I maintain that John Paul II is the foremost feminist of our time, and here’s a little commentary on why:
Last year I forced myself to read Eve Ensler’s “The Vagina Monologues.” It was a distressing literary pilgrimage, and I would advise anyone thinking about reading it to proceed with prudence. It is not a work for the faint of heart, mind or soul.
I read it for the same reason I went to the feminist art lecture in my morally misguided town, and for the same reason I want to go a lecture on gender at a local college “in the tradition of” a certain Universal faith. I have been wounded in many ways by this postmodern, relativistic culture that we live in. I was starving for most of my life for truth: truth about God, truth about my existence and purpose, and truth about my dignity and sexuality, and I want to learn from this culture how we can communicate the gold of John Paul II’s Theology of the Body with an edge.
It is an interesting irony that Ms. Ensler’s first name should be Eve, don’t you think? While she is the progenitor of theatrical genital controversy of the last decade, it would be a real stretch to call her mother of the living. She is world-renowned for her brash creativity and shocking sexuality. Celebrities flock to her, support her, love her for what she stands for. But what does she stand for? An organ? More specifically, part of an organ?
Perhaps a sign of the fruitfulness of Ensler’s work is that it is not until the last chapter or so that she writes about child birth. She even expresses shock that she performed the one-woman play for over two years before she even thought to incorporate something about pregnancy and childbirth. If this is not a sign of the great divorce of fertility from fecundity and the triumph of a contraceptive mentality, I am not not quite sure what is.
I agree with Ensler that we should cherish our bodies. We should care for them, nourish them, protect them and love them. I agree that violence against women is gravely immoral. Women should, indeed, be feel happy, balanced and beautiful.
But we are not just our biology; we are integrated persons of body, mind and soul. We were created not for our own pleasure, but for a divine destiny. This destiny is engraved into our very being as woman or man, and finds its fulfillment in spousal relationship, either with God or with a spouse of complimentary (read:opposite) sex. Susan Brinkman summed it up so well in Columbia magazine (fittingly a men’s magazine), “Men and women were not created to compete with each other but to complete one another. They were not meant for separation, but for union.”
The feminist art lecture I went to was replete with Ensler’s errors of creative narcissim and false dichotomies. I learned from the enlightened professoress sex has very little to do with our biology and inherent masculinity and femininity, and more to do with society’s imposed gender construction. She proceeded to describe a feminist dialectic, where woman is the thesis, man is the anti-thesis, and radical feminism is the synthesis. She used very Marxist terms, focusing on “access to resources” and “who has the authority,” talking very much in battlefield language about the relationship between woman and man.
The exhibit she lectured on featured a number of pieces by a feminist art group called the Guerilla Girls. Founded in 1985 in New York City, these self-styled revolutionaries use tactless attack ads to bring to light the disparity between [white] men and women and people of color in the art world. One ad, featuring a lifelike naked statue, “Do women have to be naked to get [their work] into the Met?” and “Free the women artists!”
Equal dignity is where it’s at, and I like just compensation as much as the next person, but this sort of aggressive artistic affirmative action is antithetical to the grace, beauty and glory that is the feminine genius. Also, if the women artists are freed, to what or to whom are they freed?
To become truly free, we must discover God and who he has made us to be, including our sexuality according to the Divine Plan. God is calling us each to be artists of our own lives, so we have an obligation to find our vocation and the purpose of our life. God needs apostles now more than ever in a world grown dark and despairing.
In order to heal the wrenching wounds of our culture, we have to abandon the instinct to be Guerilla Girls and Eve Enslers. We can be fiery, witty, intrepid, controversial or devastatingly original. But we cannot—absolutely cannot—initiate the great work that is to be ours of our own accord and hurl it into society like urbane savages. No, we must become the feminine principal in our relationship with God (yes, men too), receiving what He urgently wants to give us. When we overcome the spiritual obstacles, pronounce our yes, greatness is born for the salvation of the entire world.
It is an interesting irony that Ms. Ensler’s first name should be Eve, don’t you think? While she is the progenitor of theatrical genital controversy of the last decade, it would be a real stretch to call her mother of the living. She is world-renowned for her brash creativity and shocking sexuality. Celebrities flock to her, support her, love her for what she stands for. But what does she stand for? An organ? More specifically, part of an organ?
Perhaps a sign of the fruitfulness of Ensler’s work is that it is not until the last chapter or so that she writes about child birth. She even expresses shock that she performed the one-woman play for over two years before she even thought to incorporate something about pregnancy and childbirth. If this is not a sign of the great divorce of fertility from fecundity and the triumph of a contraceptive mentality, I am not not quite sure what is.
I agree with Ensler that we should cherish our bodies. We should care for them, nourish them, protect them and love them. I agree that violence against women is gravely immoral. Women should, indeed, be feel happy, balanced and beautiful.
But we are not just our biology; we are integrated persons of body, mind and soul. We were created not for our own pleasure, but for a divine destiny. This destiny is engraved into our very being as woman or man, and finds its fulfillment in spousal relationship, either with God or with a spouse of complimentary (read:opposite) sex. Susan Brinkman summed it up so well in Columbia magazine (fittingly a men’s magazine), “Men and women were not created to compete with each other but to complete one another. They were not meant for separation, but for union.”
The feminist art lecture I went to was replete with Ensler’s errors of creative narcissim and false dichotomies. I learned from the enlightened professoress sex has very little to do with our biology and inherent masculinity and femininity, and more to do with society’s imposed gender construction. She proceeded to describe a feminist dialectic, where woman is the thesis, man is the anti-thesis, and radical feminism is the synthesis. She used very Marxist terms, focusing on “access to resources” and “who has the authority,” talking very much in battlefield language about the relationship between woman and man.
The exhibit she lectured on featured a number of pieces by a feminist art group called the Guerilla Girls. Founded in 1985 in New York City, these self-styled revolutionaries use tactless attack ads to bring to light the disparity between [white] men and women and people of color in the art world. One ad, featuring a lifelike naked statue, “Do women have to be naked to get [their work] into the Met?” and “Free the women artists!”
Equal dignity is where it’s at, and I like just compensation as much as the next person, but this sort of aggressive artistic affirmative action is antithetical to the grace, beauty and glory that is the feminine genius. Also, if the women artists are freed, to what or to whom are they freed?
To become truly free, we must discover God and who he has made us to be, including our sexuality according to the Divine Plan. God is calling us each to be artists of our own lives, so we have an obligation to find our vocation and the purpose of our life. God needs apostles now more than ever in a world grown dark and despairing.
In order to heal the wrenching wounds of our culture, we have to abandon the instinct to be Guerilla Girls and Eve Enslers. We can be fiery, witty, intrepid, controversial or devastatingly original. But we cannot—absolutely cannot—initiate the great work that is to be ours of our own accord and hurl it into society like urbane savages. No, we must become the feminine principal in our relationship with God (yes, men too), receiving what He urgently wants to give us. When we overcome the spiritual obstacles, pronounce our yes, greatness is born for the salvation of the entire world.
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Please keep writing. Even though I am not a Catholic, I love John Paul II. We should strive to see the best in everyone – why does everything have to be sexualized and/or politicized?
Hi Lavanna. Thank you for your encouragement. I’m glad you love John Paul II. He was a holy man of truth and love. Lavanna, what do you love about John Paull?
I agree that we should strive to see the best in every one. I knew Eve Ensler personally, I might be able to speak to her personal virtues, but as it is, much of her public persona is the Vagina Monologues. However, I also believe we should correct those in error. And the principles upon which the Monologues are based–well-intentioned though they may be–are ultimately based upon an incorrect anthropology. The Theology of the Body (which is nothing new, just a new perspective on the same old Christian teaching) is a more unified, liberated view of our selves and our bodies than radical feminism, and ultimately it’s about our purpose, vocation and destiny. Theology of the Body involves our sexuality because we are sexual persons (ie, masculine and feminine), but it’s not just about “doing it.” It’s not just about sex. I encourage you to learn more about theology of the Body at http://www.theologyofthebody.net. We were made to love as God loves. That’s what TOB is about.
I’m not sure what I politicized, so I can’t really respond to that. I did mention Marxism, but I was speaking to the materialist philosophy Marxism and its feminist branch, Marxist feminism, rather than the political ramifications of the philosophy.
Right!? Beautifully said!