Patriarchy and Christian Feminism
The last blast of “patriarchy” can be dated to the 1950s (and early 1960s). The 1940s, era of World War II, had seen women beckoned into the munitions factories and into the ancillary ranks of the Services. But when the war ended, the men wanted a return to their ordinary jobs – and in the home also they wanted the old times back : namely, women to be home-makers. This patriarchal inequality was replicated in the microcosm of Catholic religious orders of women : male authorities clamped down on freedom of expression in ideas or in self-presentation. Changes set in only with Women’s Liberation (around 1968) and with the Second Vatican Council.
But the subsequent decades of retreat from patriarchy seem to have left today’s generation of young men with no fall-back. In Ireland, 80% of suicide now occurs in males aged 18 to 32. Many perceive their lives to have no purpose (and the deterrent stemming from religious faith is largely gone).
Each gender, it would seem, is faced with the task of not becoming a stereotype of itself – and it seems to succeed in this, whenever it is happy to incorporate a modicum of the opposite gender’s traits. When indeed we examine the female contribution to church life over the centuries, we cannot dispute the fact that women demonstrated both assertiveness and leadership.
Even way back in the era of the Fathers Of The Church, huge influence was wielded by women we can call “mothers of the faith”. High-ranking women in Roman society converted to Christianity, and challenged the right of a household’s male head to abort unwanted female infants by means of exposure.
The Christian ethic insisted on the equal value of every person. This held for the virgin and the widow – and also for the wife whose husband had been unfaithful. (The very Jewish St. Paul promoted this non-Jewish notion of reciprocity within marriage; and it has still to gain full acceptance today even in some Latin cultures – not to speak of mid-Eastern or Oriental ones). This was, in a sense, feminism before the feminist movement. But it should not surprise us : in the New Testament, we see Jesus himself accord ground-breaking “parity of esteem” to female disciples.
The centralised care of sick people (i.e., hospitals) was pioneered by a convert aristocratic woman in Rome. The Christian centuries are dotted with holy women who founded monasteries and convents – and were pioneers of education. Then there were the devout queens, beacons of Christianity for their countries : Clothilde; Bertha of Kent; Hedwige of Poland; Bridget of Sweden; Margaret of Scotland. There are even Christian precedents in distant centuries for the women anti-slavery campaigners of the 1800s, and for “feminist” initiatives of today such as Rape Crisis centres and the anti-trafficking lobby.
All these strong women give the lie to Nietzsche, who thought that Christianity was stereotypically “feminine” – and to the National Socialists who considered it a religion for “weaklings”.
Mary Kenny was a founder member of the Irish Women’s Liberation Movement, 1970
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