Does a Catholic women have a God given right to work (Have a Career)

[Portrait]

No they should not work unless they are the sole provider of the family or under exceptional circumstances.
God gave each gender roles stop thinking you know better renounce the spirit of the world and do what you were called to be.
Also women cannot handle work as well as the man can they are just not designed to work,
sorry but it is true don’t have society tell you otherwise women simply cannot do men’s roles.

Dear Transalosania,

Cordial greetings and a very good day. A very warm welcome to the world of CAF and hope that you find your time here informative and spiritually enriching. Hear, hear to your remarks above - jolly well said. Thankyou for your contribution.

Indeed, dear friend, our gender roles have been given by the divine providence and no amount of blurring the differences by modern secular feminism can or will change that.

Working married women claiming a high career profile for themselves have eroded their husband’s God-given sense of responsibility as the breadwinner. As a consequence, dear friend, parents now look at each other with a degree of ambivalence and their mutual loyalty is subject to a new latter day strain. An ancient element in their felt necessity of and for each other has withered, thanks to the legacy of secular feminism, and cohabitataion becomes preferable to entering into holy wedlock. Lacking the clearly defined function in the family that they formerly had, men hive-off, and so called ‘single-parent’ families proliferate. Children find themselves living with some new temporary boyfriend and the stage is set for child abuse. If women are equals of men in the way that they now vociferously claim, they can fend for themselves and do not need some “sweet loving man to lean on”! No wonder then that men cease to feel that they have protective roles, in fact the reverse may prevail; gratuitous humiliation is contemptuously added to violence. Mutual respect between the sexes falls to a low ebb and with it the well-being of the wider society of which it is a major ingredient. Men and women lose their sense of being necessary to each other and become cynics and rivals, homosexual vice flourishes as an acceptable alternative and women look for a so called ‘new man’ who is happy to abandon his God-given role as provider to undertake the “proper cares and duties” that have been assigned by nature to the woman. This is the legacy and confusion that modern radical feminism has bequethed to us and the Catholic faithful are under an obligation to steadfastly resist and denounce its false and toxic ideology.

As I said previously, we need to think carefully about the whole negative impact which modern secular feminism has had upon the way we think about the roles of men and women.
What has been the result of the prevalent aggressive disparagement of woman home-makers? Has it contributed to more stable home life or rather to the break-up of home life?

Warmest good wishes,

Portrait

Pax

 

[Portrait]

The same pope also called fathers to be more attentive to their domestic responsibilities on a number of occasions. For example:

The truth is that regardless whether we are male or female, if we live in family our primary responsibility is the domestic sphere. Work done “outside” this sphere is and must be open to both women and men, but it is always --for both men and women-- family life which takes priority.

Dear aspirant,

Hello again.

Certianly, dear friend, a husband must be diligent as regards his domestic responsibilities, but your citations say nothing about men taking upon themselves the specific “proper cares and duties, particularly the upbringing of the children” (Pope Pius XI, Quadrigesimo Anno) that the divine providence has assigned to the woman. This is what modern radical feminism desires, not the Catholic Church, in its impious attempt to blur the God-given distinction between the sexes. A father’s chief responsibility is to provide for his family as the sole breadwinner and to be involved in the education and discipline of his children. As I said previously, he will when his wife is indisposed, or to give her an occasional break, gladly undertake some domestic chores, but these are not a normally a shared responsibility as there is a clear division of labour within the family, each spouse having their own sphere of operation assigned to them by their Maker. This only sounds “strange” to our modern ears because of the steady barage of radical femininsm to which we have all been endlessly subjected since the 1960’s - such has been its phenomenal negative impact, even within the bosom of the Church.

Sorry, dear friend, but I see nothing contradictory with your citations and earlier magisterial teaching.

God bless.

Warmest good wishes,

Portrait

Pax

 

[Portrait]

There is only the Catholic Catechism. Whether they are “traditional” or not is immaterial since truth does not change.

That is not the same thing as saying that they cannot work.

Do you mind providing some nice references for this, so that we have something concrete with which to work?

Men are not morally bound to provide the income for the family. Your statement, if true, still does not mean that women cannot work.

The Pope’s statements are not the same as Catholic doctrine unless they are provided in the form of an authoritative document.

Furthermore, he does not condemn working women, but women who are impious and attempt to imitate men. Women working is not the same thing as women imitating men.

Housewife does not mean that women cannot work. The letter is not an authoritative document. I cannot even corroborate its existence.

This is not the same thing as women working.

Again, no condemnation of women working.

Again, no condemnation of women working.

Again, no condemnation of women working.

You are correct: the teachings clearly say that women may work as long as this does not lead to a neglect of their other duties toward the family and children.

Nowhere did they say this.

Dear Baelor,

Cordial greetings and a very good day. Thankyou for your replies and apologies for not responding sooner but I was otherwise engaged yesterday so was unable to post.

By ‘traditional’ catechisms I simply meant the standard Catechisms which have been published at different times, such as the Baltimore Catechism. However, what I said about them upholding the vocation of the married women being best fulfilled in the home still stands, for in stating this they were merely reflecting consistent Church teaching. You are quite correct, dear brother, truth does not change which is why the Church has not abandoned its position upon this matter. If you think that it has then can you provide official sources which corroborate this.

If the vocation of a married women is best fulfilled within the home, then that surely implies that it would be unwise for her to seek secular employment outside of the home.

Pope Pius XI (Encyclical Quadr**igesimo Anno, pp. 71-4) speaks of the “working man” (not working woman) having sufficient means to support himself and his family and the notion of a woman being forced to work, on account of her husband’s low wages, is frowned upon because this results in “the neglect of their own proper cares and duties, particularly the upbringing of children”. It is plainly implied here that the husband is the breadwinner and provider for his family, not the woman. Moreover, a woman having an occupation outside of the domestic sphere is something that is to be avoided if family life is not to adversely suffer. We have seen this all too frequently in our present age, but this, dear brother, is sadly what takes place when biblical and Church teaching is abandoned for so called ‘new family models’ - we reap a bitter harvest and dysfunctional children multiply.

A Pope’s non-magisterial statements are to be embraced if they are in full accord with authoritative Church teaching. What the Pope’s have taught about a married women being best fitted for home-work is consonant with official magisterial teaching, not contrary to it.

The letter, Natalis Trecentesime, 1917, speaks of women abandoning “the duty of housewife for which they were fashioned”, which plainly implies that they should stay at home and devote themselves to being full-time wives and mothers. To go out to work, dear brother, does necessitate abandoning the “the duty of housewife”, otherwise there was little point in the Pope even talking of abandoning the duty, “to cast themselves recklessly into current life”. Whilst it is true that this letter is not authoritative, it is an example of non-magisterial teaching not being at variance with authoritative doctrine, but rather in harmony with it, which is precisely what one would expect from sound papal teaching.

If withdrawing the wife from the care of the family and children is the best way to destroy Catholic family life, as Pope Pius XI observes, then are we not correct in concluding that a woman withdrawing so that she can work outside of the home is most imprudent?

Again, dear brother, if Pope Pius XII termed a woman being lured away from the home and “the task assigned her for the good of society, by nature and by marriage” one of the “temptations of our day”, then I would say, if words mean anything, that that was a condemnation of married women working.

The same would apply to his words about extinguishing the flame in the hearth of the home. If by going out to work, which takes away a woman from the family, helps snuff-out family life then is it not best avoided as something hazardous.

The whole import of papal teaching is that a married woman will ideally remain at home and be a full-time wife and mother, as this is “the task assigned her for the good of society, by nature and by marriage.”. Moreover, it is a sure and certain way of ensuring that the flame in the hearth of the home is not extinguished and that the family prospers both spiritually and physically:

“a woman is by nature fitted for home-work, and it is that which is best adapted at once to preserve her modesty and to promote the good upbringing of children and the well-being of the family” (Pope Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum).

By abandoning this authentic Catholic paradigm of a married woman remaining at home and being a full-time wife and mother, modern families have suffered immeasurably, especially children.

God bless.

Warmest good wishes,

Portrait

Pax

 

[Fairwinds]

…
If the vocation of a married women is best fulfilled within the home, then that surely implies that it would be unwise for her to seek secular employment outside of the home…

you can’t speak for all marriages. so don’t lecture me on what’s best for mine.

 

[Portrait]

“Domestic duties” like cooking and cleaning? The Church very obviously does not state that the woman must perform these duties. The very notion is absurd and contrary to natural law.

How has nature fashioned the woman to cook and clean and take out the garbage and tend to gardens? Answer precisely, explaining how the woman is naturally better at these tasks from a physiological perspective, omitting everything except scientific fact. If she is indeed fashioned by nature for such mundane domestic tasks much better than a man is, it should be obvious why. So explain from a scientific perspective how this is true.

The Church does not condemn stay-at-home husbands.

Nowhere was it stated that women must remain at home, that they cannot work, or that they are solely responsible for domestic duties.

It does not.

Again, the teachings do not state that she must remain at home.

It is not a timeless teaching since it is simply not authentic Catholic teaching.

The Church does not teach this.

That is not a condemnation of women working or even stay-at-home dads.

Dear Baelor,

Hello again and thankyou for your further response.

Pope Pius XI spoke of a woman’s “own proper cares and duties, especially the bringing up of children” (Encyclical Quadrigesimo Anno, pp. 71-4), which would include domestic duties such as cooking and cleaning. Until recent times, dear brother, with radical feminism wanting to blur the distinctions between the sexes, no one would have thought otherwise, especially not professing Catholics.

God in His providence has assigned, for the good of society, men and woman their distinctive roles and functions and therefore they both have their own specific duties. clearly, a woman’s “own proper cares and duties” are not the same as the man’s who’s role is to be a breadwinner and provider for the family. Woman are designed by nature to be nurturers and home-makers, for this is what the good Lord intended and what our Church has always taught. As aquohn said earlier in the thread, “The man provides and protects, the woman nurtures the children. This is the immutable teaching of the Roman Church, no matter what the feminists within and without say, and is reflected in natural law”. Again, dear brother, this may not be fashionable doctrine today but, prior to the emergence of radical feminism in the Sixties, very few would have thought that it was something that needed to be challenged let alone scientifically proven. This is because the Christian consciousness still held sway and influenced the way people thought, alas such is no longer the case today.

Our Church, dear brother, never speaks of the oddity ‘house-husbands’, only ‘working men’. So called house-husbands are a novel invention of the modern world and are a denial of God-given manhood. Moreover, there has never been, to my knowledge, any official endorsement of ‘house-husbands’ as some sort of alternative role within the family.

As I have stated previously, dear brother, I accept that a single woman must have an occupation to support herself if she is not to be burden upon others. However, our Church has consistently taught that a married women should remain at home and be a full-time wife and mother, “a task assigned to her for the good of society, by nature and by marriage” (cf. Titus 2: 4,5). Morevover, a married woman remains at home to undertake specifically her “own proper cares and duties, particularly the upbringing of children”.

Since the husband has not been assigned the task of the distinctive cares and duties of his wife, it is manifestly obvious that he must the one who earns the money to support the family. The Church, dear brother, refers to him as a ‘working man’ and thus if his wife remains at home to fulfill her “own proper cares and duties”, then clearly the husband must work to support his family, otherwise they clearly will not survive.

It would be wrong, dear brother, for a married woman to usurp the role of her husband as breadwinner (denial of true femininity), just as it would be for a man to usurp the role of his wife (denial of true manhood). Each of the spouses has their divinely ordained role with its distinctive duties and responsibilities and secular radical feminism will never succeed in erradicating these God-given roles, try as it may.

The Church certainly does teach, dear brother, that the welfare of the family is best served by the wife being a full-time home-maker, bringing up the children, as the Church teaching that I have adduced in this thread has, I believe, cogently demonstrated.

The Church has taught, dear brother, that the best way to destroy the family is to “withdraw the wife from the care of the family and the care of the children” (*Casti Connubii *Encyclical). If that is not an implicit condemnation of married women working then, quite frankly, I do not know what is.

God bless and thankyou again for your time. This will be my final post in this thread as I do not feel that there is anything more I can add to what I have said already

Warmest good wishes,

Portrait

Pax:tiphat:

 

[Baelor]

Portrait, I am disappointed that you did not do as I asked. It makes me feel that you do not even bother reading my posts.

However, what I said about them upholding the vocation of the married women being best fulfilled in the home still stands, for in stating this they were merely reflecting consistent Church teaching. You are quite correct, dear brother, truth does not change which is why the Church has not abandoned its position upon this matter. If you think that it has then can you provide official sources which corroborate this.

I never claimed that the Church teaches otherwise.

If the vocation of a married women is best fulfilled within the home, then that surely implies that it would be unwise for her to seek secular employment outside of the home.

It surely does not. If we are going by what the Church teaches, we must suppress our own immoral desires to project what we would like upon that teaching. To do so destroys our personal faith and cheapens the teaching of the Church.

Pope Pius XI (Encyclical Quadr**igesimo Anno, pp. 71-4) speaks of the “working man” (not working woman) having sufficient means to support himself and his family and the notion of a woman being forced to work, on account of her husband’s low wages, is frowned upon because this results in “the neglect of their own proper cares and duties, particularly the upbringing of children”.

Indeed.

It is plainly implied here that the husband is the breadwinner and provider for his family, not the woman.

Yet such a circumstance would not be immoral, only unfortunate. Nor would the choice of the woman to continue working because her salary could help the family be immoral

Moreover, a woman having an occupation outside of the domestic sphere is something that is to be avoided if family life is not to adversely suffer.

Not Church teaching.

We have seen this all too frequently in our present age, but this, dear brother, is sadly what takes place when biblical and Church teaching is abandoned for so called ‘new family models’ - we reap a bitter harvest and dysfunctional children multiply.

Your understanding of Church teaching is flawed.

A Pope’s non-magisterial statements are to be embraced if they are in full accord with authoritative Church teaching. What the Pope’s have taught about a married women being best fitted for home-work is consonant with official magisterial teaching, not contrary to it.

That teaching does not forbid her from having a job.

The letter, Natalis Trecentesime, 1917, speaks of women abandoning “the duty of housewife for which they were fashioned”,

This is not abandoned by holding a job.

which plainly implies that they should stay at home and devote themselves to being full-time wives and mothers.

It does not.

To go out to work, dear brother, does necessitate abandoning the “the duty of housewife”, otherwise there was little point in the Pope even talking of abandoning the duty, “to cast themselves recklessly into current life”.

Again, it does not. The abandonment of the duty comes with neglect of the children, which does not necessarily come with working outside the home, and the devaluation of the family and the maternal role of the woman, also not in conflict with a working mother.

The Church simply does not condemn mothers working. The Church is specific for a reason. It is not our place to guess what the Church means, but rather operate on what the Church says.

Whilst it is true that this letter is not authoritative, it is an example of non-magisterial teaching not being at variance with authoritative doctrine, but rather in harmony with it, which is precisely what one would expect from sound papal teaching.

Nothing I have said is in conflict with doctrine either.

If withdrawing the wife from the care of the family and children is the best way to destroy Catholic family life, as Pope Pius XI observes, then are we not correct in concluding that a woman withdrawing so that she can work outside of the home is most imprudent?

Working outside the home does not necessarily mean withdrawing from the family and children, especially if the children are not even home either.

Again, dear brother, if Pope Pius XII termed a woman being lured away from the home and “the task assigned her for the good of society, by nature and by marriage” one of the “temptations of our day”, then I would say, if words mean anything, that that was a condemnation of married women working.

No, it is a condemnation of being seduced by the temptations of careerism and the devaluation of the family, neither of which inherently results from merely working.

The same would apply to his words about extinguishing the flame in the hearth of the home. If by going out to work, which takes away a woman from the family,

It does not.

helps snuff-out family life then is it not best avoided as something hazardous.

Fortunately this is not an issue.

 

[Baelor]

The whole import of papal teaching is that a married woman will ideally remain at home and be a full-time wife and mother,

Really? Where does the Pope state that? Show me those words. Show me where he actually states that mothers cannot work. Show me anywhere in Church teaching. You cannot, which is why you continue in your heretical posting. The Church simply does not teach that women cannot work. This makes perfect sense, because there are many hours in a day – when both husband and children are gone – that could be used to work or attend to other duties as necessary.

“a woman is by nature fitted for home-work, and it is that which is best adapted at once to preserve her modesty and to promote the good upbringing of children and the well-being of the family” (Pope Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum).

No mention of working being immoral.

By abandoning this authentic Catholic paradigm of a married woman remaining at home and being a full-time wife and mother, modern families have suffered immeasurably, especially children.

There is no authentic Catholic paradigm of a married woman remaining at home. That is a figment, an phantasm, merely an intellectual weak and heretical musing of an armchair theologian. I prefer to listen to the Church, not you. Forgive me for espousing Catholic doctrine.

 

[Baelor]

Pope Pius XI spoke of a woman’s “own proper cares and duties, especially the bringing up of children” (Encyclical Quadrigesimo Anno, pp. 71-4), which would include domestic duties such as cooking and cleaning.

Really? Why are women more naturally suited to cooking and cleaning, biologically or psychologically or otherwise? The Church does not teach that all duties in the home must be performed by the mother. The Church’s conception of domestic duties explicitly involves the rearing of children and the support of the family; this does not necessarily include cooking and cleaning.

Until recent times, dear brother, with radical feminism wanting to blur the distinctions between the sexes, no one would have thought otherwise, especially not professing Catholics.

I am not interested in unsupported historical generalities, only theological permissibility.

God in His providence has assigned, for the good of society, men and woman their distinctive roles and functions and therefore they both have their own specific duties. clearly, a woman’s “own proper cares and duties” are not the same as the man’s who’s role is to be a breadwinner and provider for the family. Woman are designed by nature to be nurturers and home-makers, for this is what the good Lord intended and what our Church has always taught. As aquohn said earlier in the thread, “The man provides and protects, the woman nurtures the children. This is the immutable teaching of the Roman Church, no matter what the feminists within and without say, and is reflected in natural law”. Again, dear brother, this may not be fashionable doctrine today but, prior to the emergence of radical feminism in the Sixties, very few would have thought that it was something that needed to be challenged let alone scientifically proven. This is because the Christian consciousness still held sway and influenced the way people thought, alas such is no longer the case today.

That teaching does not lead to any of your conclusions.

Our Church, dear brother, never speaks of the oddity ‘house-husbands’, only ‘working men’. So called house-husbands are a novel invention of the modern world and are a denial of God-given manhood.

House-husbands are also working, just as housewives are working.

Moreover, there has never been, to my knowledge, any official endorsement of ‘house-husbands’ as some sort of alternative role within the family.

That does not make the concept immoral. Has the Church explicitly condemned house-husbands?

However, our Church has consistently taught that a married women should remain at home

Show me where the Church says those words. Not any other words, not any words that you believe infer that directly, but those words.

Since the husband has not been assigned the task of the distinctive cares and duties of his wife, it is manifestly obvious that he must the one who earns the money to support the family.

Nowhere does the Church teach that the man must earn the money to support the family.

The Church, dear brother, refers to him as a ‘working man’ and thus if his wife remains at home to fulfill her “own proper cares and duties”, then clearly the husband must work to support his family, otherwise they clearly will not survive.

Again, not the case. A wealthy family need not have either parent working.

It would be wrong, dear brother, for a married woman to usurp the role of her husband as breadwinner (denial of true femininity),

Again false. The Church does not condemn women earning more money than husbands.

just as it would be for a man to usurp the role of his wife (denial of true manhood).

What would such entail?

The Church certainly does teach, dear brother, that the welfare of the family is best served by the wife being a full-time home-maker,

Show me where the Church says “full-time.”

The Church has taught, dear brother, that the best way to destroy the family is to “withdraw the wife from the care of the family and the care of the children” (*Casti Connubii *Encyclical). If that is not an implicit condemnation of married women working then, quite frankly, I do not know what is.

Nothing is, because there is no condemnation of working women. The Church does not deal in implicit condemnations or subtleties of theology.

 

[Fairwinds]

Portrait’s lecture on what a woman should do is a one-size fits all. one size does not fit all. the argument is naive at best and there are families here who’d find it borderline insulting.

F/

 

[severus68]

Dear Baelor,

Hello again and thankyou for your further response.

Pope Pius XI spoke of a woman’s “own proper cares and duties, especially the bringing up of children” (Encyclical Quadrigesimo Anno, pp. 71-4), which would include domestic duties such as cooking and cleaning. Until recent times, dear brother, with radical feminism wanting to blur the distinctions between the sexes, no one would have thought otherwise, especially not professing Catholics.

God in His providence has assigned, for the good of society, men and woman their distinctive roles and functions and therefore they both have their own specific duties. clearly, a woman’s “own proper cares and duties” are not the same as the man’s who’s role is to be a breadwinner and provider for the family. Woman are designed by nature to be nurturers and home-makers, for this is what the good Lord intended and what our Church has always taught. As aquohn said earlier in the thread, “The man provides and protects, the woman nurtures the children. This is the immutable teaching of the Roman Church, no matter what the feminists within and without say, and is reflected in natural law”. Again, dear brother, this may not be fashionable doctrine today but, prior to the emergence of radical feminism in the Sixties, very few would have thought that it was something that needed to be challenged let alone scientifically proven. This is because the Christian consciousness still held sway and influenced the way people thought, alas such is no longer the case today.

Our Church, dear brother, never speaks of the oddity ‘house-husbands’, only ‘working men’. So called house-husbands are a novel invention of the modern world and are a denial of God-given manhood. Moreover, there has never been, to my knowledge, any official endorsement of ‘house-husbands’ as some sort of alternative role within the family.

As I have stated previously, dear brother, I accept that a single woman must have an occupation to support herself if she is not to be burden upon others. However, our Church has consistently taught that a married women should remain at home and be a full-time wife and mother, “a task assigned to her for the good of society, by nature and by marriage” (cf. Titus 2: 4,5). Morevover, a married woman remains at home to undertake specifically her “own proper cares and duties, particularly the upbringing of children”.

Since the husband has not been assigned the task of the distinctive cares and duties of his wife, it is manifestly obvious that he must the one who earns the money to support the family. The Church, dear brother, refers to him as a ‘working man’ and thus if his wife remains at home to fulfill her “own proper cares and duties”, then clearly the husband must work to support his family, otherwise they clearly will not survive.

It would be wrong, dear brother, for a married woman to usurp the role of her husband as breadwinner (denial of true femininity), just as it would be for a man to usurp the role of his wife (denial of true manhood). Each of the spouses has their divinely ordained role with its distinctive duties and responsibilities and secular radical feminism will never succeed in erradicating these God-given roles, try as it may.

The Church certainly does teach, dear brother, that the welfare of the family is best served by the wife being a full-time home-maker, bringing up the children, as the Church teaching that I have adduced in this thread has, I believe, cogently demonstrated.

The Church has taught, dear brother, that the best way to destroy the family is to “withdraw the wife from the care of the family and the care of the children” (*Casti Connubii *Encyclical). If that is not an implicit condemnation of married women working then, quite frankly, I do not know what is.

God bless and thankyou again for your time. This will be my final post in this thread as I do not feel that there is anything more I can add to what I have said already

Warmest good wishes,

Portrait

Pax:tiphat:

Baelor asked you very politely to respond to him point by point. You still fail/refuse to do so. You continue to give lectures.

Tthe Church does not teach what you lecture here.

 

[severus68]

No they should not work unless they are the sole provider of the family or under exceptional circumstances.
God gave each gender roles stop thinking you know better renounce the spirit of the world and do what you were called to be.
Also women cannot handle work as well as the man can they are just not designed to work,
sorry but it is true don’t have society tell you otherwise women simply cannot do men’s roles.

Women are not designed to work? Tell that to any woman who takes care of her children the whole day, cooks, cleans, sees to the garden, does maintenance of the house and more and there are many even on CAF.

Kindly do not pass off your opinions as God given.

 

[Monte_RCMS]

Results matter.

Does the Catholic woman who intends to pursue a career [working outside the home] … does she have something in mind … in particular … to serve others?

Or does she just want TO BE THE BOSS.

[by the way, in interviews, I have heard women say that: they want to be the boss. No special training or education or goals … just to be the boss.]

There is a difference.

And the difference matters.

 

[TimeEntrance]

Maybe it’s a generational thing but I simply don’t see the big issue with women working or having a career. They have since time immemorial anyways.

I’m not even opposed to all child labor (although to the American ear, filtered through our culture and indoctrinations, we will interpret and view all child labor as abuse or a great injustice). I think given the state of economic competition and competition for employment that it beneficial for children to be spending their hours learning in school rather than laboring outside it for a very small wage. Beneficial to the point of being needed given the modern requirements for living. You don’t have small villages of subsistence farmers living in Chicago that through cultural norms arrange for their sons and daughters to marry one another. You’re not hunting your food in Chicago either. (One very important reason cash-transfer programs like welfare are needed in modern civilizations of advanced economies.)

There are only two career paths I can think of that I oppose for girls and women.

One of them is combat infantry jobs in the military. With the exception of reducing standards most women (let alone 12 year old girls) don’t have the anatomy to bear the pounding and physics of infantry life, which to me seems to be set to the standard of a man standing over 6 feet tall and weighing over 200 lbs. If for–purpose of thought experiment–9 foot tall men weighing 400 lbs each were statistically a significant presence among Homo sapiens, or at least among Americans and Europeans, I would expect than the physics involved in infantry standards would be set at a mark for them. That means the pace of march and load carried on the back would increase.

The other of them are women competing in combat sports with men.

Answers to these questions–if heaven and God exist–will reflect the metaphysical maturity the person. After a cousin I grew up with lost his job making six figures he went into a depression and identity crises. Prior to that he was arrogant and prideful about his career identification as a socio-economic status marker. Basically, his job was who he was and provided his worth as a human and more especially as a man.

He told me he eventually had to redefine himself after he lost his job. He is with another mail carrying company working his way back up the corporate ladder. This time around he views his job as his job, a source to bring in income, and not who he is as either a human or a man.

If white men are at the top of the social and financial pyramid on earth (they have colonized most of the earth’s land mass and essentially control most of its water and ocean going passage ways), then I would expect to see non-white men wanting to do most if not all of what they see white men doing. Examples: Presidency of the United States; Basketball; Military; Theater; Literature.

I expect to see white women and non-white women wanting to do most if not all of what they see white men doing too. We might regard it as a grown-up version of playing “Follow the Leader.”

If white men start making their way up in the career structures of the Church of Satan I would expect women and non-white men to want to play follow the leader with respects to that. Few will ask the question how appropriate–if heaven and God exist–it is for a woman to be engaging in Muay Thai competitions with men (elbows strikes to the top of the head known to gash the skin open on the top of the head; knees in flight crashing with force into the jaws of a person etc.) or working their way up the career ranks of the Church of Satan.

One can wave flags of feminism or the black fist all they want and be missing a greater point.

Currently, boys are born cursed and burden with the jobs an expectations they dig the holes, they toil in the man-made caves called mines, they acquire the diseases from working in them, and they die the early deaths, all when they grow to be men. They are the ones expected to be the human versions of cock-fights (regardless if the would prefer not to), for the entertainment of females and males. We call this “honor” outside of heaven. They are the ones that must be defined by their career. They are the ones if their is a contemporary human sacrifice that must be placed upon its figurative burning alters. And they are the ones we draft and conscript to travel into foreign land, “…locate, close with, and destroy the enemy,” to kill the children of another people.

 

[Aviatrix]

Wow, Time, I really enjoyed your post and agree with nearly everything you said, with the exception of the infantry and combat sports.

I absolutely do not support lowering the physical standards, but if someone is capable of meeting them and doing the job, I don’t see a reason why they can’t.

Also, I play a combat sport. It isn’t my career, but it is my primary hobby. There are no weight, skill or gender categories. I routinely fight men with 1.5 feet, one hundred pounds and twenty years of experience on me. And there are men my size or smaller too. It simply isn’t an issue. Other sports may be different, I guess.

 

[TimeEntrance]

Wow, Time, I really enjoyed your post and agree with nearly everything you said, with the exception of the infantry and combat sports.

I absolutely do not support lowering the physical standards, but if someone is capable of meeting them and doing the job, I don’t see a reason why they can’t.

Also, I play a combat sport. It isn’t my career, but it is my primary hobby. There are no weight, skill or gender categories. I routinely fight men with 1.5 feet, one hundred pounds and twenty years of experience on me. And there are men my size or smaller too. It simply isn’t an issue. Other sports may be different, I guess.

High, Avia.

I’m very pleased to hear you’re a “player” (as the Brazilian might term it for those in BJJ and Capoeira) in a combat sport–one that I assume to be a grappling game.

I have strong views on combat and violence. Much stronger than my views on gay marriage or multiple spouses. And consequently, my discrimination against Aikido and Tai Chi for “self defense” or directly engaged violence for a woman, will come across as “uncharitable” to the less initiated in violence. Boxing, Thai boxing, or a grappling art is a better route to go for a girl or woman. But that goes the same for a guy as well. Albeit, there are other valid reasons to train in something like Tai Chi and N(name removed by moderator)o ([n(name removed by moderator)o.org/](http://www.n(name removed by moderator)o.org/)). Tai Chi, Aikido, and N(name removed by moderator)o can work as physical exercises, art, and can lead to a career as an instructor drawing in income.

Aikido in particular after decades of training can be effective self defense too. But boxing and Thai boxing are better decent competency developed within 1 or 2 years.

You can correct me if I’m wrong, but it sounds as if you are either training in MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) or a grappling game like BJJ (Brazilian Jujistsu) or combat submission wrestling? And that you are sparring with these men of vastly greater physical size and experience, for purposes of training and self improvement, and not in actual organized competitions with them?

Competitions generally have weight categories and for good reasons. If you were ever in a ring being punched in the head by a male heavyweight, in a real competition, were one is trying to cause violent, physical damage to their opponent, you would know what I mean. It is a matter of physics. Like a 300 lb man taking a bat to your skull or a .45 caliber round being fired into your abdomen or an atomic bomb being dropped on Hiroshima.

I’ve sparred a heavy weight in a ring before. But he was taking it easy. It was just a matter of training for both of us. I’ve had a couple hard sparring sessions with a hard hitting middle weight too. I’ve seen that guy knock another guy through the ropes. Many men did not want to spar with him. It was a hurtful experience in the ring with him for me but it was good. Being dropped a knee on the mat from a hard body blow is a lesson one can’t understand and appreciate without direct experience. Prose and political correctness or “charity” simply won’t do it justice. But that middle weight was never trying to knock me out either. Basically, he was going easy on me. Had we been in a real competition that would not have been true.

I have zero problem with a girl or woman training or sparring with boys or men. I would put my daughter through that. I would be sure her male opponent was not trying to severely hurt her too. But I would do the same with a male novice under my charge sparring with a far more experienced male opponent.

I do have a problem with girls and women taking on men in careers of combat sports. This crosses a boundary for me. On a number of level. And my opinion of it is severe. As severe as my opinion of tossing in a hand grenade in a bunker of enemy troops or walking at night on patrol making noise and talking.

When it comes to women being infantry troops my opinion of that as a career for them is less strong and less severe. But I still have strong opinions about the personal costs of being in the infantry and more especially being dispatched to war. That’s aside from the physical demands of infantry life that will quickly tear down the bodies of most women (even a long career in the infantry will eventually take a negative toll on the bodies of men–e.g., developing arthritis throughout the body from spending years sleeping on cold earth).

But if a woman gets a breast ripped off and leg blown off from a land mine or some other explosive, she will carry the psychological wounds and consequences of having been infantry for the rest of her life. Basically, her choice as a 20 year old will be with her into her 50s and 80s. Partly that will come from men–through sexual selection–picking other women with intact, nice figures, over her. One can already notice the toll of losing a breast that non-combatant female breast cancer survives deal with after losing a breast.

In part I have some objections to war. I would prefer they not exist. I would prefer that about violence in general too. I would prefer you might say… a world in which (like heaven presumably) there is no need to lock your door, no need to own or use a gun, peace and charity and gentleness rules over all. But that’s not the world we live in. If war is hell then someone is trying to sweetly talk us (is it an angel of God or a demon from Satan?) into expanding the career of hell, war, to the lives of women. The other 50% of the population. (Not that women didn’t already suffer the consequences of war–the women of Nanking know that).

 

[Aviatrix]

Hi Time

Grappling is a minimal part of what I do, probably one of the reasons that not having weight categories is possible for us. Our competitions likewise do not separate male from female, weight categories or skill levels. I have entered many, both single and teams. In certain sports weight classes are paramount and it would be foolish for a small person to engage in serious competition with a much larger one. Surely that exists apart from gender aswell, though.

I think all the points you mentioned about women in combat apply to anyone in combat. It takes a special type of person to make that sacrifice. I would estimate very few people of either gender have what it takes, but if they do, I don’t see why a person’s genetalia should be a deterrent.

 

[Monte_RCMS]

There was a big build-up for a woman who wanted to play football.

You would have thought she might have practiced.

But she couldn’t kick a field goal.

The fact is that standards do get lowered.

 

[Aviatrix]

There was a big build-up for a woman who wanted to play football.

You would have thought she might have practiced.

But she couldn’t kick a field goal.

The fact is that standards do get lowered.

If you are referring to the woman I think you are, I thought she wasn’t selected for the team.

 

[aspirant]

Whatever situation may have pertained at certain periods in the pagan world, dear friend, this does not necessarily mean that it was the ideal family model from a Catholic standpoint.

This might be relevant if my post was about “the pagan world,” but it was not. Most of what I wrote pertained to biblical records and medieval Europe, neither of which were “pagan.”

The papal teaching (Casti Connubii)

Casti Connubii, as I clearly demonstrated, does not exhaust all of relevant papal teaching on this subject.

you will observe that Pope Pius terms married women working outside of the home an “abuse”

This is simply incorrect. What he terms an “abuse” is payment of inadequate wages. Employers, not married women who work, are the perpetrators of the abuse described in Quadragesimo Anno.

As regards the virtuous woman of Poverbs chapter 31, dear friend, it is true that she spends some time beyond the borders of her home, providing from all quarters maintenance for her household. However, we are told in that lovely passage (v. 27) that this godly women carefully watches over the conduct of her family and domestics, which she simply could not have done had she been absent from the home for any great length of time.

This is precisely my point. In the not-too-distant past, almost all labor conducted by free, propertied people, both men and women, was domestic. Premodern viticulturists, vintners, and weavers such as the woman in Proverbs 31-- both male and female-- worked from home, making them active participants in both the oikos (household) and the broader community oikonomia (economy). This should be possible in any sound political economy and, where and to the extent that it is not, the political economy needs repairing in favor of a more “equitable distribution of property {in this context, capital}.” “To each, therefore, must be given his own share of goods, and the distribution of created goods, which, as every discerning person knows, is laboring today under the gravest evils due to the huge disparity between the few exceedingly rich and the unnumbered propertyless, must be effectively called back to and brought into conformity with the norms of the common good, that is, social justice.”

The pious woman of Proverbs… is occupied in personal and domestic industry

Precisely. That was, until lately, the norm for free, propertied people.

We look at the context of a passage and then the perenial teaching of the Church throughout the ages to determine its meaning.

And, when we do that, we find precisely what I described earlier:

aspirant:

Most work undertaken by both men and women over the course of history, especially free owners of property, has been done at or very close to home. In a predominantly agricultural society, for example, almost all labor is domestic, whether one is raising animals for milk, eggs, meat, wool, feathers, and/or leather; growing various plants like grains, vegetables, fruits, herbs, and/or textile crops; doing various farm-related jobs like making & repairing tools, making & repairing clothes, and so forth. Even craftspeople, artisans, and other small tradespeople such as smiths, coopers, cobblers, candlers, carpenters, weavers, brewsters and brewers, grocers, millers, bakers, butchers, seamstresses and tailors, and (later) printers would be working at or very close to home in such a way that one could not discretely separate out what is “domestic work,” regardless what sexual division of labor might be common in a given society. It’s almost all domestic work, and husbands, wives, and children were all doing it… {examples from Proverbs 31 & of the Holy Family} There is no distinction in such a life between domestic and non-domestic labor for most people.

Pope Pius XI explicitly mentions these conditions favorably in Quadragesimo Anno: “In the first place, the worker must be paid a wage sufficient to support him and his family. That the rest of the family should also contribute to the common support, according to the capacity of each, is certainly right, as can be observed especially in the families of farmers, but also in the families of many craftsmen and small shopkeepers.”

 

[aspirant]

It is -]the subversive ideology of radical feminism which/-] Blessed Pope John Paul II who has unrelentingly stressed the emancipation of womanhood and the place of women beyond the home in every sphere of life that a man occupies.

Corrected:
"Blessed John Paul II:

As far as personal rights are concerned, there is an urgent need to achieve real equality in every area: equal pay for equal work, protection for working mothers, fairness in career advances, equality of spouses with regard to family rights, and the recognition of everything that is part of the rights and duties of citizens in a democratic state. This is a matter of justice but also of necessity. Women will increasingly play a part in the solution of the serious problems of the future…

I cannot fail to express my admiration for those women of good will who have devoted their lives to defending the dignity of womanhood by fighting for their basic social, economic, and political rights, demonstrating courageous initiative at a time when this was considered extremely inappropriate, the sign of a lack of femininity, a manifestation of exhibitionism, and even a sin! …

This journey [of “women’s liberation”] must go on! But I am convinced that the secret of making speedy progress in achieving full respect for women and their identity involves more than simply the condemnation of discrimination and injustices, necessary though this may be. Such respect must first and foremost be won through an effective and intelligent campaign for the promotion of women, concentrating on all areas of women’s life and beginning with a universal recognition of the dignity of women.

Blessed John Paul II:

Without the contribution of women, society is less alive, culture impoverished, and peace less stable. Situations where women are prevented from developing their full potential and from offering the wealth of their gifts should therefore be considered profoundly unjust, not only to women themselves but to society as a whole… It is necessary to strive convincingly to ensure that the widest possible space is open to women in all areas of culture, economics, politics, and eccesial life itself, so that human society is increasingly enriched by the gifts proper to masculinity and femininity.

I simply don’t see the big issue with women working or having a career. They have since time immemorial anyways.

Yes.