Masculinity/Femininity and the Culture Wars

Masculinity/Femininity is: physical traits, sexual and romantic inclinations, cultural creations, emotional/psychological/spiritual gestalts, personal decisions and attitudes...all this, and so much more. It is the Great Mystery of Creation: the high point of the natural order and the greatest finite icon or sacrament of the Divine. Man and Woman look to each other...to delight, challenge, humble, ennoble, complement, crucify, sanctify, cooperate, transcend, annoy, and finally (in God's grace) glorify each other! But, when things are off between the masculine and the feminine...as they regularly are since the Fall...within a person's self, or marriage/family, or culture/society/religion...things go very, very bad. And so, all the great Culture Wars spring deeply from gender disasters. Let's look at five current Culture Wars in this light.

Abortion is the defining, foundational moral, spiritual, and cultural issue of the past 50 years and the foreseeable future. The "right to choice" is essentially the cry of femininity as violated, vulnerable, unprotected, and un-cherished. It is not a "woman's issue" but the desperate cry of woman who is abused, abandoned, despised and objectified by a predatory male. At the same time, it is the "right" of that same predator to be protected from the consequence of his lust; it is "backup contraception;" it is the key to a culture of sexual liberation; it is the ultimate violation of the woman and child by the male; it is the "anti-paternal" even as it is the "anti-maternal;"  it is disgust for the 6th commandment breeding contempt for the 5th. It is the expression of feminine hysteria and the essence of masculine narcissistic domination. The pro-life movement is both maternal and paternal; a woman's issue and a man's issue. Unhappily, it's practical association with the Republican Party has tended to associate it, in many minds, with male privilege, arrogance, misogyny and indifference to the poor and suffering. While there no doubt is some truth to this association, at the deepest level it is a slander.

The Pandemic Lock-Down, after the first months of consensual cooperation, has now erupted into a culture war between conflicting feminine/masculine propensities. Maternal protectiveness seeks to protect the weak and vulnerable from suffering and death; on the other hand, a masculine restlessness sees a greater danger in passivity, fear, isolation, depression and economic stagnation and is becoming desperate to work and get out and get along with life. The feminine in this case looks to the state as a protective mother, caring for the sick; the masculine resents a smothering mother suppressing liberty, agency and masculinity itself.  A weakened femininity risks panic, hysteria and paralysis; but an immature masculinity can be reckless, irresponsible, selfish and insensitive to the anxiety of the vulnerable and the suffering of the afflicted. If we ever needed a balance between the feminine and masculine propensities, it is the present.

Global Warming is quintessentially feminine in that the female psyche profoundly and perennially senses itself as part of a larger whole...the womb, the family, the Church and the universe. The ego boundaries of the feminine psyche are permeable, open, receptive, generous, welcoming. The inferior male psychology is more defined, rigid, set off, aggressive, controlling, and defensive. Here is a case where the male propensity for science, technology, entreprenuship, conquest, skepticism and analysis needs desperately to be modulated by his love for woman in her compassion, inclusiveness, tenderness, contemplation, and sense of beauty.

Guns are an issue so clearly reflecting gender differences that any discussion becomes banal and obvious.

Boundaries and Immigration  are again clear expressions of gender propensities: the woman as welcoming, receptive, generous and compassionate. By contrast, the masculine psyche appreciates boundaries, the rule of law, respect for protocols and procedures and a paternal protectiveness. Again we see the need for mutuality, openness to the other gender, tenderness and reverence. Again we see the unhappy polarization into political parties and culture warfare.

The man becomes manly, virile, heroic and virtuous by loving the woman in her difference, her tenderness, sensitivity, generosity and generosity. The woman becomes feminine in a wholesome and holy way by loving and being loved by the man with his own complementary characteristics. The singular perfect creature was a woman: Mary was loved by her saintly father Joachim, her holy husband Joseph, her divine son Jesus,  by John and the other apostles. and by her heavenly Father in the Holy Spirit. She flawlessly imbibed masculine love as she immaculately loved men and allowed her own femininity to flourish. She is nature's "solitary boast." She is our strength and comfort and inspiration...in our own masculinity and femininity.

"Blessed Mother, we place ourselves under the mantle of your holiness, your purity, your beauty and your love."