, in contrast to the woman’s more homely (in all senses) abilities. They point out women’s preference for staying home, not as if the preference were a noble thing, nor even as if it were chivalric of them to honor that preference, but in tones that suggest it will be best for the Little Woman after all. They regard the failed experiment of feminism with something approaching Victorian glee. There is even, among the less savory proponents of the new masculinity, a certain tendency to genuine chauvinism—not to that imaginary thing supposed to have existed in the forties and fifties, but the real McCoy, that imagines women were created for men.
The sad deficiency of both these views is all the more apparent in contrast to traditional Western understanding of a woman’s role. While it may not always have been practiced without exception (as Chesterton admits) it was preached to perfection by none other than that centerpiece of Western civilization, St. Thomas Aquinas. Commenting on the creation of woman, he remarked that
It was right for the woman to be made from a rib of man . . . to signify the social union of man and woman, for the woman should neither “use authority over man,” and so she was not made from his head; nor was it right for her to be subject to man’s contempt as his slave, and so she was not made from his feet.
This is a rational account, and hard for anyone to disagree with. But I have found that the true test of a man’s opinion of women is to give him, not a rational account, but the following story (paraphrased from the wonderful Alice von Hildebrand).
When God set out to create, He had a definite hierarchy in mind. He began the physical creation with light, energy, matter—the simpler physical things. He went on to create planets and stars, suns and moons—still working with inert matter, but treating it in more complex ways. Then He created plants—life—vegetable life, to be sure; but life nonetheless and the highest form of being yet. After creating plants, He turned to the lower animals—fish and birds—followed by the higher animals, the mammals. Then He created man, the crowning jewel of the physical world, because, having reason, he partook not just in vegetable and animal life, but in the life of God Himself. But God was not done yet; there was yet a higher being left for Him to create: and that was, of course, woman.
Most men, on hearing the story, immediately begin to argue. This is natural, and they really shouldn’t be rebuked for it. It is an exceptional man who does no more than laugh.
Sophia,
This is a topic that always interests me. The word is not used any more, but it still denotes the phenomenon that occurred in the 70s: liberation.
I’m old enough to be intimately familiar with what life was like for women before, during, and after women’s liberation.
So much is taken for granted now. Teaching young adults for many years, I watched everything change by watching what they take for granted. Sometimes I am saddened by what I see; sometimes pleased.
Thoreau said that for everything gained, something is lost. I find myself referring to that statement more and more as I age. Both men and women gained something when women were “liberated,” but neither men nor women know what they lost. They can’t. They can’t, because they didn’t experience it.
So now I always have to add another statement to Thoreau’s: It is better to know the price of something *before* you pay it. Because there is no retrieval of cost.
I find this an interesting subject. What does it truely mean to be feminine and do we see any representation of this in fiction? It seems to me it really is a women’s world. Women live longer and are more likely to survive disease and famine. Men due to their physical make up are made to protect women. It would appear women are really meant to survive and men are meant to make this happen.
“But God was not done yet; there was yet a higher being left for Him to create: and that was, of course, woman.”
I teach this in my Catechism class:
“Speaking of Eve, was Adam made last after all?
No, Eve was last.
Yes, and Adam was made of….dirt!
And Eve from…Adam’s rib.
Which seems better, to be made from dirt or someone’s rib? A rib!
And in the creation story the later you’re created the closer you are to God, right?
Well yes, but….aren’t they equal?
Yes, I think so; Eve was made from Adam, so they are one flesh, but on the other hand, women get to have the babies!
I think they have a little advantage there. I’m a bit envious of that.
http://platytera.blogspot.com/2009/06/dirt-ribs.html
One thing that is essential to the identity of men is the ability to speak – and not just to speak, but to speak from the heart, and for this speaking to have about it genuine authority; yes, authority to settle things, to make order out of chaos and so forth, but it is not reducible to those things. It is not tyrannical authoritarianism, but the unforced power connoted with “author”. It need not be said this “speaking” is not just mere sounds coming from the lips. This speaking is written in Man’s identity – not in the sense that Woman does not have it also equally, but that for men it has a certain imperative place in the hierarchy of his being (which actually makes him in that sense quite fragile); this establishing an outward communion with people and things becomes his role as selfless guardian protector, and this is in turn is essential to the continuation of his being, his heart. It was Adam who was given to name the animals – indeed, even to name the Woman.
Men today do not know how to speak. Thus the world is plunged into chaos; thus we have abortion. They know how to gab quite cleverly or powerfully or whatever, but they do not know how to speak.
But they were not made to not know how to speak in a vacuum.
And some might take it the wrong way were I to say that the problem with many women today is not that they do not know how to speak, but that they do not know how, or when, to shut their faces – but there it is.
Please excuse the last part of my comment. I probably should not have said that. And please know that the incrimination was not at all directed towards Sophia Mason’s post.
And thanks for the St. Thomas Aquinas and Alice von Hildebrand quotes.
@ Dena and Mr. Leblanc: Thanks for the comments!
@ David D: I think Jane Austen does a good job on your first question . . .
@ Mr. Stillwell: No offense taken! Perhaps my next article should be on how much the world needs manly men . . .