Advice to a Young Woman: Secrets That Feminists Don’t Want You to Know

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This woman is a PhD-level fellow at a Right-wing think tank with no mention of a husband, children, or even grandchildren. And for someone telling us to put our careers aside she’s certainly built up quite the career for herself. https://www.jenniferbryson.net/ Is there any reason why the rest of us girly-girls should be taking her advice? 🤔
 
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That article is just bizarre. Really.

Being single is not “meandering alone”. That statement does so much more harm than good, and it’s nonsensical. Not everyone is called to marriage, and those who aren’t shouldn’t be made to feel as though they live a less fulfilling life.

As an aside, I would love to meet one of these feminists who want to manipulate women into misery, because the only feminists I’ve ever met have wanted to support women in whatever they want to do. I had to laugh at the awfulness the author felt at women encouraging other women to be frontrunners in their careers. A very odd sentiment, especially considering the death of Bader Ginsburg just a couple of weeks ago, and all that she achieved for herself and for millions of women.
 
blackforest said:
This woman is a PhD-level fellow at a Right-wing think tank with no mention of a husband, children, or even grandchildren. And for someone telling us to put our careers aside she’s certainly built up quite the career for herself. https://www.jenniferbryson.net/ Is there any reason why the rest of us girly-girls should be taking her advice? 🤔
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And she lives in Washingtom DC. She is an adult convert to Catholicism. Maybe she would have scoffed at such advice during her years in academia; I don’t know. If her advice was different then, it seems to have changed now.

ETA: I noticed that some of the comments following the article made the same point that you did. Others noted that in the current culture it’s not all that easy to find a suitable match.
 
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Maybe she could use her PhD to figure out how mothers could be respected in the job market instead of sidelined. Then she and her Washington DC think-tank could advocate/lobby for it.
 
Dear “Eligible Young Bachelor”,

Thanks, but I’m glad I ignored the “advice” of people like you. The guy who wanted to marry me and have children right away ended up married to someone else, then divorced and living in a trailer. I waited a while and then married the guy from the next cubicle at my post-college job, he helped me get several more degrees and we lived happily ever after.
 
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Whenever we don’t have Church teaching or Scripture to buttress a position, we have just our own opinions. Bryson is no exception. She appears to hold some personal regrets. That’s understandable, but it’s inappropriate of her to project these onto other women.

In the end, I’m not sure why we should take her advice over anyone else’s. Or why a male in this forum is indirectly advising us by posting this article. No offense intended, but I’m not sure how her opinion, or your support for it, is good guidance to women who’ve had more personal life experience. Specifically, plenty of women on this forum have actual experience with stay-at-home motherhood and putting careers on hold. We may come to the table with different views, but I’m more likely to listen to women who’ve btdt.

My own advice is simply for women to pray hard that God guides them wherever he wants them - holding a full-time career - with or without marriage or children, pursuing a holy vocation, etc. 🙂 But then, what do I know? I’m not a fellow at an ideological think tank. 🤷‍♀️
 
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That’s very weird. She lost me when she had no answer for all the women (and men) who are currently single and have lived single beyond their probable fertility–from what she was saying, they wasted their lives. She said, “There is no vocation for singleness.”
Well, I suppose she’s correct. But that doesn’t make these people failures as Christians., does it? It doesn’t mean they’ve missed their real vocation, does it?

I think that in today’s society, both women and men should be prepared to earn a living. The days of “unmarried aunt or uncle” moving into one of the rooms in the big farmhouse to help with the chores are gone…with the wind.

Even if someone has all their ducks lined up, they find a wonderful spouse and marry them, and have beautiful children, stuff happens. The divorce rate is around 50% in this country, and I’m sure that quite a few of those divorces take place in seemingly happy families with 2 children.

Or people get killed in accidents. Or people die of incurable diseases.

So sad. But even sadder if the person left behind has no education, no job skills, no training, no experience outside of a home.

Yes, I think this lady is living about a century ago.
 
Marriage wasn’t always seen as a vocation in the Church, the term was reserved exclusively for those called to religious life.
 
blackforest said:
This woman is a PhD-level fellow at a Right-wing think tank with no mention of a husband, children, or even grandchildren. And for someone telling us to put our careers aside she’s certainly built up quite the career for herself.
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Sounds not unlike Phyllis Schlafly.
 
This is the only major hang-up I’ve ever had with some other Catholics (thankfully, the Church itself doesn’t teach that it’s only ever either marriage or the religious life).

I’m not single as such, but I was for a very long time before I met my partner, and I have ALWAYS hated how some other Catholics / religious folk make it sound like the single life is the worst thing on the planet. I did well for myself, and I was happy; that’s how I was able to meet someone awesome. I already HAD a whole life, even if that life left me with a few scars; I had happiness from learning and striving to live a good life right where I was, that I was then able to share.

Two thumbs down to that article. Yeesh.
 
Adding on to this - There may not be a vocation to singleness but the Church also doesn’t teach that the only options are marriage or a religious vocation. It frustrates me when the choice is presented as one or the other when the lay single life is an equal option.
 
I mean, there is no single vocation. That doesn’t mean that it’s bad to be single or that single people are somehow lesser than married folks. But vocation in the Catholic Church is generally understood as being something that the whole Church celebrates and takes part in. New priests and newlyweds make public vows and promises and then celebrate with the whole community.
 
AdamP88 said:
I mean, there is no single vocation. That doesn’t mean that it’s bad to be single or that single people are somehow lesser than married folks. But vocation in the Catholic Church is generally understood as being something that the whole Church celebrates and takes part in. New priests and newlyweds make public vows and promises and then celebrate with the whole community.
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Reasonable. The Church could stand, in my opinion, to do more outreach to those who are single and not called to either the married or religious life; maybe involve the various Secular Orders a bit more.
 
Raxus said:
Reasonable. The Church could stand, in my opinion, to do more outreach to those who are single and not called to either the married or religious life; maybe involve the various Secular Orders a bit more.
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Lay Dominican here.

A lovely suggestion, and while lay Orders should be promoted more in general, they are still technically not vocations. I as a lay Dominican can get married, or take a vow of celibacy. We also can have Deacons, and in the Dominicans case, we have a fraternity just for diocesan priests who wish to be part of our wider Dominican family. Being a part of a lay Order is not the same as marriage or religious life, great as it is.
 
Fauken said:
Lay Dominican here.

A lovely suggestion, and while lay Orders should be promoted more in general, they are still technically not vocations. I as a lay Dominican can get married, or take a vow of celibacy. We also can have Deacons, and in the Dominicans case, we have a fraternity just for diocesan priests who wish to be part of our wider Dominican family. Being a part of a lay Order is not the same as marriage or religious life, great as it is.
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I was almost a member of the Secular Franciscan Order myself, before finances and car trouble made it impossible to keep meeting with the group; I was under the impression that there is a vow or two taken in terms of how a member of the SFO will live from then on. Isn’t that pretty close to a vocation? “Good enough for jazz”, as some might say?
 
Raxus said:
I was almost a member of the Secular Franciscan Order myself, before finances and car trouble made it impossible to keep meeting with the group; I was under the impression that there is a vow or two taken in terms of how a member of the SFO will live from then on. Isn’t that pretty close to a vocation? “Good enough for jazz”, as some might say?
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They’re not vows, they’re promises, and really (at least in terms of the Dominicans, but I imagine the SFOs are similar), there’s only one thing promised: to live according to the Rule of the Lay Fraternities of St. Dominic. Marriage and religious life sort of “set you apart” from other paths, in a sense. The only thing that the Rule would “set me apart” from is joining another Order, lay or otherwise. The promise made is also much easier to dissolve than marital or religious vows.
 
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Fauken said:
They’re not vows, they’re promises, and really (at least in terms of the Dominicans, but I imagine the SFOs are similar), there’s only one thing promised: to live according to the Rule of the Lay Fraternities of St. Dominic. Marriage and religious life sort of “set you apart” from other paths, in a sense. The only thing that the Rule would “set me apart” from is joining another Order. The promise made is also much easier to dissolve than marital or religious vows.
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Ah, I see. Yes, you agree to live by the Rule of the SFO as well when the time comes; one of the things that stood out for me when I read it was agreeing not to bear weapons of any kind on one’s person.

Thanks for the info!
 
Raxus said:
Ah, I see. Yes, you agree to live by the Rule of the SFO as well when the time comes; one of the things that stood out for me when I read it was agreeing not to bear weapons of any kind on one’s person.

Thanks for the info!
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Yeah, each Rule is slightly different. That sounds very Franciscan though, to not carry weapons! There’s no such restriction in mine.
 
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