New Feminism

Part 4: Death of the old feminist conclusion

Radical feminists would have us believe that there is no place for the family in a truly free society. They would be wrong.

Indeed, the family is the core institution that ensures social, economic and political stability as well as ensuring human rights are not neglected.

 World Meeting of Families

For the past 18 years the Catholic Church has held an international conference known as the World Meeting of Families. Here specialists from many and varied fields including politics, economics, technology and family law, to name but a few, discuss the role and impact of families in today’s society and in particular in their field of interest.

I was fortunate to attend this conference with my husband and son and we were amazed to discover just how integral the family is to every area of our lives. I have not enough room to contain all of the ideas from this 5 day conference, however there are some important points it would be remiss of me not to include.

Professor Helen Alvares, an American Law Professor and Family Lawyer had this to say about the role of the family in our society: ‘Family is where we learn to love or not; provides human and social skills and has the real ability to transcend political obstacles.’

In essence, family then, has the most important role in forming and educating our children as well as the power to change the laws, to overcome political obstacles. Believe it or not, the family has the biggest influence over everyone and that includes the media who seem to influence just about everything.

It seems that contrary to what our Marxist feminists would have us believe, we need the traditional family structure as it provides a wealth of skills, formation and knowledge to our children.

And what effect does divorce have on our children? Another speaker, Professor Maria Sophia Aguirre explained that divorce reduces the likelihood of children succeeding in education, occupation. Further to this she added that family breakdown not only affects the family emotionally, but it is also bad for the economy.

In fact, she even put forward the possibility that the current economic crisis affecting our world is a result of the state of our families and our views on the importance of marriage and family. Whether you entertain this idea as a possibility or not, the truth remains that the family is a necessary good for economic development!

A new feminism

The late Pope John Paul II called women to embrace a new feminism, one founded on love and the truth about the vocation of women. His successor, Pope Benedict XVI picked up this theme again recently during a message he sent to the 1st International Conference on Woman and Human Rights.

“The recognition and appreciation of God’s plan for women in the transmission of life and the nurturing of children is a constructive step in this direction,” he said.
“Beyond this, and given the distinctive influence of women in society, they must be encouraged to embrace the opportunity to uphold the dignity of life through their involvement in education and their participation in political and civic life.”
He continued that “because they have been gifted by the Creator with a unique ‘capacity for the other,’ women have a crucial part to play in the promotion of human rights, for without their voice the social fabric of society would be weakened.”

Thus it falls to our lot, Sisters in Christ, to take up this idea of new feminism, this rediscovery of our femininity and vocation as women and form and educate our children, our friends and our societies, to consider again the wonderful contribution of wives and mothers.

We need to encourage radical feminists and all their sympathizers, that whilst the wrongs of the past may continue to hurt, we must forgive and move on in order to really heal, and to see the truth.

It should be rather obvious now, that the foundations of the radical feminist movement are not based on love, rather a misguided idea that to be truly free we must break away from the aspects of ourselves that differentiate us from the other. In this case, we must free ourselves from our sexuality, our maternity in order to be free and happy.

I challenge you to take up this new feminism, to appreciate your differences and to embrace them. God made you a woman for a reason and until you live out this feminine vocation as God intended, you are not going to be happy. The case, in point of course, is our embittered radical sisters who cannot see the truth for they are blinded by their misguided ideologies and suffer for it.

Marriage and family do not oppress women, indeed, I would argue that radical feminism oppresses real women because it strips them off their femininity and endeavours to liken them to men. Join the third wave of feminism, the new feminism that seeks to retain women’s rightful place – in their own minds and attitudes.

Above all, we must remember that there can be no new feminism without God. For this new feminism to be successful, we must change the hearts of the world, and evidence to them, through our capacity for self-giving live, the true nature of our vocations as men and particularly, as women.

Originally posted 2015-10-22 06:15:58.