Teach the Lesson You Want Learned

When I heard about the shooting in Connecticut, and about the shooter, I thought, “That young man is a genius, and he learned well.”

For the past year, we have screamed, “Birth control! Birth control!” as though preventing the existence of children is the single most important concern of our lives. Oh, the assertion that contraceptives must be had or else women will be completely and utterly useless has been around for quite some time—about eighty years now. However, people have been particularly vocal about it recently. It does not matter why the discussion began anew or who began it. The assertion is clearly there, and it always has been: that preventing the existence of children is a wonderful thing and we are proud to be able to do it.

For the past fifty years, we have been saying that if we fail to prevent the existence of new human life, we should kill it; with certain restrictions, of course—the main one being that we can only do it if we have no sense of emotional attachment to aforementioned human life. We go so far as to call an unborn child a child when we want it and a “blob of tissue” when we don’t.

And if these new human individuals, these blobs of cells, happen to defy this attempt to make certain they are never born, we give them comfort rooms. We are proud of the fact that we helped them die among blankets and flowers, and conveniently ignore the fact that we did nothing to help them live. Some say that this doesn’t happen and no one wants that. Yet I have had long discussions with more than one individual who said that we should not put forth any effort to save infants who have survived abortions, even if they are viable. “Imagine the emotional trauma that would put a woman through, knowing that she wanted an abortion and it failed and the child is out there living in the world!” one woman said. Another man stated that it would be “too expensive” to try to save the infants “no one wants anyway”.

We told this mother that she should have killed her son before he was born, simply because he was born blind. We tell something similar to mothers whose children have Down Syndrome, and boast of the fact that about 80-95% of human individuals with Down Syndrome never see the light of day. I guess caring for them would be “too expensive”.

When we saw that two disabled adults had been in homes since they were ten, when we heard their mother say that they had no joy, we did not have the bright idea of trying to bring them some joy. Instead, 90% of us cried, “Yes! Kill them!” Many of us are advocating that we make it happen, legally and frequently. Why keep a human individual alive through “extraordinary measures” when it is cheaper to let them starve? Why put forth effort to bring them joy when we can prevent their suffering by killing them?

We are good at finding reasons not to want human individuals. We are equally good at doing mental gymnastics to prove that these reasons justify getting rid of these human individuals, or that they make it impossible for such human individuals to, in fact, be human individuals.

For a good half-century and longer, we have done just about everything in our power to prove—in word and deed—that we do not value the lives of human individuals…unless we happen to want them. And then we have the audacity to act surprised and horrified when one of our children comes along and actually puts that philosophy into practice.

That young man was a genius, and he learned well. He learned the lesson that we as a society have been preaching for so very long, and we are hypocrites if we condemn him for it. We are hypocrites and idiots if we tell a young man with a disorder that inhibits him from connecting to other human beings that it is wrong to kill them, and then turn around and argue we can kill other human beings because it is impossible to establish a connection with them*.

From Here

People are looking at the tragedy that occurred at Sandy Hook, and asking, “How could this happen? Why did this happen?” Some assert that it is the fault of guns. Others postulate that it happened because of violent video games. Still others accuse mental illness. I say that it is our fault. Your fault. My fault.

We did it.

It happened because we teach our children that the lives of human individuals do not matter and have no value, and we have proven via our actions that we stand by this belief.

It happened because we made it happen. Because we taught that it should.

And the only way to prevent it from happening again, is to change. Change the way we think about our fellow human beings. Begin valuing lives; not just the ones we naturally are inclined to want, but every human life. Every single one. Everywhere.

That young man was a genius, and he learned well. We have a great power to teach. Now, let’s change the lesson.

*I am NOT saying that those with Asberger's are naturally violent, or that it was autism that caused the shooter to do what he did. I am merely pointing out that he validly had the same excuse we use to defend ourselves: lack of empathy with those human individuals we want to kill.

The Vindication of Humanae Vitae

by Mary Eberstadt

"Perhaps the most mocked of Humanae Vitae’s predictions was its claim that separating sex from procreation would deform relations between the sexes and “open wide the way for marital infidelity and a general lowering of moral standards.” Today, when advertisements for sex scream from every billboard and webpage, and every teen idol is sooner or later revealed topless or worse online, some might wonder what further proof could possibly be offered.

But to leave matters there would be to miss something important. The critical point is, one might say, not so much the proof as the pudding it’s in. And it would be hard to get more ironic than having these particular predictions of Humanae Vitaevindicated by perhaps the most unlikely—to say nothing of unwilling—witness of all: modern feminism.

Yet that is exactly what has happened since 1968. From Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem to Andrea Dworkin and Germaine Greer on up through Susan Faludi and Naomi Wolf, feminist literature has been a remarkably consistent and uninterrupted cacophony of grievance, recrimination, and sexual discontent. In that forty-year record, we find, as nowhere else, personal testimony of what the sexual revolution has done to womankind.

Consider just what we have been told by the endless books on the topic over the years. If feminists married and had children, they lamented it. If they failed to marry or have children, they lamented that, too. If they worked outside the home and also tended their children, they complained about how hard that was. If they worked outside the home and didn’t tend their children, they excoriated anyone who thought they should. And running through all this literature is a more or less constant invective about the unreliability and disrespect of men.

The signature metaphors of feminism say everything we need to know about how happy liberation has been making these women: the suburban home as concentration camp, men as rapists, children as intolerable burdens, fetuses as parasites, and so on. These are the sounds of liberation? Even the vaunted right to abortion, both claimed and exercised at extraordinary rates, did not seem to mitigate the misery of millions of these women after the sexual revolution.

Coming full circle, feminist and Vanity Fair contributor Leslie Bennetts recently published a book urging women to protect themselves financially and otherwise from dependence on men, including from men deserting them later in life. Mothers cannot afford to stay home with their children, she argues, because they cannot trust their men not to leave them. (One of her subjects calls desertion and divorce “the slaughter of the lambs.”) Like-minded feminist Linda Hirschman penned a ferocious and widely read manifesto in 2005 urging, among other bitter “solutions,” that women protect themselves by adopting—in effect—a voluntary one-child policy. (She argued that a second child often necessitates a move to the suburbs, which puts the office and work-friendly conveniences further away).

Beneath all the pathos, the subtext remains the same: Woman’s chief adversary is Unreliable Man, who does not understand her sexual and romantic needs and who walks off time and again at the first sashay of a younger thing. What are all these but the generic cries of a woman who thinks that men are “disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium” and “no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection”?

Perhaps the most compelling case made for traditional marriage lately was not on the cover of, say, Catholic World Report but in the devoutly secular Atlantic. The 2008 article “Marry Him!” by Lori Gottlieb—a single mother who conceived her only child with donor sperm rather than miss out on motherhood as she has on marriage—is a frank and excruciatingly personal look into some of the sexual revolution’s lonelier venues, including the creation of children by anonymous or absent sperm donors, the utter corrosiveness of taking a consumerist approach to romance, and the miserable effects of advancing age on one’s sexual marketability.

Gottlieb writes as one who played by all the feminist rules, only to realize too late that she’d been had. Beneath the zippy language, the article runs on an engine of mourning. Admitting how much she covets the husbands of her friends, if only for the wistful relief of having someone else help with the childcare, Gottlieb advises: “Those of us who choose not to settle in hopes of finding a soul mate later are almost like teenagers who believe they’re invulnerable to dying in a drunk-driving accident. We lose sight of our mortality. We forget that we, too, will age and become less alluring. And even if some men do find us engaging, and they’re ready to have a family, they’ll likely decide to marry someone younger with whom they can have their own biological children. Which is all the more reason to settle before settling is no longer an option.”

To these and other examples of how feminist-minded writers have become inadvertent witnesses for the prosecution of the sexual revolution, we might add recent public reflection on the Pill’s bastard child, ubiquitous pornography.

“The onslaught of porn,” one social observer wrote, “is responsible for deadening male libido in relation to real women, and leading men to see fewer and fewer women as ‘porn-worthy.’” Further, “sexual appetite has become like the relationship between agribusiness, processed foods, supersize portions, and obesity. . . . If your appetite is stimulated and fed by poor-quality material, it takes more junk to fill you up. People are not closer because of porn but further apart; people are not more turned on in their daily lives but less so.” And perhaps most shocking of all, this—which with just a little tweaking could easily have appeared inHumanae Vitae itself: “The power and charge of sex are maintained when there is some sacredness to it, when it is not on tap all the time.”

This was not some religious antiquarian. It was Naomi Wolf—Third Wave feminist and author of such works as The Beauty Myth and Promiscuities, which are apparently dedicated to proving that women can tomcat, too. Yet she is now just one of many out there giving testimony, unconscious though it may be, to some of the funny things that happened after the Pill freed everybody from sexual slavery once and for all.

That there is no auxiliary literature of grievance for men—who, for the most part, just don’t seem to feel they have as much to grieve about in this new world order—is something else that Humanae Vitae and a few other retrograde types saw coming in the wake of the revolution. As the saying goes, and as many people did not stop to ask at the time, cui bono? Forty years later, the evidence is in. As Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Denver observed on Humanae Vitae’s thirtieth anniversary in 1998, “Contraception has released males—to a historically unprecedented degree—from responsibility for their sexual aggression.” Will any feminist who by 2008 disagrees with that statement please stand up?"

If you have not read the entire article, you must do so HERE 

The Value of Motherhood & Children

It was Margaret Sanger's birthday a few days ago, so she inevitably ended up on my facebook home page.  Thus, in honor of the event (and in response to the facebook comments), I decided to read a bit of her work.  While reading THIS, I came across a very surprising quote.  After waxing eloquent on the harships of poverty and disease upon women, children, fathers, and society in general, Sanger ended with, 

"Shall [woman in general] say to society that she will go on multiplying the misery that she herself has endured? Shall she go on breeding children who can only suffer and die? Rather, shall she not say that until society puts a higher value upon motherhood she will not be a mother? Shall she not sacrifice her mother instinct for the common good and say that until children are held as something better than commodities upon the labor market, she will bear no more? Shall she not give up her desire for even a small family, and say to society that until the world is made fit for children to live in, she will have no children at all?" (emphasis is mine)

It sounds so very ennobling, which makes the irony all that more poignant.  If Margaret Sanger did truly care about impoverished and unhealthy women, her vision for a better world has failed miserably. 

Margaret Sanger did little in her life to actually alleviate poverty.  She basically said that, "You are poor, you are diseased, and life sucks for you.  At least it doesn't have to suck for the kids you don't have!"  Her idea of helping those children already born into poverty was to kill them, as she so succintly stated when she said that, "The most merciful thing that the large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it."

Artificial Contraception has not helped our society to value motherhood.  One need only go to a few comment pages on blogs about birth control, the HHS mandate...or anywhere, really...to see this.  Both women and men freak out at the mere idea of getting pregnant and having children.  I once had a discussion with a guy who called children "little leaches" and was thankful that his girlfriend was naturally sterile.  More mild stances go along the lines of: "We decided not to have children because we discovered we were happy without them."  One Mom was told that she was greedy to want more than two children.  I know many mothers of "large" families who have been considered crazy for having more than one or two children...like my aunt who, upon walking through the store with her four children, was accosted by a woman who asked, "Are they all yours?" and, upon receiving an affirmative answer, said sincerely, "I am so sorry".  Perhaps the most telling recent example is this familiar piece internet rhetoric:

The very idea of motherhood is likened to drowning!


I think that it is safe to say that motherhood is not valued highly in our society.  Women (and men) are not being self-sacrificing.  They have not sacrificed their mothering instincts, their love of mothers and children, for the sake of some noble statement and higher good.  They have smothered these "instincts".  They are happy without them.  The "common good" has become the personal good.  Children are more of a commodity than they have ever been; commodities and children are things to be had when you want them and discarded when you don't.  And that is just the contraceptive (and abortive) mentality. Sanger did nothing to right the wrongs she saw in the world.  She has, if anything, made them worse.  Those who praise her for allowing and feeding society's lack of value for motherhood and children misunderstand her efforts.  Those who agree with her assessment of poverty and disease had best find a better visionary...one who actually saw problems and decided to fix them.

The Religious Family

As you may already know, I am a young Catholic woman who has been discerning a vocation to the religious life for a number of years.  I have looked into countless communities, contacted upwards fifty of them, and become close to three.  I have studied their Rules, their community life, their habits, their charism, their apostolate.  I am only a lowly discerner and have never joined, but I know quite a bit about nuns.  And I like them.  A lot. 

As of late, the goodness of nuns has been much praised in the news.  People all over the internet are exclaiming over the experiences they had with wonderful teaching Sisters.  The speak of how Sisters are women of God, and are doing good, and are just trying to be holy followers of Jesus.  I would be very pleased and touched to hear all of this and see all of this support.  However, after reading only a few comments and articles, I realized very quickly that there is an itty bitty problem:  none of these Sister-Praisers even know what a nun is!

“Strike ladies, just strike.  Tell the men in the church to **** themselves”

“Keep doing Christ’s work ladies, let the Pope and his corrupt power driven staff play politics by themselves…”

“the Vatican and the bishops want to rein in the various women’s religious communities?  Good luck, boys! you are up against some of the freest spirits and thinkers in the church. your battle is lost befoe it has begun.”

I have always liked the religious life and have always been open to a religious vocation.  I first became interested in the idea of living in a community, and after a bit of research eventually became attracted to certain apostolates, certain charisms, and the idea of being a Bride of Christ.  I fell very much in love with nuns, all by their feminine selves.  However, despite my interest and attraction I made no move to actively discern or to in any way claim this vocation for myself.  This inactivity continued for three years.  What finally changed my mind?  What transformed mere attraction to longing?  What turned interest into wanting?  No, it was not some new information as to Orders.  It was not some discovery about women.  It was not even the stirring speech my Spiritual Director gave on needing to join to truly discern (though that was a part of it).  What really made me want to claim the “sisterhood” was the priesthood.

I was on a trip with my Spiritual Director, a seminarian, and a youth group.  We were going on a week-long road trip, the primary focus of which was a youth conference.  However, on the way, we stopped to see several religious communities and visit with the Sisters.  One of these Orders was the Nashville Dominicans.  We spoke with them, were given a tour of their convent, and even went to Vespers with them.  It was very beautiful and after it was all over I climbed into the van still wondering at the splendor and peace I felt there.  Then the seminarian with us said from the front seat, “Seeing all those Sisters…it gives me strength.”  He said it to himself, but his tone and his words struck me more than all the beauty and even the Sisters themselves. 

I admired that seminarian (now Father) very much.  I admire my Spiritual Director.  In fact, I know a lot of priests and most of my friends are seminarians, and I admire them all.  Why would I not?  Priests give so much.  They wake up at all hours of the night to bring the Sacraments and comfort to the dying.  They pour hours and years and their health into forming loving, charitable, faith-filled communities out of recalcitrant parishes of self-absorbed and change-despising old people.  They put immeasurable amounts of effort and care into involving apathetic teenagers and teaching those poor, wandering souls what Love is.  And then, inevitably, not uncommonly at a very bad time, they are torn away.  All of the relationships they established and the progress they made are taken away from them and given to someone else as they are shuffled around the diocese from parish to parish.  The whole process begins again, and again, and again, repeating itself in six-or-so-year cycles.  I can only imagine how frustrating it must be; I have seen how lonely it is.  They give so much, they sacrifice so much, and they get so little in return.

When I heard that seminarian say with such feeling, such emotion, that those Nashville Dominicans give him strength…I wanted that.  I wanted to be one of those women who lend priests strength.  I wanted to serve those who serve.  I wanted to be a Clare for Francis.  That was all.  That was what made me want religious life. 

This is not a strange reason to be attracted.  It is quite natural, evident in the very words we use to describe the people involved.  Anyone who knows a crumb about the Catholic Church is well aware that she—while being the sum total of her members, and all together the Body of Christ and His family—has also a sort of “family-within-a-family”.  Father, Brother, Sister, and Mother are very common terms in the Catholic Church, not only on a mundane and physical level, but also in a spiritual sense.  These special men and women devote their entire lives and give their very souls to Christ and His Church, and in doing so form a sort of spiritual family of their own.  Commenters such as the above wish to divorce this family; what they do not understand is that in doing so they would destroy exactly what they claim to defend. 

How can one be a Sister if they do not have a Brother?  How can one be a Mother if there is no Father?  These titles we call our religious by reveal a deeper truth about their vocation: they do not stand alone.  These selfless people are not defined by themselves but find their identity in the other.  To advocate their separation is equal to an act of violence upon a very real family; to shout eagerly “away with the bishops and the Pope; the sisters are the conscience of the church!” is paramount to wishing away the sibling of a sister or brother. 

“You go ladies!! The days of follow the leader are over, especially when the leadership is exclusively comprised of only one gender.”

When people speak like this, I have no idea what they are talking about.  They certainly aren’t speaking of nuns, since sisters would be nothing without priests and the Church.  I can only conclude that they do not know of that which they speak.  Or perhaps they hate religious sisters AND the Vatican, and wish to bring about the destruction of both.  Either way, it offends me greatly for it threatens a family I have long cherished.

As for the Sisters of the LCWR themselves…if the comments attributed to them are true…I feel sorry for them.  I do not know how or why, but they have forgotten who and what they are.  How very sad it is to see women who have given their lives forget what they gave it for!  To see a Sister who remembers not her Brother, a Mother who doesn’t recall the Father of her children, makes me cry.  To know that a woman calls herself a nun, places herself in name at the core of the Church, and then would defy and deny that Church…I really have no words.  I just hope and pray that the reform the Vatican is implementing for the LCWR will cure these sisters of their amnesia. 

 As for me…when it comes to religious life, I do not want to be a woman.  I want to be a daughter to a loving Father.  I do not want to be a single sibling; I want to be a sister.  I do not want to be an old maid; I want to be a mother.  I do not want to marry feminism; I want to marry Christ and serve His Church, and without priests there is no Church.  To call myself a sister without these would make no sense.  I would not be a Sister. 

“Thank God, I mean that literally, your thinking is dying out, as the old right-wingers of Catholicism make their final gasps.”

There are no poles in this issue; you either stand with the Church, or against her.  I do not want your substitute, your broken family, your amnesiac mothers and sisters.  I, along with countless other young Catholic women, want the Church and we want Francis.  I’d be proud to be one of the many, many reasons the CMSWR is growing.

CMSWR vs. LCWR

If you want to see some Sisters who know who they are, visit this website: CMSWR

If you want to see how Brothers care for their Sisters, go HERE

And if you want to know more about the Nashville Dominicans, visit their WEBSITE

Please pray for our priests, and those who support them.  They are Fathers as surely as those you celebrated with yesterday!

Free Birth Control!

I've been hearing a lot lately how expensive birth control is. It'll cost women $1,000 to $3,000 a year for birth control, and that is a lot to pay out of pocket. Birth control being essential for women's function in society, they cannot go without it. And as they can't buy it themselves, someone must buy it for them. It's for the sake of the women!

Listen. There is a birth control out there that doesn't cost a dime to manufacture. It is as effective as any hormonal birth control you will ever take, if not more so.

It's called Natural Family Planning. I know people who have used it effectively for over two decades. They have spent no more than $10 on it in all that time; that paid for their thermometer.

Do you need birth control? Fine. Use it. If you insist on using the expensive stuff, because you just prefer it, then pay for your preferences. If you really are that desperate and need birth control that bad, then use what you have, and what is most easily attainable: NFP.

Your preference for a certain form of birth control put you in such a desperate control-less situation. Why should others pay for that? If you don't like NFP...why should others pay for you because you are high maintenance?

If you really need birth control, use NFP.

If you cannot afford your own thermometer, I promise I will donate one to you!

Counting and Target Practice

I have been hearing lately that 98% of Catholics have used contraceptives...

Or maybe it was 98% of Catholics currently use contraceptives...

Or maybe it was 98% of Catholic women...

There was a lot of confusion surrounding the figures people were citing. They weren't sure what the numbers counted, but they counted something and the number was definitely 98. So I decided to do a bit of research, myself, and here is what I found:

The accusation is based on THIS STUDY. I read all of it, but you don't have to. let us just look at the chart. This chart tells us that 83% of the Catholic women interviewed use a type of contraceptive obviously condemned by the Catholic Church. 4% use "Other" (strange techniques also condemned by the Church). 11% admit to using no method at all, and only 2% claim Natural Family Planning. Get out your calculators now, people.

98% (what everyone keeps spouting) +
2% (NFP) +
11% (nothing at all)=
111%.

That's right. One hundred and eleven percent. Do you see something wrong here? In case you didn't catch it, the elevent percent of Nothing-Users were lumped together with the artificial contraceptive users. Last time I looked, "No Method" meant "No Method," not "Contraceptive." Therefore, based on the numbers of this study, one could at most conclude that 87% of Catholic women are currently using contraceptives.

Let us not forget the confusion surrounding what the numbers counted, though. Who, exactly, make up these numbers? Well, they are women. They are sexually active (i.e. had intercourse in the last three months). They are ages 15 to 44. They are not post-partum. They are not pregnant. They do not want to be pregnant. If that isn't clear enough, it's under chart three, under the supplementary chart, and in bold on page eight.

Furthermore, less than a third of these women take seriously
their Sunday obligation:

So who do the numbers not count?

Women who obey the Church by valuing children and so becoming pregnant.

Women who obey the Church by valuing children and being willing to become pregnant.

Women who obey the Church and practice chastity (continence).

Who do the numbers count?

A large number of women who don't go to Mass, disregard the Church's teaching on abstinence, and disregard the Church's teaching to be open to children.

Do you mean to say that "98%" of Catholics least likely to obey the Church's teaching on sexuality use contraception?!? They actually did a study for that?

....I see Captain Obvious is well employed.

When the Church preaches that we should be open to having children, and you are doing a study on the percentage of Catholics who adhere to Church teaching on the matter, it is more than a little fishy to exclude everyone willing to have children. Hint: the faithful Catholics were either pregnant or willing to become pregnant. Why? Because they are faithful.

"Yes, the study is targeted. But that's necessary. It's a study on contraceptive use, of course they are only going to study those women who need contraceptives!"

If this is what someone tells you--or if you are thinking this yourself--the point has been missed. Let me expound.

If I make the claim that 98% of computer users employ a mouse, I would not cite a study that only interviewed desktop users. Why? Because that study doesn't support my claim. It would only support my claim if my claim were, "98% of desktop users use a mouse" or "98% of an unknown fraction of computer users use a mouse."

Perhaps the Guttmacher institute had a reason for so restricting their study (riiight), but the fact remains that the claim "Catholic women don't follow the Church as regards contraceptives" is still a lie. 98% of Catholic women do NOT use artificial birth control. 98% of sexually active Catholic women who aren't pregnant, post-partum, and do not want to become pregnant, use artificial birth control.

Given that we do not know what fraction of sexually active Catholic women--much less Catholic women in general--actually met the requirements for the study, it is a very big leap to then say that the majority of the Church has accepted artificial birth control, and that the celibate heirarchy is just "catching up."

"98% of an unknown percent of sexually active women of an unknown percent of Catholic women" is not a very convincing premise, and it is the only premise the Guttmacher study gives us. It leaves out too many Catholics to give an accurate percent of our more rebellious sisters.

Some people don't like to face the obvious, however, so no doubt when you mention those abstaining, someone is going to point to chart two...

...and say only 30% of never-married Catholics are abstaining. They will then try to tell you that the remaining 70% are included in chart three, and that 98% of the 70% of unmarried women therefore use contraceptives, which is still a high enough number to prove that most Catholic women don't listen to the Pope (or something along these lines.)

People like this are grasping. That 98% is a dearly loved figure that no one wants to let go of. The problem with this reasoning is that it assumes that all 70% of never-married Catholic women fit the requirement for chart three. This may not be so. They may be willing to become pregnant. They may not be sexually active. Of, yes, Guttmacher says they are "sexually experienced," but that could mean they had sex only once in their lives. It does not necessarily follow that they are "sexually active." We don't know what fraction of this 70% meets the restrictions for chart three, so we cannot try to apply the figures in chart three to them. Note, also, that chart two describes them as "never-married," not "unmarried." We don't know the number of never-married Catholic women to all Catholic women, therefore making it an even bigger leap from "sexually experienced" to "the majority of Catholic women don't follow the Church's teaching on birth control."

So next time someone comes to you and tells you that 98% of Catholic women use contraceptives, show them Guttmacher's target practice and teach them how to count. Be nice; anyone could have missed it, and we all know no one actually reads the studies they cite, anyway. Just thank God for this chance to instruct the ignorant.





Related articles:
http://www.phatmass.com/dust/98percent/

http://www.whatswrongwiththeworld.net/2012/02/how_to_lie_with_statistics_exa_1.html

Seven Proofs that Women are Women

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Feminists Hate Women

Am I the only Catholic who has heard that irksome accusation against the Church—that She hates women? Apparently, She is anti-woman because She does not condone the use of birth control, or allow women to be priests. She even has the nerve to proclaim that men are the head of family, while wives must be submissive to their husbands. In defending my Faith, I, too, have received a share of these accusations, as any good Catholic will. Many people who have not met me assume that I am a guy, because I myself so obviously do not champion any of our modern feminists’ ideas. And when they learn I am a woman, they cry, “You are a traitor to women!” It is an accusation that I have heard many times over the course of my four-year pro-life, Catholic career. So, I am writing today to turn the tables and propose a scandalizing and appallingly apparent idea: that it is, in fact, our modern feminists who hate women.




Yes, they hate women. They despise that gender so much, that they want to turn them all into men. It is not enough for women to be equal with men; they—in the mind of our dear feminists—must be the same as men. Women cannot be submissive to men, but the men must instead be submissive to the women. For this reason do we see the fathers as fumbling bafoons in all our children’s cartoons and movies, while the mothers are the parent in control. Forget that men are commanded to love their wives as Christ loves His Church (and this is no small command, for Christ’s love was a sacrificing one). That isn’t good enough for feminists. They will not be satisfied until the women take on the full role of the men. Hence, we have such arguments as “It’s good for a child to have two mommies!” while women who stay at home to raise and school the kiddos are scoffed at.

While walking in the store, my aunt was once asked the question, “Oh, are all these children yours?” “Why, yes, all four of them are!” she responded proudly, only to receive the reply: “I’m so sorry.” As if motherhood—that fundamental aspect of womanhood—was something to be regretted.

For the same reason do feminists want women to be priests. Forget that women have their own special and unique role as religious sisters. Again, that isn’t good enough. They must be exactly like the men.

It is self-evident, I think, why this is an anti-woman view. If I were to tell you that I was a 70s rock fanatic; that I adored the low, harmonic voices, repetitive and clear beats, simple drum pieces, all tied together with the clever use of a synthesizer… you might believe me that I loved 70s rock. But if I immediately turned around and began to complain that the singer needs to scream more, that there needs to be less synth and more distorted guitar, and that the music needs to be much louder and harder, would you really believe that I loved 70s rock? Or would you come to the conclusion that I needed to purchase a heavy metal CD and shut up?
The latter, undoubtedly, because one cannot claim to love something, and yet wish to change said something fundamentally. You cannot love something, and deny everything that something is. You either love it as it is, or you do not love it at all. Feminists hate women because they do not love women as women; they love them as men.

Not only does this betray a loathing of women as such, but such a mentality will truly make women lose all value. While it is true that men and women are equal in value, it is also true that they are opposites, and so find their identity in being opposites. How can one appreciate the light if they have never experienced darkness, or vice versa? Likewise, how can one appreciate warmth, if they have never experienced cold? Or music, if they’ve never known a lack thereof? They can’t. In each case, the two opposites are directly connected. They can be known through their existence AND their partner’s existence. They are as much defined by what they are not, as by what they are. It is the same with men and women. Women are not men, and it is in this very difference that we find their value. Banishing the difference between the genders would be to degrade them both. If the interest of feminists is to turn women into men, then it is the interest of feminists to devalue women, and so truly can I say that feminists hate women.