I realize I may be accused of burying the lead here. But I want to share my whole story for today.
I am just about knee-deep in boxes and packing paper at the moment. This is my first official work day that I am "unemployed" or "student" however you may prefer to see it. The closets and cabinets in the house are begging to be decluttered and packed, so I started there. Our bedroom closets have built in organizers, and on them I found a small pile of papers I hadn't really been noticing for a while (read: years). Stuck between a Ziggy cartoon card a friend had written for my eighth grade confirmation (disclaimer: I am NOT a hoarder) and an envelope with some travel souvenirs was a small piece of notepaper, folded in half. I cried when I opened it.
"Dear Chrissy. Happy Birthday. May God bless you and keep you close to Him and to those who dearly love you. You are a special grand-daughter. Love, Gram."
I was really, really close to my Grandmother, who died when I was 27. She always made room for me, and helped me believe I was loved. She taught me all kinds of things, including what it means to serve, how important family is, and perhaps most of all, that faith imbues all things. Gram was a saint in her own ordinary, extraordinary way. She was a schoolteacher, in love with her husband, mother of six, grandmmother of thirteen. Every morning she walked to church for daily Mass. Every night she went to bed with her rosaries in hand, to pray the novena she had been praying since she was seventeen - for each of her children, for her husband during WWII, for my dad in Vietnam, for her kids' marriages, and struggles, and hopes, for her grandchildren and all their needs. She didn't talk much to me about her faith. She just breathed it. She spoke and acted in love and kindness, worked hard, was generous.
Her voice on that page reached straight through the years today. I realized that I have been feeling a little overwhelmed, excited at new prospects, but maybe just in need of a little ray of hope. This weekend the pressure of the move and the tuition and what I need to do has just been growing. Close to Him. Yes, I need to know God is close...
So this afternoon, when I decided to get our mail, (our postman must hate us - we check only every week or so) between the Oriental Trading catalog I wish they would stop sending, and a birth announcement (yay Evan and Kyla! Welcome, Liv!) was a hand-written envelope surrounding a card.
My birthday was recently, and our anniversary is next weekend, so I naturally assumed it was something from a friend for one of those celebrations. I was wrong.
I opened the card. Inside was a folded check, and I saw the name signed on the card's inside. Oh, yes! This was a generous gift from a friend who had seen my plea (Won't You Leap With Me?) for tution help, and let me know she would prefer to send a check rather than use the online giving program. No problem, of course! Thank you!
It's a few weeks later now. So many people have been gracious and generous, helping me eek my way towards tuition however they can. I feel truly supported by all of you. It's been hard to trust that the Lord would take care of it. But when tempted, I've been reminding Him that this was His idea, and He would need to take care of it please.
Two times crying in one day. I opened the check, expecting to see another small bump in the right direction. I have been so touched by all of those. Instead, the check was for the ENTIRE SUM of my tuition this year.
I can't even type this emotionalessly, let's be honest. I know this is what God wants me to DO... and I believe we are made with and for each other. But... (gasp) wow. For a moment I felt nearly like I have at times in front of the eucharist - you know, just overcome outside of space and time. Loved. Honored. In Communion.
Her note read : "Yes. I will leap with you. I will leap with you to help you be the person our Father created you to be..."
Again. I feel breathless.
But more is in this card. And you need to read it, because we all need to find the ways, I think, to share this in our own lives. She says: "this gift comes not from me, but from the beauty of the Father's desire to lavish His gifts and His love upon us. In giving this gift to you, I myself am overwhelmed by the Father's love for me." She reminds me of the Father's tremendous love and joy. She reminds me that the Father loves me. She reminds me with a woman's generous heart, because we share so much in that relationship with the Father, and because He also gifted us one to another.
I am deeply honored and receive this gift with great responsibility and a sense of awe. I have not known this woman long or "well" but we have shared our hearts and prayers in love. And her generosity is like that same deep generosity my grandmother shared with me, so many years ago. It is a gift marked with the sign of faith. An outpouring of abundance in that same way that He first gave to us.
Thank you, Gram. Thank you, sister-friend. And thank you Holy Spirit, who never ceases to blow down any walls that are in our way, so long as we (and our brothers and sisters) are willing to live in docility to Your call.
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Monday, July 16, 2012
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Submission, Dominance and the Gospel
If you read my post on 50 Shades of Gray, you know that submission is an adulterated word in our culture. Twisted by the sex industry, submission has become equivalent, on the one hand, with a purely sexual relationship, based on lust rather than intimacy, in which one person abandons their own will to another's dominating command. On a more generalized note, in many cultures submission has come to mean the position a woman should (must) hold before a man. In this sense, submission is a word that also means subjecting one's will to the will of another. However, it usually is in reference to decision making areas in a family or household. It is always, in these cultures, the woman who submits in this way, and she is often also expected to phyiscally bow, lower her eyes, or in some way kowtow to the man, with the idea that he dominates her.
With these two examples looming before us, what independent, intelligent, thoughtful American woman would ever consider submitting her self to anyone? These ideas become nearly foreign. Which is why, I think, so many people cringe when Ephesians 5 is read or quoted in church circles. And it is why, I think, Ephesians 5 has been devillishly manipulated by those in some religious circles to get what they want: a forcibly ordered sub-culture of easily manipulated gender roles.
I have to admit that when I was younger, and did not understand how to reaad Scripture in context, I had pretty much become convinced that Paul was a mysogynist. But upon much more careful consideration, and with a little help from much wiser scholars, I realize I was missing the point. But I also know now that I was misinterpreting my terms. I had been taken by the culture I know, and convinced that this very charged word "submission" had more to do with the domination of man over woman. (I was too naive at the time to even know what s&m was... phew!). But let's play the History of the English Language game, and get our Ephesians on.
First of all, scholars remind us that there's a reason Eph. 4 comes first. This chapter tells us to put aside our lustful ways, the ways we use one another... and be conformed to Christ. So when we read Eph 5 we have to read it in this Context. We are reading it having chosen to put the use to rest, to stop lusting after others. We read it with aa transformed heart.
Just so we're clear, the passage in question begins: Be submissive to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives be submissive to your husbands..." oh yeah, you're thinking, it's that passage. The second half charges husbands to love your wives as Christ loved the Church. (since we read Scripture contextually, I encourge you to read the entire passage, Eph. 5: 21-30)
First I want to look at the word "submission" in the first direction to women. Because we need to understand the words we are using, and use them appropriately. So here's the English lesson. For this I need to credit Christopher West, who breaks the word into its important parts. "Sub-" is a Latin prefeix meanng "under". You know, as in sub-way or sub-strata. "Missio" comes from the Latin "mittere": to send (as on a mission). So "sub-mission" means to be under the other's mission. Or to rephrase, to put your own mission under the mission of another as the primary mission you share.
Let's first notice there are no whips, chains, veils or lowered eyes here.
Let's second follow the TEXT. What mission am I supposed to, as a wife, put myself "under" as the greater, shared mission? Husbands, love your wives as Christ loves the Church. Ohhhh... THAT mission. I am being called to allow my husband to lay down his life for me. hmmmm.
MY question is this: why two different sets of direction? Here I think we come to the male/female divide in our human culture and anthropology. There are very few other places in Scripture where men and women are given different sets of direction. Most of them seem to come from Paul himself, which makes me think he was trying to get at something. And that something may have stemmed more from his bi-cultural life as a Jewish man leading in a Roman world than anything else. He realized that men and women have different tendencies, different needs. And his goal was to address these differences pastorally, in love.
Now, when I have heard Eph 5 discussed the way I have described above, it has usually been by a man, and the expression that usually follows goes something like this: women are called to let their husbands love them... how great and easy is that? See? You barely need to try. You just have to sit and eat bon bons and let some strong man chop firewood for you and keep you in silk dresses.
To be a little fair, I am hyperbolizing. But I do think that men trying really hard to wrap their heads around what often hits us in the face as unduly weighted towards women have a tendency, out of love and kindness, to unduly weight this towards men.
In reality, I think this is true: Paul gives us each a different set of directions because this is what we need. Different yet equal.
Women NEED to hear: let your husbands love you as Christ loved the Church because we DON'T naturally want to do this. This confuses all you men who are reading, I know. But there is something inherent in us, something I think is the result of the Fall, that spurs women towards a kind of self-martyrdom. How many times has a man asked a woman what's wrong, and she says nothing, but really means something? How many times do we women do ALL the chores, and work, and change a baby, and cook Thanksgiving dinner... and take some kind of pride in doing everything without help? (Even if we complain afterwards.) How do we insist on independence and need to "do it all" at the risk of mental illness? And yet we do because God Forbid we have to rely on someone else's love to help us out.
Consider this as well. While Paul was talking specifically to husbands and wives in a culture where dating meant your mom bought you nicer earrings for the day you met the man you were going to marry two days later, let's stretch this practice into the 21st century dating world. Dating is the gateway to marriage, right? So shouldn't dating relationships mirror the interplay of marriage at least where love is concerned?
But how many women have you known in your life who date, or continue to date, or date several men who are NOT loving her? Men who are selfish, or cruel, or dominating, and treat her with disrespect, or are emotionally abusive, or are just plain jerks? Can you see where Paul's words would make so much sense in these couples? Women, allow the men in your life to love you as Christ loved the Church. Wow. I don't know about you, but I have been in at least one relationship where the man I was dating did not love me as Christ loved the Church. And not only did I let him not love me that way, I did everything in my power to make up for it. I ate where he wanted to eat, I changed my plans to be ready when he was available, I hung out with his friends and put on makeup and lost weight and looked pretty. Perhaps I was in some way submissive to him, but his mission had more to do with living as he wanted to and way less with loving me in a lay-your-life-down kind of way. That is NOT a mission that I, as woman, am called to put myself under! We see this with our friends all the time. Women who follow some instinct perhaps, but are willing to take on a mission that is all HIS and not GOD'S. Paul is warning us women about the disorder of this... even two thousand years later in our dating lives.
I cannot speak for our men experientially, of course, but I strongly suspect Paul is telling them to lay down their lives in love because that also goes against what is in their hearts since the Fall - the Fall which said man would want to dominate the woman... the fall in which Adam was absent, or at least silent, as his wife succumbed to temptation... where Adam did not put himself between the woman and the serpent, and where Adam blamed her for his mistakes instead of owning his weakness and working to overcome it.
I suspect that this is why some men look for women who just shut up and look pretty. Why others make cracks about the bodies of the women they date. Why some men are happy to sit back and let the women do all the work. I suspect this is why in some religious circles, men appear as some kind of grand poohbahs in leadership, and women have no real input or leadership. It's true, kids, it's still out there even in the good ol' US of A.
Paul had some kind of inspired gut to put his finger so squarely on the button. We have two different instructions because men and women are different. Women need encouragement to allow themselves to be loved. Yes. They do. Men need to be called out of their kingdoms to notice the other, and to think of the other first. Yes. They do. And we all have the call to come to one another's aid as we take these words to heart, and let these words change our hearts. The way to holiness is to be the best version of yourself, male or female. What better way to serve one another than to submit to one another in Love?
With these two examples looming before us, what independent, intelligent, thoughtful American woman would ever consider submitting her self to anyone? These ideas become nearly foreign. Which is why, I think, so many people cringe when Ephesians 5 is read or quoted in church circles. And it is why, I think, Ephesians 5 has been devillishly manipulated by those in some religious circles to get what they want: a forcibly ordered sub-culture of easily manipulated gender roles.
I have to admit that when I was younger, and did not understand how to reaad Scripture in context, I had pretty much become convinced that Paul was a mysogynist. But upon much more careful consideration, and with a little help from much wiser scholars, I realize I was missing the point. But I also know now that I was misinterpreting my terms. I had been taken by the culture I know, and convinced that this very charged word "submission" had more to do with the domination of man over woman. (I was too naive at the time to even know what s&m was... phew!). But let's play the History of the English Language game, and get our Ephesians on.
First of all, scholars remind us that there's a reason Eph. 4 comes first. This chapter tells us to put aside our lustful ways, the ways we use one another... and be conformed to Christ. So when we read Eph 5 we have to read it in this Context. We are reading it having chosen to put the use to rest, to stop lusting after others. We read it with aa transformed heart.
Just so we're clear, the passage in question begins: Be submissive to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives be submissive to your husbands..." oh yeah, you're thinking, it's that passage. The second half charges husbands to love your wives as Christ loved the Church. (since we read Scripture contextually, I encourge you to read the entire passage, Eph. 5: 21-30)
First I want to look at the word "submission" in the first direction to women. Because we need to understand the words we are using, and use them appropriately. So here's the English lesson. For this I need to credit Christopher West, who breaks the word into its important parts. "Sub-" is a Latin prefeix meanng "under". You know, as in sub-way or sub-strata. "Missio" comes from the Latin "mittere": to send (as on a mission). So "sub-mission" means to be under the other's mission. Or to rephrase, to put your own mission under the mission of another as the primary mission you share.
Let's first notice there are no whips, chains, veils or lowered eyes here.
Let's second follow the TEXT. What mission am I supposed to, as a wife, put myself "under" as the greater, shared mission? Husbands, love your wives as Christ loves the Church. Ohhhh... THAT mission. I am being called to allow my husband to lay down his life for me. hmmmm.
MY question is this: why two different sets of direction? Here I think we come to the male/female divide in our human culture and anthropology. There are very few other places in Scripture where men and women are given different sets of direction. Most of them seem to come from Paul himself, which makes me think he was trying to get at something. And that something may have stemmed more from his bi-cultural life as a Jewish man leading in a Roman world than anything else. He realized that men and women have different tendencies, different needs. And his goal was to address these differences pastorally, in love.
Now, when I have heard Eph 5 discussed the way I have described above, it has usually been by a man, and the expression that usually follows goes something like this: women are called to let their husbands love them... how great and easy is that? See? You barely need to try. You just have to sit and eat bon bons and let some strong man chop firewood for you and keep you in silk dresses.
To be a little fair, I am hyperbolizing. But I do think that men trying really hard to wrap their heads around what often hits us in the face as unduly weighted towards women have a tendency, out of love and kindness, to unduly weight this towards men.
In reality, I think this is true: Paul gives us each a different set of directions because this is what we need. Different yet equal.
Women NEED to hear: let your husbands love you as Christ loved the Church because we DON'T naturally want to do this. This confuses all you men who are reading, I know. But there is something inherent in us, something I think is the result of the Fall, that spurs women towards a kind of self-martyrdom. How many times has a man asked a woman what's wrong, and she says nothing, but really means something? How many times do we women do ALL the chores, and work, and change a baby, and cook Thanksgiving dinner... and take some kind of pride in doing everything without help? (Even if we complain afterwards.) How do we insist on independence and need to "do it all" at the risk of mental illness? And yet we do because God Forbid we have to rely on someone else's love to help us out.
Consider this as well. While Paul was talking specifically to husbands and wives in a culture where dating meant your mom bought you nicer earrings for the day you met the man you were going to marry two days later, let's stretch this practice into the 21st century dating world. Dating is the gateway to marriage, right? So shouldn't dating relationships mirror the interplay of marriage at least where love is concerned?
But how many women have you known in your life who date, or continue to date, or date several men who are NOT loving her? Men who are selfish, or cruel, or dominating, and treat her with disrespect, or are emotionally abusive, or are just plain jerks? Can you see where Paul's words would make so much sense in these couples? Women, allow the men in your life to love you as Christ loved the Church. Wow. I don't know about you, but I have been in at least one relationship where the man I was dating did not love me as Christ loved the Church. And not only did I let him not love me that way, I did everything in my power to make up for it. I ate where he wanted to eat, I changed my plans to be ready when he was available, I hung out with his friends and put on makeup and lost weight and looked pretty. Perhaps I was in some way submissive to him, but his mission had more to do with living as he wanted to and way less with loving me in a lay-your-life-down kind of way. That is NOT a mission that I, as woman, am called to put myself under! We see this with our friends all the time. Women who follow some instinct perhaps, but are willing to take on a mission that is all HIS and not GOD'S. Paul is warning us women about the disorder of this... even two thousand years later in our dating lives.
I cannot speak for our men experientially, of course, but I strongly suspect Paul is telling them to lay down their lives in love because that also goes against what is in their hearts since the Fall - the Fall which said man would want to dominate the woman... the fall in which Adam was absent, or at least silent, as his wife succumbed to temptation... where Adam did not put himself between the woman and the serpent, and where Adam blamed her for his mistakes instead of owning his weakness and working to overcome it.
I suspect that this is why some men look for women who just shut up and look pretty. Why others make cracks about the bodies of the women they date. Why some men are happy to sit back and let the women do all the work. I suspect this is why in some religious circles, men appear as some kind of grand poohbahs in leadership, and women have no real input or leadership. It's true, kids, it's still out there even in the good ol' US of A.
Paul had some kind of inspired gut to put his finger so squarely on the button. We have two different instructions because men and women are different. Women need encouragement to allow themselves to be loved. Yes. They do. Men need to be called out of their kingdoms to notice the other, and to think of the other first. Yes. They do. And we all have the call to come to one another's aid as we take these words to heart, and let these words change our hearts. The way to holiness is to be the best version of yourself, male or female. What better way to serve one another than to submit to one another in Love?
Monday, July 9, 2012
Women Deserve Better
We're in a post-feminist world. At least, that's what I've been told.
I think this means that people no longer regard themselves as feminists unless they are over 60, get their hair trimmed by a barber, and refuse to wear nail polish. In a day of geek glasses and hipster chicks, feminism is grandma's political movement; an agenda of bra-burning and chaining oneself to a radiator in protest. It no longer resonates with anyone born after 1980 who doesn't have some majorly angry anti-man sentiments, from what the papers say.
Reports a few years ago showed that college students wouldn't raise a hand when asked who in the room considered themselves a feminist, in contrast with the co-eds of the 90s, who would have mostly raised a hand, including many of the men in the room.
I get it. We have the vote. We can be doctors and lawyers, and no one blinks. At least here in the West. We can file a sexual harrassment suit before you can say John Wayne Bobbit. We are free, Right?
I think that now, more than ever, we need men and women who are boldly feminist. And by that I do not mean the aggressive, political cacophany of angry women who (thankfully!) broke down many walls in the 60s but yet (sadly!) devalued the feminine person in the long run. I mean we need people who recognize the value and dignity of every human person, but are especially alert to the needs of women. People who will uphold a woman's dignity, who will fight the dragons in the culture, and resist the urge to use and narrowly define her abilities. Women and men who believe that women deserve better than to be pitied for their fertility as though it is a disease, better than to be paid less for the same work, better than to be kept at arms length because their intuition is not as valued as their intellect.
To be sure, there are people who are courageously stepping forward to insist on the valuable gifts of womanhood, and who are listening to the feminine voice. This is clearest in grassroots movements like 1flesh.org, a movement to educate people about the harmful nature of artificial birth control, a jagged little pill women have been swallowing at the risk of their health and perception for dozens of years. These hipsters may not define themselves as "new feminists", to be sure, I wouldn't want to put the word in their mouths... but they are distinctively pro-woman, and to me we are in the same camp.
And along the lines of sexual freedom and equality are many other young bloggers, such as Bright Maidens and NFP and Me. Do thee have a uniquely feminine perspective? Yes. And you may see some traditional values in the mix. But these voices are in fact, new and current. While these sites aren't the sounding board for what you might consider to be feminism, I assure you that they are speaking from that very feminine genius that Pope John Paul II encouraged us to find and proclaim. That genius is the engine block of the new feminism - and runs on a fuel of the giftedness of womanhood. Among the more experienced generation, including many millennials, gen exers, and even boomers is the radically well-spoken Women Speak for Themselves, begin by a woman often associated with the "new feminism," Helen Alvare, a law professor at George Mason. What does she have in common with these others, when she has so much more experience in life? Her courage. The shared vocation to defend the dignity of women, to embrace woman's giftedness, to consider her intellect and her intuition... these are all components of feminism in the right order.
How can I say this? Because in our own country as well as others, women are still underpaid, encouraged (or forced) into abortion and sterilization, sold in the sex industry on every level, paraded in the media from two years old on Toddlers in Tiaras to the Miss America pageant, abused raped and violated every day in every place in the world. Women continue to be sold a bill of goods about their bodies: pregnancy is a disease to be cured, pregnancy will ruin your body, fat will ruin your body, your hair isn't shiny enough, your teeth aren't white enough, your skin isn't tan or pale enough, you aren't soft or hard enough, if you don't eat you'll be more attractive, if you make yourself sick after you eat you'll be more attractive, be sexually aggressive, be sexually submissive...
At some level our second wave feminist sisters did us more disservice than good. In an effort to escape pregnancy being forced upon them, they took comfort in the pill. In an effort to heal from the abuses against their femininity, they turned to preferential masculinity and at its logical end lesbianism. They tried to beat men at their own game by adopting the habits which had been so oppressive. We gained some ground, but maybe lost the battle.
So call ourselves feminist - as John Paul II suggested "new feminists"? Maybe it's time to reclaim the word, and unite in a movement that honors woman as he told us in Mulieris Dignitatem, we can respond to our call as Mary did with “the discovery of all the richness and personal resources of femininity, all the eternal originality of the ‘woman’, just as God wanted her to be, a person for her own sake, who discovers herself ‘by means of a sincere gift of self’”.
If we women give ourselves sincerely to the rich gift of our womanhood, if we men can uphold that dignity and help our voices rise, then we can take back not only the word "feminist" but also the concept of our shared humanity. Let's make this new world happen together. Join me, won't you? Because humanity deserves better.
I think this means that people no longer regard themselves as feminists unless they are over 60, get their hair trimmed by a barber, and refuse to wear nail polish. In a day of geek glasses and hipster chicks, feminism is grandma's political movement; an agenda of bra-burning and chaining oneself to a radiator in protest. It no longer resonates with anyone born after 1980 who doesn't have some majorly angry anti-man sentiments, from what the papers say.
Reports a few years ago showed that college students wouldn't raise a hand when asked who in the room considered themselves a feminist, in contrast with the co-eds of the 90s, who would have mostly raised a hand, including many of the men in the room.
I get it. We have the vote. We can be doctors and lawyers, and no one blinks. At least here in the West. We can file a sexual harrassment suit before you can say John Wayne Bobbit. We are free, Right?
I think that now, more than ever, we need men and women who are boldly feminist. And by that I do not mean the aggressive, political cacophany of angry women who (thankfully!) broke down many walls in the 60s but yet (sadly!) devalued the feminine person in the long run. I mean we need people who recognize the value and dignity of every human person, but are especially alert to the needs of women. People who will uphold a woman's dignity, who will fight the dragons in the culture, and resist the urge to use and narrowly define her abilities. Women and men who believe that women deserve better than to be pitied for their fertility as though it is a disease, better than to be paid less for the same work, better than to be kept at arms length because their intuition is not as valued as their intellect.
To be sure, there are people who are courageously stepping forward to insist on the valuable gifts of womanhood, and who are listening to the feminine voice. This is clearest in grassroots movements like 1flesh.org, a movement to educate people about the harmful nature of artificial birth control, a jagged little pill women have been swallowing at the risk of their health and perception for dozens of years. These hipsters may not define themselves as "new feminists", to be sure, I wouldn't want to put the word in their mouths... but they are distinctively pro-woman, and to me we are in the same camp.
And along the lines of sexual freedom and equality are many other young bloggers, such as Bright Maidens and NFP and Me. Do thee have a uniquely feminine perspective? Yes. And you may see some traditional values in the mix. But these voices are in fact, new and current. While these sites aren't the sounding board for what you might consider to be feminism, I assure you that they are speaking from that very feminine genius that Pope John Paul II encouraged us to find and proclaim. That genius is the engine block of the new feminism - and runs on a fuel of the giftedness of womanhood. Among the more experienced generation, including many millennials, gen exers, and even boomers is the radically well-spoken Women Speak for Themselves, begin by a woman often associated with the "new feminism," Helen Alvare, a law professor at George Mason. What does she have in common with these others, when she has so much more experience in life? Her courage. The shared vocation to defend the dignity of women, to embrace woman's giftedness, to consider her intellect and her intuition... these are all components of feminism in the right order.
How can I say this? Because in our own country as well as others, women are still underpaid, encouraged (or forced) into abortion and sterilization, sold in the sex industry on every level, paraded in the media from two years old on Toddlers in Tiaras to the Miss America pageant, abused raped and violated every day in every place in the world. Women continue to be sold a bill of goods about their bodies: pregnancy is a disease to be cured, pregnancy will ruin your body, fat will ruin your body, your hair isn't shiny enough, your teeth aren't white enough, your skin isn't tan or pale enough, you aren't soft or hard enough, if you don't eat you'll be more attractive, if you make yourself sick after you eat you'll be more attractive, be sexually aggressive, be sexually submissive...
At some level our second wave feminist sisters did us more disservice than good. In an effort to escape pregnancy being forced upon them, they took comfort in the pill. In an effort to heal from the abuses against their femininity, they turned to preferential masculinity and at its logical end lesbianism. They tried to beat men at their own game by adopting the habits which had been so oppressive. We gained some ground, but maybe lost the battle.
So call ourselves feminist - as John Paul II suggested "new feminists"? Maybe it's time to reclaim the word, and unite in a movement that honors woman as he told us in Mulieris Dignitatem, we can respond to our call as Mary did with “the discovery of all the richness and personal resources of femininity, all the eternal originality of the ‘woman’, just as God wanted her to be, a person for her own sake, who discovers herself ‘by means of a sincere gift of self’”.
If we women give ourselves sincerely to the rich gift of our womanhood, if we men can uphold that dignity and help our voices rise, then we can take back not only the word "feminist" but also the concept of our shared humanity. Let's make this new world happen together. Join me, won't you? Because humanity deserves better.
Thursday, July 5, 2012
Brave: Bullies, Bears and the New Feminism
"Woman is created a person for her own sake." The words of JP II's Theology of the Body resonate with the thesis of Pixar's latest installation, Brave. While I usually don't do "movie reviews," this one carries with it real thought about womanhood and relationships - the stuff on which I thrive. And since I have read so many quips on facebook and blogs by women who seem irritated with Merida's sense of independence, I felt the need to defend the goodness of the film here in my own little blog world.
If you haven't seen the film, there are spoilers ahead. Feel free to take a pause, go experience the movie for yourself, and come back and read on :)
First and foremost, I feel the need to establish that this is a fictional film based on an old celtic legend or fairytale. Yes, this means there are creatures inside like will o the wisps, a witch, and a couple of once-human bears. It's fantasy. These are ManMade stories, folks. And in man made stories, you get imagination. It's this gift that the Creator gave us, and one of the many ways we image Him. We don't need to throw out the baby with the bath water. We don't have to "believe" in witches and will o the wisps. We also don't need to reject their presence in storytelling as invitation to evil. If you can't deal with their presence because it offends your brand of faith, then perhaps you must also take issue with Narnia and Middle Earth - not fair or logical to accept these worlds and not the Celtic imagination. For all that, you may want to skip over a few Biblical books - you know, the ones that contain leviathans, giants, Saul and the witch of Endor (1 Sam. 28:11-16), and the four horsemen of the apocalypse.
That said, the purpose of fantasy is to explore reality in a setting that lends itself to rigid definition that the teller may manipulate, unlike our natural world. And in this world, there is good analogy.
Merida is a Scottish princess who is expected to marry one of the three sons of the nobility in the country. Okay, fine. Here is the point: She is being offered as a PRIZE FOR WINNING A GAME. That's right, folks, she's what's behind curtain number one, Johnny. She's the Brand New Car!
Only she knows better. She is told by her parents that she is the pawn in the game, that her responsiblity is to be the obedient child, the submissive daughter, and she needs just look pretty, sit quietly, and let a man's game decide her future. I imagine she targets her mother for her anger because she hopes her mother would understand instinctively a woman's dignity. I suppose she doesn't really take issue with her father because, let's face it, he hasn't really historically protected her person, has he?
Here is the genius of the film. She rebells against this nonsense. She protects her dignity when NO ONE else will. She defends her own dignity as a woman because there is NOT ONE MAN who is man enough to do it for her.
So she joins the contest herself and beats them at their own game. And brilliantly, the satin dress - the symbol of the culture's hold on women's bodies - rips and tears and falls away from her body as she draws her arrow back and "shoots for my own hand".
In his Theology of the Body, Pope John Paul II emphasizes the dignity and value of woman. He explains that authentic love always considers the good of the other and is not about what one gains from a relationship. Rather, love, particularly married love, is about a total gift of self. Merida has been wrapped up in the gift wrap of a stifling, narrowly defined womanhood. Her parents are acting from a place of "greater good" perhaps, in the political sense, but not in her personal best interest. The poor girl's wild red curls have been "tamed" beneath a restrictive wimple, and she can barely breathe in a dress designed to appeal to the libidos of the men vying for her hand. No one here is acting out of anything other than self interest. And most importantly, Merida is being foced against her free will to be someone she is not, to accept a narrow cultural definition of womanhood, and there IS no knight to set her free.
So her decision to take her future in her own hands emphasizes the idea of personal responsiblity, and embraces her gifts of foresight and her absolute concept of who she is meant to be. This reflects the actions of John Paul II, who threw the doors wide to the women of the world. He did not relegate woman to a non-personal expression of herself. Rather, “he has applauded the assumption of new roles by women, and stressed the degree to which cultural conditioning has been an obstacle to women’s advancement” (Glendon New Feminism).
Those of you still reading, but with firmly furrowed brows may be raging: but she was disobedient to her mother! But she had her mother turned into a bear! But she didn't wail and gnash her teeth and cry and beg for forgiveness!
Ok. True. But let's follow the story. Merida's disobedience was motivated by being requested to do something OFFENSIVE to her personal dignity. In this instance, the moral choice is to choose the morally good, not the ethically passive option.
She got a spell hoping it would help her mother see her side, with NO knowledge it would change her mother into a beast. Was this deceptive? Yes. Should she have apologized for this offense against her mother's free will? YES! Was she completely shocked at the spell's outcome? Yes, again.
And for those of you who didn't care for the apology: She spends over HALF the FILM doing everything in her power, using all of her gifts and facilities, to make amends. She risks her own life with the grizzly, she cares for her mother when she is hungry, while trying all the time to find a solution. She does a task she hates- sewing the tapestry- because her distaste for the task is far outweighed by her love for her mother. No, she is not a simpering, snivelling mess at the end. And no, she doesn't have a huge epiphany of change. But that's not who she is. And I think, truly, this film is about exactly that. She is steadfast in the truth. The world around her changes for the better precisely because of this.
Our own humanity, our gift of womanhood follows this same lesson. We are created unique and unrepeatable. We are created with some segment of the many gifts of humanity. We are called to a total gift of self, and we find freedom in the truth. That includes, first and foremost, the truth of who we are individually - made "for out own sake" just because of God's gratuitous love. And we see in Brave an example of what it means to be steadfast to the truth, and let it infiltrate and change the culture! The change in the film centers on a tradition of treating women as playing pieces, as dress up dolls, as prizes to be won. The people come to a new understanding of the strength of woman and her value.
And THAT people, is a fairytale I can get on board with.
If you haven't seen the film, there are spoilers ahead. Feel free to take a pause, go experience the movie for yourself, and come back and read on :)
First and foremost, I feel the need to establish that this is a fictional film based on an old celtic legend or fairytale. Yes, this means there are creatures inside like will o the wisps, a witch, and a couple of once-human bears. It's fantasy. These are ManMade stories, folks. And in man made stories, you get imagination. It's this gift that the Creator gave us, and one of the many ways we image Him. We don't need to throw out the baby with the bath water. We don't have to "believe" in witches and will o the wisps. We also don't need to reject their presence in storytelling as invitation to evil. If you can't deal with their presence because it offends your brand of faith, then perhaps you must also take issue with Narnia and Middle Earth - not fair or logical to accept these worlds and not the Celtic imagination. For all that, you may want to skip over a few Biblical books - you know, the ones that contain leviathans, giants, Saul and the witch of Endor (1 Sam. 28:11-16), and the four horsemen of the apocalypse.
That said, the purpose of fantasy is to explore reality in a setting that lends itself to rigid definition that the teller may manipulate, unlike our natural world. And in this world, there is good analogy.
Merida is a Scottish princess who is expected to marry one of the three sons of the nobility in the country. Okay, fine. Here is the point: She is being offered as a PRIZE FOR WINNING A GAME. That's right, folks, she's what's behind curtain number one, Johnny. She's the Brand New Car!
Only she knows better. She is told by her parents that she is the pawn in the game, that her responsiblity is to be the obedient child, the submissive daughter, and she needs just look pretty, sit quietly, and let a man's game decide her future. I imagine she targets her mother for her anger because she hopes her mother would understand instinctively a woman's dignity. I suppose she doesn't really take issue with her father because, let's face it, he hasn't really historically protected her person, has he?
Here is the genius of the film. She rebells against this nonsense. She protects her dignity when NO ONE else will. She defends her own dignity as a woman because there is NOT ONE MAN who is man enough to do it for her.
So she joins the contest herself and beats them at their own game. And brilliantly, the satin dress - the symbol of the culture's hold on women's bodies - rips and tears and falls away from her body as she draws her arrow back and "shoots for my own hand".
In his Theology of the Body, Pope John Paul II emphasizes the dignity and value of woman. He explains that authentic love always considers the good of the other and is not about what one gains from a relationship. Rather, love, particularly married love, is about a total gift of self. Merida has been wrapped up in the gift wrap of a stifling, narrowly defined womanhood. Her parents are acting from a place of "greater good" perhaps, in the political sense, but not in her personal best interest. The poor girl's wild red curls have been "tamed" beneath a restrictive wimple, and she can barely breathe in a dress designed to appeal to the libidos of the men vying for her hand. No one here is acting out of anything other than self interest. And most importantly, Merida is being foced against her free will to be someone she is not, to accept a narrow cultural definition of womanhood, and there IS no knight to set her free.
So her decision to take her future in her own hands emphasizes the idea of personal responsiblity, and embraces her gifts of foresight and her absolute concept of who she is meant to be. This reflects the actions of John Paul II, who threw the doors wide to the women of the world. He did not relegate woman to a non-personal expression of herself. Rather, “he has applauded the assumption of new roles by women, and stressed the degree to which cultural conditioning has been an obstacle to women’s advancement” (Glendon New Feminism).
Those of you still reading, but with firmly furrowed brows may be raging: but she was disobedient to her mother! But she had her mother turned into a bear! But she didn't wail and gnash her teeth and cry and beg for forgiveness!
Ok. True. But let's follow the story. Merida's disobedience was motivated by being requested to do something OFFENSIVE to her personal dignity. In this instance, the moral choice is to choose the morally good, not the ethically passive option.
She got a spell hoping it would help her mother see her side, with NO knowledge it would change her mother into a beast. Was this deceptive? Yes. Should she have apologized for this offense against her mother's free will? YES! Was she completely shocked at the spell's outcome? Yes, again.
And for those of you who didn't care for the apology: She spends over HALF the FILM doing everything in her power, using all of her gifts and facilities, to make amends. She risks her own life with the grizzly, she cares for her mother when she is hungry, while trying all the time to find a solution. She does a task she hates- sewing the tapestry- because her distaste for the task is far outweighed by her love for her mother. No, she is not a simpering, snivelling mess at the end. And no, she doesn't have a huge epiphany of change. But that's not who she is. And I think, truly, this film is about exactly that. She is steadfast in the truth. The world around her changes for the better precisely because of this.
Our own humanity, our gift of womanhood follows this same lesson. We are created unique and unrepeatable. We are created with some segment of the many gifts of humanity. We are called to a total gift of self, and we find freedom in the truth. That includes, first and foremost, the truth of who we are individually - made "for out own sake" just because of God's gratuitous love. And we see in Brave an example of what it means to be steadfast to the truth, and let it infiltrate and change the culture! The change in the film centers on a tradition of treating women as playing pieces, as dress up dolls, as prizes to be won. The people come to a new understanding of the strength of woman and her value.
And THAT people, is a fairytale I can get on board with.
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