The subtle lie: Women must be powerful but not fruitful

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Satan knows, just as he did when he targeted Eve, that if he gets the woman, he gets everyone.

“A couple of years ago, I read about three women at an online magazine. These women were all very successful, secular career women, but each expressed a deep discontentment with her life. One said she wanted to just go bake bread, another said she wanted to plant a garden, and the third said she wanted to leave everything behind and just go raise a mess of children.”

Carrie Gress writes an article for CWR explaining the topic of her latest book. Just from reading the article, I can guess that the book will be mocked by the secular elites. Sounds like a good book. Here’s the article:

 
JimG said:
Satan knows, just as he did when he targeted Eve, that if he gets the woman, he gets everyone.

“A couple of years ago, I read about three women at an online magazine. These women were all very successful, secular career women, but each expressed a deep discontentment with her life. One said she wanted to just go bake bread, another said she wanted to plant a garden, and the third said she wanted to leave everything behind and just go raise a mess of children.”

Carrie Gress writes an article for CWR explaining the topic of her latest book. Just from reading the article, I can guess that the book will be mocked by the secular elites. Sounds like a good book. Here’s the article:

The Subtle Lie: Women must be powerful, but not fruitful – Catholic World Report
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Loads of men could and probably do say a lot of similar things if asked (maybe not so much about the children). The reality of the world - what we do to earn a needed crust is not always what we are most deeply passionate about.
 
The other reality of the world is that you can find women baking bread, gardening and raising kids (often by themselves) who would express discontentment with their life, saying they really wanted to be doctors, lawyers, or CEOs but didn’t get the chance for one reason or other.

The grass always looks greener on the other side. And often times the person expressing the wish to do something completely different has very little idea of what that something truly entails.
 
I agree that this society doesn’t put enough value on motherhood and family but sometimes this distain for working women shifts too far off in the wrong direction.

Some woman are called to other things. Honestly, I think mother hood and being a Sister are beautiful vocations. But there are woman called to other things in life as well. There are women who are great and math and science and God has a purpose for that as well.

Look at St. Gianna (she was a physician)
Marie Curie – developed the theory of radioactivity
Did God not call Joan of Arc into the military to lead?
I could name a few Catholic professors I went to school with who are also mothers.

What about Pope John Paul’s II letter to women:

When women are able fully to share their gifts with the whole community, the very way in which society understands and organizes itself is improved, and comes to reflect in a better way the substantial unity of the human family. Here we see the most important condition for the consolidation of authentic peace. The growing presence of women in social, economic and political life at the local, national and international levels is thus a very positive development. Women have a full right to become actively involved in all areas of public life, and this right must be affirmed and guaranteed, also, where necessary, through appropriate legislation.

(John Paul II, World Day of Peace - Women: Teachers of Peace)
 
LilyM said:
Loads of men could and probably do say a lot of similar things if asked (maybe not so much about the children). The reality of the world - what we do to earn a needed crust is not always what we are most deeply passionate about.
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Yes indeed! In fact, I was one such man saying this today on my drive to the office, longing to stay at home on the farm.
 
Another quote from the article:

“Despite all the differences among them, the one thing these “lost girls” could all agree on was abortion. Whether it was the Kate Millett-types who were deeply intellectual and brooding, or the Helen Gurley Brown-types who believed that “good girls go to heaven, while bad girls go everywhere,” abortion was the glue that held the movement together. More than anything, these women convinced generations of women – millions and millions of women – that the most precious and natural bond on earth, that of mother and child, was no longer important, and in fact was actually an impediment to a woman’s happiness.”
 
The “Secular Elites”, can often put people in a bind it seems. When you follow your beliefs, they mock you; if you give in, you’re a hypocrite!
 
My only quibble is that her critique of State Universities only applies to the Liberal Arts. STEM majors, especially engineers, don’t have time for such tripe.
 
AlruwhAlquds said:
Some woman are called to other things. Honestly, I think mother hood and being a Sister are beautiful vocations. But there are woman called to other things in life as well. There are women who are great and math and science and God has a purpose for that as well.
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But American society has disparaged stay at home mothers for a least a generation. It is expected that a woman work outside the home, even if her husband makes enough to provide for the family. It seems that we outsource the two most important functions of a family - raising of children and caring for the elderly.
 
Yes

I for instance am just really tired of being told that to be a good Catholic woman you must be either a nun or a housewife and mother. If you are not either of those you are a feminazi.
 
However the reaction to this among some Christians is to push the idea that all women must be housewives and mothers in order to be considered a good Christian.

I guess I failed in being a Christian.
 
Sorry, but I don’t see any push for women to be nuns or housewives (as if that were some kind of bad thing). The overwhelming majority of the ladies in our parish work outside the home. Among the families we know in our neighorhood, we are the only family where the wife does not have a full time job outside the home.
 
You don’t see any push but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. You are not the target so you wouldn’t notice it.

There are problems with forbidding women to work and instead pushing them
Into being housewives, while pushing all single women to be nuns.

No religious community will accept novitiates when it becomes clear they are entering due to coercion.

I have been treated as lesser than because I am not a housewife and mother. I’m not married and am seen by other Christians to be a freak.

Nothing wrong with being a housewife if that is the individual’s choice but to pressure others is wrong.
 
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LilyM said:
Loads of men could and probably do say a lot of similar things if asked (maybe not so much about the children). The reality of the world - what we do to earn a needed crust is not always what we are most deeply passionate about.
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Indeed. Not much interest in a garden, but I’d love to be baking bread and raising a bunch of children.
 
You can bake bread, cater for a garden, and still do your career. Baking break takes a couple of hours you can spend on a weekend, taking care of garden is a relaxing time.after work and on weekends. What is hardest is having a mess of children. That requires sacrifice.
Maybe the career is a self-worthy project. Just to have certain achievements that is suffice… But how can you just walk and fall in love so you can raise a mess of kids?
Raising a mess of kids is beyond having or not having a career, it takes in a lot of other factors outside our control. Sometimes it just does not happen. It does not.
So bake break, cater to the garden, and take care of one’s career. And pray so you can see others as children, right?
 
MikeInVA said:
But American society has disparaged stay at home mothers for a least a generation.
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Which is just so sad! If a woman wants to stay home and her family can afford for her to do so without sacrificing the basic necessities, she should be able to do so.

Women who want to try to have it all, I say good luck to you. Something is going to suffer though. It’s inevitable. You are going to be late to work occasionally, and you are going to miss something important to your child.

I would have loved to have stayed home when my kiddo was younger, but economics didn’t allow for it, so I worked to provide health insurance for our family and to save for retirement. Literally, that’s what my paycheck was diverted to. Did my kiddo suffer for it? Not in the long run, but I’m sure she had moments when she wished things were different.

I don’t envy anyone who isn’t enjoying their present life circumstances because of choices they made. It’s no fun to look back and think I wish I had… but I digress.
 
Debatable. My mother worked full time until she was laid off in the Corestates-First Union merger, but given that my brother and I were cared for by our grandparents (Who had no need for elder care at the time, in fact one of my grandmothers was providing care for her maiden sister with terminal cancer) until school age, I wouldn’t call it outsourced.
 
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I’m wondering what people think:
Are men and women biologically differentiated? And if so, do you think that differentiation is expressed in ways proper to it?
I am just thinking of the “desire to raise a bunch of kids” in the OP, and thinking how completely natural that is.
 
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