Strong differences on politics and religions are common among families in our time and place; what is striking about our family is the clear gender divide.
Three brothers are all strong conservatives, politically and religiously, very close to each other in attitudes. Six sisters are more liberal, although there is a range of viewpoints. The oldest is sort of a bridge: married to a moderate Republican, she is strong in her Catholic beliefs but leans liberal in some ways. The next two have detached from much Catholic practice as they lean strongly into cultural progressivism. The youngest three maintain the parental legacy in its dual loyalties: to the Church and to liberal politics.
The world in which we were raised...the Camelot of Catholic, working class, ethnic liberalism in 1945-65...was entirely different from the one in which we came of age, post-1965, in the wake of the Cultural Revolution. My thesis: the brothers reacted in masculine, conservative, mode to this reality; the sister in feminine, liberal, mode.
Our father and mother, Ray and Jeanne, socially presented in a quiet, shy, gentle manner. But they were flamingly passionate and profound in their romance, faith, politics, love for family, masculinity and femininity; they were typical of The Great Generation. The nine of us inherited this calm intensity, but developed it in contrasting directions in a world in drastic change. Ray and Jeanne maintained their allegiance to Catholicism and political liberalism to their last days, even in the post-1965 world in which the two became competitive if not contradictory.
Consider two realities:
1, The feminine psyche-heart-intellect-soul is more compassionate, inclusive, affirmative, reconciliatory, concrete, and interpersonal. The masculine is more abstract, combative, traditional and deferential to authority.
So the brothers reacted fiercely against cultural liberalism of the 1960s as a threat to our faith; they renounced the new Democratic Party as a betrayal of Catholic values. The sisters remained loyal to that party; two accepted progressive premises; the other four in some degree detached from this culture war in favor of keeping peace and extending welcome/affirmation to those now portrayed as victims of oppressive systems.
2. The male itinerary of maturation involves two radical breaks: around 2 years old there is the Oedipal rupture from enclosure within the mother and transition to bonding with the father (or surrogate). Later, in adolescence, the boy now breaks with the father, if in a gentle fashion, to become his own man and capable of fathering his own family. Even at the moment of birth, the mother looks upon her son and already sees alterity, otherness, "he is not like me." By contrast, the female, in moving towards maturity and autonomy, is spared these two violent ruptures. She maintains (in optimal circumstances) an uninterrupted communion with her mother. "A boy is your son until he finds a wife; a girl is your daughter until the end of her life." Likewise, the adolescent girl maintains a filial union with her father and has no need to strike out and become independent.
And so, most of the sisters maintained the Catholic/liberal synthesis of our parents. To this day they all live within half hour drive of each other and are very close. Two of the six did detach from Catholic roots in favor of the new post-1965 values, especially around femininity and unborn life. The three brothers intensified Catholic values and switched political allegiance from liberalism to conservatism.
Our mother and father, along with their generation, coming of age in the Depression, veterans of WWII, participant in the Cold War, prosperous and thriving in the post-War years saw eye-to-eye on religion and politics. There was no gender gap. The feminist narrative of oppressed women, trapped in the kitchen, having too many children, and eager for the joys of a professional career was not the reality of my childhood world. Our mother and father were models of mutual reverence, tenderness and delight. There were fights; but no dominance, disrespect, or abiding resentment. There was nothing in this marriage that would explain the gender divide later between the sons and daughters.
We brothers quite self-consciously emulated our father and uncles in classic Catholic values around virility and paternity ("patriarchy" in the positive sense of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and "faith of our fathers") even as we expressed this in a different political allegiance. Our sisters were in varying degrees accepting or tolerant, in a soft mode, of the feminism prevalent in our youth. This was in no way a hatred of men: they love their husbands, sons and even (lol) their brothers. Rather, there is a pronounced preference for masculinity in a gentle, humble mode, as exemplified in our father. And so: a suspicion of masculinity in stronger, harder form: man as soldier, policeman, businessman, evangelist, and Republican. Along with this came a tolerance for the new Democratic Party with its alleged defense of women's "reproductive rights" against the government now viewed as male in a toxic sense.
Our mother, clearly the defining influence on our sisters, shared with them her faith, strong femininity, and love for men. But there were wounds. These were not discussed. Typical of her generation but even more pronouncedly, she dealt with suffering in accord with a song she often sang us: "You've got to...accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, don't mess with Mr. Inbetween; She dearly loved her father but lost him in early adolescence to mental illness during the Depression when he lost his job. She dearly loved her brother who returned that love but in accord with his eccentric and not always sensitive personality. In early adulthood, when she was ready for marriage, her entire generation left for WWII: another masculine abandonment. She worked in NYC: a beautiful, sensitive, shy young woman she became the object of unwanted attention from men. At this very time her sister married and was betrayed by her husband. All of this occurred in early adulthood, a delicate period. And so we can imagine that, notwithstanding her happy marriage, she carried wounds from men. And so, the soft feminism shared in various degrees by her daughters starts to make sense.
A cynical view of the brother's conservatism would see that their affluence has moved them into the Republican party of the rich, powerful and greedy. This would be unfair. They do show concern for the needy. Their average net worth is probably only slightly higher than that of our sisters. But more problematic is the assumption that the DNC remains the party of the poor and working class. They continue to advocate for unions, more progressive economics (higher capital gains and minimum wage), and regulation. However, the RNC of Trump is largely the rage of the underclass, the working poor, against the cultural arrogance, power and affluence of the secular elite and the comfortable, professional classes. In that sense, both sisters and brothers see themselves populists, righteously on the side of the underclass.
The brothers have moved somewhat to the right of our New Deal parents in economics: more suspicion of the big state, more positive about business and markets, as well as a stronger sense of subsidiarity. But for us the defining reality of our time is the attack on our Catholic way of life from Cultural Progressivism. On this, the views of our sisters range from acceptance, to accommodation, to tolerance, to avoidance...out of a womanly inclination to conciliation/affirmation and an aversion to cultural combat.
Happily, this divide in our new post-1965 world is not as deep as our shared love, respect, care and Catholic values. We have learned to avoid political and polarizing topics as we agree in far more than we disagree. It is because our love for each other is so deep and intense that this divide is so painful.
No comments:
Post a Comment