The Wild Tears Fall

This essay was born in September, where so many times in that month, I saw Father Krzysztof mount the steps to the altar in his samite fiddleback, embroidered with a lush depiction of the Immaculate Conception in swirling robes of white and blue. The Scriptural verses which speak of her and the hymns dedicated to her had resounded throughout St. Clement Church, as the congregation admired the intercessor for both the weak and the strong. And even as she intercedes for us, does she not also soften many who claim to hate God? And can we of the West ever deny that devotion to her moulded the chivalry to which the best of its people yet cling? 

However, has that chivalry (whether cultivated in men or expected by women) occasionally gone too far in elevating women in general for the sake of the Virgin Mother? So far that even men of good will have given up the practice? In the rather insipid (but otherwise inoffensive) hymn, 'Gentle Woman,' there is a verse which is apt to make any member of the male 'species' roll his eyes:

'So estrogen can make you holy?' one priest wrote on his blog concerning that very line. While I agree with him concerning the puffed-up, anti-masculine sentiment the song implies, I winced at his language. Was he reducing womanhood to the hormones and chemicals that govern the characteristics of what it is physically to be female? Whether it is fitting for men to speak of their manhood in such a way is a matter that men must settle, but civilized instinct indicates that just as the reproductive organs of a woman are veiled within her flesh, so should her womanhood be veiled in discourse.


However, the flesh is fallen, and is it not wrong to put a sinful creature on a pedestal? For whether purer than man or not, she is fallen, and eaten up with her peculiar tendencies towards vice. Perhaps attendance at church is mostly made up of women, but when women take control of the liturgy, does it not often give way to hysteria, irreverence, or even spiritual prostitution? Priestesses have always been either possessed virgins or temple harlots, and they had one unifying principle: they were vessels for either gods or demons, not promoters of morality or ethics. More importantly, they were not 'givers of sacred things' as the sacerdotal title would imply. The postmodern, ahistorical attempt to revive paganism only confirms that notion.


All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Therefore, it would seem that no human being in a yet unbeatified state is to be venerated.

Sed Contra, the Gospels do not encourage us to judge. Christian tradition is to esteem one's self as the lowest of the low, which is really the only logical thing to do, for true self-knowledge will always give us cause for improvement. A traditional Catholic justly possesses the lowest opinion of the practice of taking Holy Communion in the hand, but he may not regard the Catholic who even carelessly drops the Host as less virtuous than he. Blessed Teresa of Calcutta says that one learns humility through humiliation. Elevating others at one's own expense can be a very good practice for cultivating that virtue.

Even Aristotle, who could not have foreseen the paradoxical and supernatural demands of Christian ethics, observed that a man possessed of one vice, must sometimes adopt the practice of the opposite vice in order to rescue himself from his own disposition. Alcoholics must become teatotallers, and those who have too severly abused their sexuality may have to practice celibacy for the duration of their lives. Praxis often entails actions not directly following from our rational code in order to produce the proper balance in the soul. 



I was six years old when watching a film where the heroine was said to be able 'to tread on cobwebs without breaking them.' I was ten years old when I began reading books in which the fair maidens almost universally could laugh 'like a silvery peal of music.' 'Really?' I wondered in genuine puzzlement, 'and I thought one was doing well not to sound like a braying ass when laughing heartily.' At fourteen, I came across a novel where the lady had sweet breath even after eating fish. It was not difficult to find similar hyperbolæ regarding their lovely and irresistible characters. By the time one is a teenager though, such metaphors and descriptions are a bit ridiculuous.

One's feelings towards glorifying the feminine, as in the examples cited above, do serve to steer a girl down the path of either the lady or the feminist, and a boy, down that of the gentleman or just simply, the male. 

I turned abruptly about face from the path of feminism at age thirteen for two reasons: the horrific moral evils the movement promotes, (e.g. abortion) and the fact that the major tenet of feminism is that women ought not to be expected to behave better than men. Females would no longer be martyrs in the home, and they would certainly not provide men with the example of spiritual submission, as St. Paul instructed them to. A wife to act as her husband's gentle counsellor? His conscience? No, indeed! 

I will feel equality has arrived when we can elect to office women who are as incompetent as some of the men who are already there. _Maureen Reagan

Only the modern era could produce a movement that would proudly espouse practical and moral evils as the fruits of its labours. No, a woman often does better in the role of Pontius Pilate's wife than that of Pilate himself.

Not to throw an ad hominem spear in the direction of feminists, but it seems all too often that they never learned to gently laugh at some of those poetic exagerrations mentioned above or to appreciate their sisters to whom these sayings were applied. Bitterness that one has not been worshipped as those women were worshipped is not good ground for any kind of ideology. There is a much better route to take.

Charles Dickens noted that there is a moral beauty which 'only exists in woman': that she is capable of loving in another that which she herself has never possessed. Women who dote on their lovelier, more talented, or more virtuous friends and sisters are examples of this. That affectionate, selfless virtue contra the vice of misogynistic, female envy are the two forces that form the feminine dichotomy between those who love the old notions of exalted womanhood and those who hate it.


And what of men who refuse to put women on a pedestal? As with feminists, there is occasionally an element of anger, though it might just as often arise from indifference. 

Concerning anger, it is not seemly in a man to growl on hearing a woman being praised, and anyone bearing witness to this rancour would immediately assume one of two causes: disappointment in love or overbearing women in his family. Neither of these are worthy things on which to base one's conduct.

As to indifference in men? That is another thing, especially concerning Eros, when one accepts the tenet that only what is truly known is truly loved. Ergo, 'love is blind' is patently false. A lady professor of mine once made the case that Shakespeare's sonnet, 130, in which he rather degrades the form and demeanour of his mistress, was a beautiful expression of realistic love. 

Yet, there was not one female or male in the class bereft of an arched eyebrow. While indeed it would be folly for the Bard to have painted 'roses damask'd' in his lover's cheeks when there were none, the subjectivity of love should have moved him to like her face as it was. Have not men who had always loved sapphire eyes turned their preference to emerald orbs on falling in love with a green-eyed woman?


Leaving aside romance however, perhaps indifference is more justified on the rational scale? After all, one cannot and should not be as devoted to all people as one is to one's spouse. Why should a man rise from his chair, because a skirted creature entered the room or kiss a hand because the owner is female? Why should he curb his language or speak more delicately just because a woman is in earshot? Why is she due any of his particular homage simply because she is the daughter of that first one who was made from a rib?


The answer is that (as science has even proven and continues to prove) the differences between men and women are indeed as psychically entrenched as they are physically. Placing the two genders in the natural world, without the artificial constructions of the postmodern order, woman is still a remarkable thing. She may not be as strong as man, but she is built to endure more, both in stamina of labour and in pain. She is eminently practical and useful, and in beayty, she is the climax of the symphony of Creation. Woman is the last thing God made, and He made her from the best of matter--the flesh and bone of a rational creature. 

Moving the argument again into the civilized realm where her beauty initially inspires poetry of the giddiest (and perhaps silliest) order, woman must also take up the more mundane duties of the home: 

It takes a woman all powdered and pink 
To joyously clean out the drain in the sink 
And it takes an angel with long golden lashes 
And soft dresden fingers 
For dumping the ashes... (Hello Dolly)


There is another paradox in woman that while she may inspire abstract ideals, she is often more fond of what is concrete. At least until some modernist gets a hold of her, women are more realistic than men:

Women are the only realists; their whole object in life is to pit their realism against the extravagant, excessive, and occasionally drunken idealism of men. _G. K. Chesterton


To inspire idealism and to ground the world in realism. What better alloy could there be in the metal of any creature?


It is in such an attitude as Chesterton's, romantic rationality, that allows one to see things in truth. To see something 'in truth' is farther than the seeming 'reality' of how it is and nearer than the chimeric ideal of how it ought to be. Balancing on the slender thread of this paradox allows one to pass over the offenses of a coarse, shrewish woman and treat every female as if she were a lady--to see Dulcinea in even the coarsest concierge. 

When a man moulds his thoughts and acts in this way, he works for the defeat of extreme feminism. For he renders unto women the appreciation they are not allowed to seek. The trials and sufferings of womanhood can only find their glory in silence. Whereas men are allowed to exalt in their victories, and society pays public homage to their entrance into manhood, a girl who takes up the burdens of womanhood must discreetly pass over the details. The male sex must take the female rite of passage for granted. If it does not, the postmodern era has shown us that women who are indignant enough will degrade themselves and their sisters by dragging womanliness and all its secrets into the public eye.


Such is the necessity of chivalry in man. In woman, it cultivates the attitude that will not only lead her towards striving for sainthood, but to secure the same for the men about her. When she says, 'I must act in this way, because it is the proper sphere of my sex. I must do this humble thing, because it is not a man's province. I must bear this suffering quietly because of Eve's curse. I must bend, because I am woman, and the Lord has asked this of me,' she steps on the head of the serpent that lured our first mother from her throne.

This will be an essay in which I intend to invest a great deal of thought, and as I am swamped with school paperwork, it will come in phases. There are things I need to re-read, visuals I must contemplate, and perhaps surveys to conduct. In any case, I need to think about it.

The idea came as I prepared for work this morning. I had stopped for a moment after dressing to survey what I was wearing. I generally perform the standard 'head, shoulders, knees, and toes' test when purchasing a garment and then never give it another thought, but I had bought this white, tiered skirt in a rather dim shop, and I was having second thoughts in the light of day.

As with all things white, there was the problem of transparency. The layers under the skirt were sufficient, but they did not reach all the way to the hemline, and though they were long enough for a skirt I would wear all on its own, it made me wonder whether there were something teasing or immodest about the first ten diaphanous inches.

'Jansenist, Puritan, Extremist, Manichean, Pharisee, Shiite, etc.' and other such epithets reverberated in the memory of my ears, as I recalled the words of men and women, friends and foes, whom I know and have known. I may have winced, but even though the rebukes of majority are arresting, they do not have much impact on a monarchist.

I began trying to disect the matter rationally, when logic gave up the task and ceded to intuition. 'Oh, puh-lease!' (my intuition normally adopts the voice of my sister, Maggie) 'There are girls out there with their hemlines ending a few inches below their hips. What makes you so special as to attact attention with what you're wearing?' Now that reasoning I could not combat, and I actually trotted out the door giggling at myself and the problem I had posed.

Two particular troubles came to revisit me later though. The first was the fact that I knew too few people (and most of them via books) that took a middle position on the issue of modest. The second, that I was and am not sure that I even occupy the middle.

Unlike the subjects of my other ruminations, this issue is actually a lot of bother to revisit, and I don't savour the idea of writing about something I should have in hand after twenty-seven years on this Earth. Yet, as I consider how separated I have been from others, due in part to the way I dress, or how fervently I have sought to please those whom I respected over those whom I wished to befriend, I am interested to know if I have made the right decision, or if I have made myself a bit ridiculous for ideals that priests and philosophers would have quickly forgone if they had been practical women or had known the social price.

I was engaged in a debate on the subject of dignity in dress recently--by those who claim belief in modesty, too. It is rather typical that my side was taken by no other party, but this time I had hoped the case would be different and that at least this one other soul would take my part. Well, suffice it to say that this did not happen, and as a woman, I was disappointed. As a rational animal, I was also dissatisfied with the emotional arguments employed against my position. After all, if emotions had the last say, why would mine be any less infallible?

To those that are interested, I promise the following chapters will not be so sticky with personal references as this post, and I will exercise more discipline. Still, a personal preface seemed necessary this once, especially as I hope no one takes the forthcoming argument personally.

The place: a deep, unknown region of an omnipresent sea lapping before a hoary cliff that reaches from the east of the horizon to the west, flooding into two great caverns. The vessel of woman wishes to navigate to through the passage, but alas! Atop the left portal is a great harpy. She bares her teeth and screeches against the dainty vessel, hanging by the talons of her hairy legs she stretches out long chipped nails, clotted with black blood, waiting for the wayfarers.

Atop the right, stands a gaunt giant. A cyclops--by the act of gauging out one of his own eyes--he heaves a might hammer above his round head, muttering words of blame and condemnation, ready to smash the bright barque floating on the doldrums.

Confronted with this ultimatum, the females on the ship begin debating, some wishing to placate the giant, others hoping to side with the harpy, and many who wish to said away and drown the ridiculous hope of reaching noble Ithaca, content to sail without direction on the wine dark sea, so long as they are free to move with the wind. Many of these three parties, sick of disputation, put out in dingies to pursue those foreboding inclinations, while the less decisive stare at the fourth party, which is contemplating the wall of granite before them. Happy with none of the propositions they stare and wait.

'What are you waiting for?' one of the wavering girls asks.

'For a third gate to open in the stone,' is the decisive answer.


A man once bought a still in an town where distilling alcohol was held not only illegal, but ungodly. Drinking spirits, wine, or beer was something for Catholics, 'Whiskeypalians,' and other miscellaneous heathens. Having had a good laugh over the idea of brewing his own moonshine, he simply used it for the innocuous purpose of covering a well. Still, any passerby would naturally suppose that some more iniquitous work was afoot.

One of the man's daughters was mortified and wanted her mother and grandmother to intervene. The grandmother, a woman possessing all the natural lore of a Native American and all the simple godliness of an apolitical Puritan, responded by painting the still and then planting flowers around it. Her rationale? It was Proverbs 15: 1, A soft answer turneth away wrath, But a harsh word stirs up anger.

She knew, as the modern Western woman does not know, how to live peacefully with men and with the world in general. What many philosophers have come to know rationally ('What is wrong with the world is me') she knew intuitively. Her task: to improve only what God had given to be in her grasp. Her strategy: the typical feminine mixture of beauty and pragmatism. If a thing could not be used to beautify or to improve life, then out it should go. If it didn't go? Well, one must do one's best to hide or decorate it. These two rules brought her through a life of hard work to, I believe, everlasting benediction.

In defense of the first rule's seeming passivity, a woman cannot combat qua woman. It is that simple. Direct combat means taking up the weapons of men and laying aside her own femininity. However adept a woman may be with the arms of men, they are still the arms of men. As the brilliant Molly Gustin (the only credible Platonic rationalist I have ever met) often said, women win by subterfuge, not brute force. One need only ask Delilah if scissors are as effective as swords.

Should a woman however prefer the sword and win an argument in that 'liberated', forceful manner she has been taught to embrace from the 1960's on, she causes resentment in the man she argued with. If this man is someone whose love or fellowship she desires, then she has lost, for if he concedes the point, he may come to see her as a colleague, not a companion. Or he may concede resentfully, closing off his tenderness from her.

Then again, he may concede, but this still does not prompt him to act on his concession (e.g., yes, he agrees that he should clean up the dirt he tracked into the room...but it lays there still). Then again, he may concede, act on the concession, but grumbling all the time before he retreats into a sulky mood. Or worst of all, she may have succeeded in breaking him. She has demolished the ego which drives him to accomplish things and turned him into a compromiser that just wants some peace and quiet, even if he must become a slave to get it. Surely, even the most strident feminist would not want her great achievement to be a hen-pecked cockerel. After all, that would make her a hen.

So what to do then in an imperfect world that one does want to better? After all, God has given us free will, and He has not drawn a map of what is in our power to change: Behold I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves. Be ye therefore wise as serpents and simple as doves. (Matthew 10:16)

A girl must listen to her kinswomen. She must regard the teachings of wise philosophers, and of course, she must cultivate her own common sense and heed the voice of her intuition over that of her lower passions. For as much as the Left may argue otherwise, much of the feminist credo is merely the tripe of our base instincts. To nag, to be shrill, to let the victim have it, and not to be docile, pleasing, or content with 'superficial' solutions--this is not courageous! This is self-indulgent. Outside the anomalous homes inhabited by male tyrants who actually employ their fists, the line feminists advise women to take is depressingly banal and--in the sense of both age and precedence--conservative.

In a search to validate the cream of tradition, as opposed to the dregs, I stipulate first, that one must recognize that the dichotomy between men and women is only one dichotomy. Perhaps it is the most important one, but it is still only one. As E. M. Forster observes in Howard's End (albeit through an unsympathetic character) that 'equality' between men and women is no feasible social solution, because men never even had equality amongst themselves (for those who have not read the book, I am interpreting 'equality', as used here, to imply not only the equal possessions of wealth and power, but of talents and abilities as well).

As exciting as the Left would make it out to be (i.e. that human discord is always a desperate struggle between groups for the supremacy of black and white ideals) one must remember that life is more often a dispute between individuals. The lady berating me for leaving my bicycle in the corridor (where it disturbs no one) would not likely be moved by appeal to an argument of universal sisterhood.

Introducing the second point: however hard and unfeeling Henry Wilcox, the character cited above, may have been, he at least understood that happiness is a primary thing, and one that we all desire as the fruit of our deeds. He would not have subordinated the clear notion of happiness to the vague idea of 'progress.'

So in this argument, noble tradition succeeds by default if the individual takes G. K. C.'s advice and dismisses secondary notions (e.g., progress) in favour of the primary ones (e.g., happiness), for who should want the first without the second, and who will not gladly take the second without the first? Is one a troglodyte for this? Well, the Left says we are animals, so we may as well follow our natural destinies and enjoy the simple, attainable things over ideals so abstract we do not even know what they look like. One can fill one's house with strife over the hideous piece of technology one's husband has bought, or smile and put up one's hair. What would your cat do?


There is now a general outline of the realm of what is possible. First, it concerns how women deal both with men and other women, so we females should not take particular umbridge. Second, the proper course of action will also cultivate the soil to produce the fruit of happiness. However, where men and women part ways, is in the shape of their motions.

A man wishes to project, to take his skill, his specialty, and see what path it might take from the valley to the peak. A woman moves in circles, seeking to improve her environment as a whole. A modernist may be tempted to sneer at this, but they should recall that such circles can be quite large. A woman's family and environs might consist of a single household or of a vast empire. What matters is that she continues to operate as a lady.

Take the situation with several women living in the same house. It usually ends that only one of them takes it upon herself to clean the bathroom. It's not fair, but she has already tried talking with her roommates gently and reasonably, and they still do not do their share of housework. What can the conscientious one do? Nag? Well, this may or may not work, and it will sow discord. Let the bathroom get filthy? She will quickly discover that the filth tortures her far more than the people she is attempting to punish. Or she can clean it herself, accepting this duty as her lot. This acceptance will lead to contentment and, therefore, a greater chance of happiness.

The fictional Captain Jack Sparrow once observed, 'The only rules that really matter are these: what a man can do and what a man can't do.' It may be a truism and a painfully obvious one, but human beings often cloud logic with ill-recalled experience and reality with muddled ideals, rather than using the former ones to judge the latter. This makes for a befuddled head. Occasionally, one needs to dig up Aristotelian syllogisms to think straight, which is why Aristotle is a giant, and Bertrand Russell is a dwarf on a ladder. Before the complex, always state the simple.

The bathroom cleaning roommate eventually achieved peace of mind by realizing what she could and couldn't do. She couldn't change other people, but she could alter the course of her own feelings. One may argue that her relationship with her cohabitants will never be close because of this, but that is not so. In altering her reactions, she has accepted them as they are. They may not be friends, but they are at least congenial. She may be doing a little extra, unpleasant work, but her living quarters are all the more pleasant for it.


John Medaille, writing for The Remnant, noted the similarity between the words cosmetics and cosmos in one of the most chivlarous essays I have ever read about women (the title is 'Women, Cosmetics, and the Cosmos'). The article's idea is essentially: woman cannot better the entire cosmos, but she can better her immediate surroundings; if she does so, she will receive a certain measure of consolation. When a feminist and human rights activist was attempting to help unjustly imprisoned women in a country torn by upheaval, she was astonished that they asked her for trivial things like makeup. It was not until her own imprisonment, that the modern visitor understood why the unfortunate ladies had so dearly wanted lipstick.

Like altering her abode (be it home, room, cubicle, or desk), putting on her face can do much in helping a woman to encounter whatever situation God sends her. I could not write this essay peaceably before making my bed, and I cannot count the number of times another woman has asked me if I had a little lipstick in my purse. 'I'm just having a bad day. Maybe it will perk me up.'

In condemning these inclinations passed down by our foremothers, the Left, alas, is not alone. Some of the Church's saints (and some of her great disappointments) have had very harsh things to say about women and their desire to decorate themselves and their surroundings.

Similarly, too, do even the servants [122] of those barbarians cause the glory to fade from the colours of our garments (by wearing the like); nay, even their party-walls use slightingly, to supply the place of painting, the Tyrian and the violet-coloured and the grand royal hangings, which you laboriously undo and metamorphose. Purple with them is more paltry than red ochre; (and justly, ) for what legitimate honour can garments derive from adulteration with illegitimate colours? That which He Himself has not produced is not pleasing to God, unless He was unable to order sheep to be born with purple and sky-blue fleeces! _Tertullian, On the Apparel of Women

Well, at least he ended as a heretic, so there's no need for ladies to feel guilty about any purple scarves they may own, but St. Jerome also reproaches women:

No; you should choose for your companions staid and serious women, particularly widows and virgins, persons of approved conversation, of few words, and of a holy modesty. Shun gay and thoughtless girls, who deck their heads and wear their hair in fringes, who use cosmetics to improve their skins and affect tight sleeves, dresses without a crease, and dainty buskins; and by pretending to be virgins more easily sell themselves into destruction. _St. Jerome, Letter 130

Ouch. However, this excerpt is not as clear as the first. A woman might fringe her hair without 'affecting tight sleeves' or she may employ cosmetics tastefully and do so without exposing her bosom. The godly man has made the mistake of branding everything a ditzy or shameless girl does as wrong. Goodness! is brushing one's hair even allowed?

St. Augustine, et al. hold the same dismal views. Such writings as these can drive a contemplative woman to depression, an unconvinced woman to indifference, and an irreverent one to flippancy. Yet, I am convinced these reactions would probably surprise the aforementioned men. As unkind as their words are, I am sure they would have been abashed on beholding the tears of a girl they had just berated for wearing flowers in her hair. Very likely, many of them thought women would feel liberated if they did not have to care about their looks. Alas, being a saint does not in itself qualify a man to grasp feminine psychology.

As men with better understanding have discovered, a woman does not primarily dress to allure. She dresses for herself (and for other women). Why else would men hate so many popular fashion trends and hairstyles? Because they were not conceived with the fancies of men in mind! Men have written as much themselves here (see fact number 18). Such a revelation would have shocked the male saints who thought adornment had its roots in concupiscence (forgive me, ye pious men, but none of you could speak infallibly on such an issue).

For a woman, the idea of making her person more lovely has an objective charm. It helps to beautify the world for her. Thus, when a woman is in love, she will attempt to enchant the man as well as enhance her own environment. Such making-over as this has been defended by the greatest Doctor of the Church:

Nevertheless a woman may use means to please her husband, lest through despising her he fall into adultery. Hence it is written (1 Cor. 7:34) that the woman "that is married thinketh on the things of the world, how she may please her husband." Wherefore if a married woman adorn herself in order to please her husband she can do this without sin.

And concerning cosmetics for their own sake?

However, such painting does not always involve a mortal sin, but only when it is done for the sake of sensuous pleasure or in contempt of God...

Through the veil that shades my eyes, pierced by beams of light as is night by stars,
I did behold strength, wisdom, passion, and grace--her face, enshrouded by hair sable
like a star. Enrobed in abalone, clad in pearl, she is man's Polaris shining, still, in silver,
pointing the way to home--and also the Moon who shows by curve of her crescent
the glorious Sun, who stands before her, bathing in His Light, His Mother.
And to her left and right, of covenant old and new, five saints sighing, singing, 'Hail!'

Sarah, mother of the older promise, raises up her arms of dusky brown to pray, 'Hail!
Blessed art thou, mother who endured her Son's sacrifice, favoured one, crowned with stars,
whose womb yielded the greater Covenant! Thy matron praises thee, sweet Mother!'
Esther, once queen of Isreal amidst her foes, lets drop her ebon hair and cries, 'I was able
to stand in might amongst men and sue for my people's lives. Hail, who had no ascent
before the worldly powers, worthier queen, and had not praise nor gold, honour nor silver!'

Judith, rescuer of the Jews, tosses her mahogany mane and robustly intones, 'Silver-
white is thy soul, for thou didst endure all pain humbly, gold is thy womb for its Fruit. Hail,
thou who wert unable to help they people's woes by easy swing of sickle's crescent,
but through giving life, hath saved mankind, and Abraham's seed, now numerous as the stars!'
and so did Deborah hail and say, 'Thou didst not lead thy sons against the souls of sable,
thou, so much greater than I in prophecy and wisdom, Queen of men and also their Mother!'

Elizabeth, at Our Lady's left hand, did say, 'I blessed thee first, and I bless thee, Mother,
now in the midst of eternity, who gave birth in an uncouth cave. Hairs undusted by silver
who bore the Ancient of Days, and fled for His life, under the cover of sable
night, in wintry chill to a foreign land, men's swords at thy back. For this now, I say, hail!'
Mary of Magdalene smiles and proclaims, 'Hail Mother of my Lord, Queen of the stars,
I love thy 'fiat' to the Holy Spirit and bearing forth Whom hath all my love, since His descent!'

Helen, mother of the Christian Emperor proclaims, 'Blessed art thou, of sweetest scent
like royal myrrh, and who had no throne and swayed no emperor, but whose Son, Mother,
didst conquer all foes through mine. Bless thee, forgiving Mother, here above all the stars!'
Teresa of Avila lowly chants, 'Hail thou, who was pious and pure whilst through silver
the Lord's priests were corrupted, thou could not reform but judged not, yet hated their sin, hail
thou must highly favoured, whose light for the Lord in His Suffering, pierced the night sable!'

Brigid of the Gaels now softly sings, 'Blessed art thou, whose heart is richer than the sable
earth. Blessed art thou who didst not walk prominently amongst peoples, but in the crescent
of thy bent arm held our Savior, and was content to be His servant. O sweet humility, hail!'
Katherine of Alexandria, who stands amidst all apologists of truth declares, 'Hail, Mother,
whose soul is more illuminated than mine, thy mind more agile, thy tongue like quicksilver,
and yet didst not have the regard of men whilst living, all shall hail thee here above the stars!'

And she did raise her sable head, and her smile, illuminated from the brow by stars,
praised with her opalescent eyes, lovingly her Father, Spouse, and Son with voice of silver.
Her pure soul, which all hailed, gave to Him our pleading gems, for Him and us, she is Mother.

The Desires of a Woman's Heart: Conclusion by Rachel Rudd is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at foolishnessntears.blogspot.com.

The modern female does not wish to be passive, so it is time to move into woman’s more active sphere. Feminine volition must here choose allegiance, to take or to give. To usurp or to submit. Of course, here I am referring to the intensely personal relations in one’s life, those linked to vocational callings and the deepest movements of the heart.

There are and have been many instances from time immemorial where a woman works alongside a man with little difference as to gender. Does one really suppose that a fishmonger disdained to bargain with a woman in the Middle Ages? Was it impossible for a landlady to extract her rent from male tenants? Did farm labourers constantly harass the dairy-maids without any restraint from an overseer? For pity’s sake, no work would ever have gotten done!

In line, however, with the dreary suppositions presented above, it is a trend amongst many ‘gender studies specialists’ to be so wholly obsessed with the problem of sex that they wish to find it lurking around every corner. Between every man and woman haggling over the price of tomatoes, there must be a Freudian urge motivating their actions. Just as the flesh underlies one’s clothing, the erotic underlies all we do. If they look at their own personal experience they would surely see otherwise. I approached a vendor in an open air market to buy mushrooms the other day. He looked bored as I walked up; he looked bored as I haggled him down a złoty, and he looked bored when I made my purchase and left.

As one female writer said to women concerned over seeing a doctor for feminine examinations: ‘He’s busy, and you’re not that special.’ Therefore, it is plain that many of our relations in life will be platonic and indifferent to gender, unless the parties involved are either extremely courteous or extremely amorous.

But one does not define himself by these superficial forms of intercourse. Does a man, standing upon a mountain bald overlooking a sea of clouds, gazing across the perpetually rolling see, or perched on a rock in a painted desert, think of himself as a retail worker, a managing director, a doctor, or even a teacher? In the most unvarnished corners of the world and of the heart, only those roles touching the core of a his soul ought to remain in mind.

Those intimate and sacred relationships are those that present the quandary of the essay. What a woman (or a man) owes to an employer, a colleague, or a random stranger is evident and not frequently problematic, as they usually don't touch upon her deepest desires or happiness. A woman free of peevishness is not likely to complain of subordinating herself to the interests of that institute which pays her for her time, unless that organism does not pay well.

So when asked if a woman has a place in the workplace, one cannot but say yes. Women have worked alongside men throughout history, and even the much loved (and hated) woman of Proverbs 31 had dealings with trade and sales. Yet, it is more fitting and usually more likely that women rely more on the motions of their hearts than the advances of their careers for happiness.

A female doctor, who resented my family for using a feeding tube to nourish my grandmother after she could no longer swallow, was thrilled to learn that our unjust economy was forcing my mother back into the workplace. My mother diplomatically said (as this woman controlled the aid we received for taking care of my father’s mother), ‘Well, this is not going to be a career or profession for me. It’s just work.’

‘Good for you!’ she replied with a toothy smile, completely unaware of how unwelcome that response was. I cannot but smile wryly and draw a parallel between that doctor and the traditional matron of a bygone era, with my mother cast as the non-conformist ingénue.

‘I’m engaged to be married,’ the female rebel would begin.
‘Oh, how wonderful!’
‘No! I do not love the man, and I do not wish to marry yet, but my parents insist I will have a husband all the same.’
‘Good for you!’ I wonder if the doctor would appreciate the humour in that likeness.

As to the professional woman that apparently has a job she likes, she may wish to reconsider the amount of time invested in it. Unless she is single, she has a husband, and if she has a husband, she ought to have children (the natural product of spousal relations), and children crave Momma. As vital as a father is to his child, the physical and near presence of the mother is irreplaceable both according to traditional lore and current analyses. As research by the University of Alberta in Canada shows, a mother's touch is vital to the development of a person's sense of security, male or female:

A simple pat on the back of the shoulder by a female in a way that connotes support may evoke feelings that are similar to the sense of security afforded by a mother's comforting touch in infancy. (http://in.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idINIndia-48470920100513?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=11732)

When I myself was recovering from runaway asthma at age 4, I am ashamed to say that I was constantly telling my father that I wanted ‘Mommy’ near me, as loving as his presence was. I cannot recall that without wincing, but there it is.

It is also the mother that children requite with coldness for not having been with them all day, unfair as that is. Having babysat from age 12 onward, I have seen it over and over again, as well as many of my colleagues.

However, for many households, two bread-winners are necessary. There is nothing more to say on that matter, for it cannot be helped. Marxism has very successfully, and with the help of women, invaded global society, seeking to break down the family unit, i.e., that which nourished the individuality, for the unique soul is the enemy of Communist State. Of course, destroying motherhood was the only way to subvert family life, and Lenin recruited females with great success.

He called it liberation. What he was actually initiating was 'depersonalization,' as Karl Stern so aptly dubbed it. Removing the gender specific roles of woman, she became another cog on the state's wheel.

Is this totalitarian liberation actually better than the 'drudgery of the home?' Is homemaking even the dreary pathetic work it is made out to be? Let another more eloquent thinker address the question:

...when people begin to talk being to talk about this domestic duty as not merely difficult, but trivial and dreary, I simply give up the question...If drudgery means only dreadfully hard work, I admit the woman drudges in the home, as a man might drudge in the Cathedral of Amiens or drudge behind a gun at Trafalgar. But if it means that the hard work is more heavy because it is trifling, colourless and of small import to the soul, then as I say, I give it up; I do not know what the words mean...I can understand how this might exhaust the mind (the role of homemaker), but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career to tell other people's children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one's own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? (G. K. Chesteron, What's Wrong with the World: Part III, Chapter iii: The Emancipation of Domesticity, note and emphasis mine)

As a teacher, I have certainly felt the limitations of my profession as described above. I provide the basis for learning at school, then my students go home, where they should begin to live the lesson. How often I envy the women who can make the children to study at home and show how these rules play out in the life around them. It is painfully obvious to me that mothers' work is more meaningful and significant than mine, for when I see that a student has neglected his homework, my first thought is that I wish I were his mother, so I could see to it that he was actually applying himself.

However, in the modern era, many actual mothers do not have that luxury. Scores of women are imprisoned in the workplace just as they were in factories during the Industrial Age or on plantations via racial slavery, and until society is remade, this modern enslavement shall continue.

While it is useless to preach concerning the unjust requirements of a tottering economy, something further may be said against that feminist disdain for sacred feminine duties. As sympathetic as I am towards the Society of Saint Pius X, the silencing of Bishop Richard Williamson was rather a long time in coming.

When arguing against university education for women, he hurled this hateful shard of obsidian:

…And if she has a "degree", how will she not think herself above the multiple humiliations of being "barefoot and pregnant"? (Letters of Richard Williamson)

How dare he link excellence of the mind or spirit with abhorrence for the most wonderful fulfilment of woman’s nature? The more liberally (meaning truly, not Leftistly) educated or philosophical a woman is, the more likely she is to appreciate what other women take for granted. She houses life in her womb! She feeds another human being with her body and gives of herself in the most direct and heroic manner.

G. K. Chesterton once said that to see a thing as one saw it for the first time is to see it as it truly is. If I told you that at a certain hour in the night, a celestial object would appear in the sky so immensely bright that it would blot out the stars, illumine the atmosphere so completely that its refracted light would colour the heavens with all the vivid hues of the rainbow, and even force the plants of the soil to respond to its presence, you would be amazed and wonder what comet, meteor, or planetary event would produce such an occurrence. Well, the answer is 'as plain as the midsummer sun,' which we all too often take for granted. Contemplate the physicality of womanhood long enough, and the same wonder will be discovered.

In fact, concerning the fleshly part of her identity, woman has escaped the limbo imposed on man by modernity. In the First World, and perhaps parts of the Second and Third as well, there are no ceremonial passages into manhood that are as meaningful as they have been in former epochs. There is no changing of names that affirm a man of where he now stands, and few trials of physical endurance. Ignored by society, youths must look for affirmation in some more personal way, which is often less satisfying due to its ambiguity.

Getting a car? Not so easily accomplished for some and still not enough to fill this hole. Losing one's virginity? Though it is an act which the modern world often identifies ‘becoming a man’ is nothing more than a gratification of the flesh and will not satisfy this yearning. It can only overwhelm it by appealing to overweening concupiscence as the former appeals to materialism.

Women however know when they have become women as surely as they know the motions of the moon. The trials and hardships of her sex visit themselves upon her regularly and without fail. She needs no confirmation of herself from without on those days when she sometimes even writhes in pain.

When with child, the fact of her womanhood is even more brutally plain through what she endures. If she wishes not to have the assistance of medicine, then as she prepares to give birth to her child, she finds it necessary to accomplish the great feminine act of submission in a very literal manner: to let the pain take her body, and accomplish her labour. Is this not an act of magnificent personal accomplishment? Is it not the greatest gift one may give to society? that of its continuation?

The ladies of the Russian biathlon team, and most recent Olympians in that field, put the whole world in awe with both their feat and these words from Anna Boulygina:

No medal compares to having a child. I think children are the main thing women are designed to do. Having a family is an enormous help to me and it is due to their support that I am able to achieve this result.

And from Olga Zaitseva: My child is my greatest happiness and he is my best little gold medal. It has made me calmer.

And Olga Medvedtseva (on whether pregnancy ruins a woman’s body): I would say it is a very stimulating experience and I would recommend having kids, don't be afraid of it.

Let us return to Gertude Chiltern in the fourth act of An Ideal Husband. This thoroughly modern woman, almost a little too political and rigid, finds herself in a situation with moment beyond her temporal, Victorian world. Her principles dictate that her husband must abdicate his brilliant political career, which was only made possible by a single act of incredible dishonesty. Logically, his redemption hinges upon his willingness to sacrifice the fruits of his crime, and that is what she demands of him.

On hearing of Robert Chiltern's resolve to quit public life, their surprisingly devoted, dandy friend, Lord Goring, takes the regal Gertrude aside and pours forth words so extraordinary that one might never believe they came from Oscar Wilde’s all too clever and witty pen:

Lady Chiltern, allow me. You wrote me a letter last night in which you said you trusted me and wanted my help. Now is the moment when you really want my help, now is the time when you have got to trust me, to trust in my counsel and judgment. You love Robert. Do you want to kill his love for you? What sort of existence will he have if you rob him of the fruits of his ambition, if you take him from the splendour of a great political career, if you close the doors of public life against him, if you condemn him to sterile failure, he who was made for triumph and success? Women are not meant to judge us, but to forgive us when we need forgiveness. Pardon, not punishment, is their mission. Why should you scourge him with rods for a sin done in his youth, before he knew you, before he knew himself? A man's life is of more value than a woman's. It has larger issues, wider scope, greater ambitions. A woman's life revolves in curves of emotions. It is upon lines of intellect that a man's life progresses. Don't make any terrible mistake, Lady Chiltern. A woman who can keep a man's love, and love him in return, has done all the world wants of women, or should want of them.

My sisters, stay your indignation at the line ‘a man’s life is of more value than a woman’s.’ Those words do not have the same significance as 'dignity of life,' and they hinge upon the fallacious idea that a public career is more important than a private one (which all wise men and women know is poppycock). Instead, heed the rest of these words. It does not follow that what is good and true for us is always what we wish to hear, anymore than medicine is always pleasant.

Now what happens when Lady Chiltern conquers her ‘high moral tone’ and instead acts from her womanly heart, truly forgiving her husband his past misdeed?

Lady Chiltern: You can forget. Men easily forget. And I forgive. That is how women help the world. I see that now.

What happens next is proof that this is a play, not a novel, for it needs a fine actor to bring it to life. An artist who knows to pause after that line, trembling with manly emotion. He must then take the lady in his arms crying out her ancient, sacred title: ‘My wife! my wife!’ And Wilde’s Victorian comedy passes beyond its historical period and enters the plane of the epic. Gertrude Chiltern is exalted with Andromache, Penelope, and Beatrice.

Of course, not every woman is married to Robert Chiltern, and this is a work of fiction. Yet, when speaking to a woman who is happy in her married lot, one often finds she has through heroic womanhood, caused this title with such emotion to fall from her own husband’s lips.

The second great feminine title is one that women have often tragically prevented being uttered. Since woman’s 'liberation,' motherhood has frequently been dismissed as a mediocre, ‘easy’ thing state to enter. By too many it has been regarded as nothing more than an impediment to sexual freedom. Women have flooded their bodies with steroids to render their fertile wombs as barren as stone, while men have comically masked their maleness with rubber, fearing lest they be man enough to beget another human being. When all else fails, and life is conceived, women allow their bodies to be invaded in order to quench that life. The roles of wife and mother are at best conventional and at worst, oppressive.

How could he be called an oppressor? And as argued above, how could raising him, and shaping his world be thought insignificant work? What is so wonderful about sexual freedom that it has priority over the life of another? What is so great about the Self that it should be exalted above our neighbours, even the neighbours most dependent on ourselves?

Feminists have most certainly succeeded in making the importance of women felt. What better way to appreciate good health than to lose it? Women also have begun to appreciate the lives that their foremothers have led, as doors are allowed to slam in their faces, and they find men are in no way pressured by society to 'do the decent thing' when they find themselves 'in trouble.' Abortion becomes a more likely alternative for a girl who would rather keep the child, as the legality of abortion absolves a man entirely from his paternal responsibilities, et al. In the rather enjoyable romantic comedy, Leap Year, there comes a moment when the antiromantic couple find themselves in a room with one bed. It is clear that the man has no intention of forfeiting a good night's sleep to the fair sex:

Anna: What? No gallantry? Declan: You lot wanted the vote. So lie with it!

I cannot speak for all my sisters around the world, but in an age where votes mean nothing, because politicians obey the oligarchy of bankers and wealthy special interest groups, I feel a little shystered when I think I traded chivalry for the ballot.

Feminine affirmation is vital to the majority of the male world. Her submission is not simply a pleasant thing, but something he needs in order to accomplish great things. When a younger sister would ask me if I liked her picture, she was just looking for a pleasant compliment. When my little brother asked me the same, he was looking for something much more integral to his being.

Women of the Liberation Movement have often jeered at the dependency of man's ego on woman, holding it up as a defect in that sex and naming it the thing which has driven him to the cruelty of keeping woman down.

There is a twofold fallacy in that argument: first, as I have said earlier, the lack of prevailing feminine genius even in favourable climates has suggested that there was not much for man to oppress to begin with.

Second, for women to speak in such a manner is ironically puerile, and extremely ungenerous. If a man were to lord his physical strength over a woman, and to use it to bully her, would we not call him a barbarian? So if a woman flaunts her certainty of self over a man, belittles him and injures the masculine pride that drives him to excel, what name does she deserve? Like a child who has discovered he has power of life and death over a caged bird, woman has set about dismantling man.

It was good of Lady Godiva to endear the plight of the people to her heart, and not to support her husband in his cruelty. Yet, it was feminine failure in that she could not use his love to turn him towards good, but instead humiliated him with her famed gallop. Queen Esther howver represents the true feminine triumph in that she not only saved her people; she also saved her husband.

In the lovely book and equally exquisite film, Enchanted April, one is presented with a vivid example of how women can save the world by simply waiting and feeling. Two of the four women in this story are unhappy in their loveless marriages, and on first encountering the story, I expected to behold a pleasant romp in Italy which would give the ladies' their second wind and embolden them to start new lives back in England. A bit of a feminist cliché , but I have to admit the idea had some appeal.

What happens instead is that the women see where they went wrong in their lives by trying to control their husbands instead of simply loving them. With the Italian sun, the smell of wisteria, and the grandeur of the castle, San Salvadori, to strengthen them, they ask their husbands to share their holiday. When the men arrive, and see the new tenderness and passion evident in their wives, the women accomplish what all the reasoning and begging in the world could never have done; they have brought out the best in their men.

Just as children are never so well brought up as by good mothers, never are men so noble as when women rely on them.






The Desires of a Woman's Heart: V by Rachel Rudd is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at foolishnessntears.blogspot.com.

A Victorian lady once said that a woman who could not control her husband’s vote ought to be ashamed of herself. The reaction such a statement would elicit in a crowd of modern women is no mystery to anyone. The idea of feminine submission or even the use of subterfuge over force is so distasteful to women of the Left (and in parts of the Right) that they cannot tuck their abhorrence in for a moment on hearing it. This burst of emotion is very telling, and it reveals that what liberated women hate most intensely is not men per se, but the mystique of woman and the duties it entails.

It is worthwhile to look at feminine archetypes a moment, and gauge the reaction of womankind to such characters. One such type is the 'faërie princess,' a lovely ideal that adores her husband after being caught, is his intellectual inferior—yet cultivated enough to please him—and also inexplicably heroic in the face of suffering on his behalf and that of her children. Needless to say this image produces a great deal of sneering from both sexes for many reasons, but let us look at how one great female author viewed this archetype.

On perusing Middlemarch, the politically correct reader may find himself/herself bristling at Dr. Lydgate’s rather patronizing view of women. George Eliot probably did not expect such a reaction—or at least such a strong one—in her readers at the time. Even her friend and colleague, Anthony Trollope, espoused such views of women according to both his stories and his personal letters. In fact, looking at Eliot’s doctor through the lens of her period, he very aptly personifies (in a far more compelling way than Dorothea) the erstwhile great man doomed to unconsummated genius by the pettiness of the small people encompassing him.

Eliot probably intended Lydgate’s dismissal of women as the one flaw Aristotle requires in his definition of a tragedy. This 'flaw' is a blemish that may ruin a man, but must be forgivable, otherwise his downfall obviously will not be sorrowful, but celebrated. One may argue whether that theory covers all possibilities of tragedy, but Eliot undoubtedly believed it did, as she carried out the principle’s requirements to the letter in her The Mill on the Floss. She did so much so that many have said the ending was quite forced.

Lydgate certainly reaps every imaginable woes sewn by his condescension, as Oedipus reaped those of his rage, and both fell due to their wives. The spouse Eliot gives the idealistic doctor drives him towards professional misery and financial ruin with more tenacity than all three of the Greek Furies combined.

...how far he had travelled from his old dreamland, in which Rosamond Vincy appeared to be that perfect piece of womanhood who would reverence her husband's mind after the fashion of an accomplished mermaid, using her comb and looking-glass and singing her song for the relaxation of his adored wisdom alone….There was gathering within him an amazed sense of his powerlessness over Rosamond. His superior knowledge and mental force, instead of being, as he had imagined, a shrine to consult on all occasions, was simply set aside on every practical question. _George Eliot, Middlemarch

Lydgate had found his ideal woman in Rosamond Vincy. Beautiful, mild-tempered, accomplished, and charming. The only flaw in her adorable person is that she has no soul whatsoever. She is wholly materialistic, manipulative, and sinfully reckless of the health and wellbeing of others.

How delightful to make captives from the throne of marriage with a husband as crown-prince by your side - himself in fact a subject - while the captives look up forever hopeless, losing their rest probably, and if their appetite too, so much the better! _ibid.

Though Lydgate in the end bears all the suffering for his marital folly (his self-seeking wife breaks him and his dreams to conform to her wishes); which of the two as a literary character is condemned to fictional perdition by the omniscient reader?

Rosamond is most certainly the object of Eliot’s scorn, not Lydgate with whom she herself seems to be in love. Miss Vincy is mocked unceasingly in the tale by the likable, sensible Mary Garth, who never has a good word for her. Mary never once recollects some moment where Rosamond did something sweet for her, or shared something with her, or sided with her. One cannot live as sisters or cousins in one unmitigated round of scorn and rivalry, but in their case, this seems to be so.

The masculine world Eliot is so apt to satirize is of course infatuated with Miss Vincy. Her brother Fred, being a man who cannot have any romantic interest in her, is the only male character that sees through her from beginning to end. Will Ladislaw, who discovers what Rosamond truly is later, is also disgusted with her character.

As the omniscient one, Eliot herself certainly spares no pains in taking sides in her narrative. When it appears that Lydgate may have slipped her nets, and that she is not to marry him after all, the author likens her to Ariadne. For the briefest moment, Titian’s Bacchus and Ariadne comes to mind. The sickened, chilled feeling of the abandoned woman, deserted by the man whom she herself had rescued from the labyrinth, gasping in horror at the sight of the disembarking ship, her clothes in disarray from sleep, grip the heart with sympathy. But it is not Titian’s Ariadne Eliot refers to, but a ‘charming stage Ariadne left behind with all her boxes.’

H. L. Mencken defined a misogynist as: 'A man who hates women as much as women hate one another.' Apparently he never encountered real sisters. Of course this opinion is to be discounted—the reasoning behind all broad sweeping statements are suspect—but there is some truth in the pithy witticism. Female rivalry does occasionally exist, and most bitterly where it concerns men.

George Eliot betrays herself in The Mill on the Floss in a conversation between the lovely, brunette heroine, Maggie, and her informal tutor, Philip:

I'm determined to read no more books where the blond haired women carry away all the happiness. I should begin to have a prejudice against them - If you could give me some story, now, where the dark woman triumphs, it would restore the balance - I want to avenge Rebecca and Flora Mac-Ivor, and Minna and all the rest of the dark unhappy ones. _Eliot, The Mill on the Floss

Maggie most certainly, albeit unintentionally, accomplishes this vengeance and to the ruin of all, in accordance with the tragedy that Eliot stated she wished to write.

Even without an angry woman authoring it, it is often very difficult at times to enjoy the fae beauties in other stories and through other media. 'New women' so often eviscerate the heroines, especially in opera. Again, let us narrow the field and take the example of the popular Tosca, who is dismissed as ‘a 19th-century male construct, a fantasy of the perfect female artist, as free and exciting in bed as she is on the stage’ (http://www.ylle.com/sites/sfopera/html/tosca_-_article.htm)

Some feminist critics take a fiendish delight that Mario’s macho enjoyment of a woman pathologically obsessed with him is what de facto accomplishes his death, while others such as the author of the above quotation, more magnanimously observe:

One hundred years ago, a beautiful hysteric may have been an acceptable sex object; today, not even the most entrenched chauvinist would want to date a dame who carries on as Tosca sometimes does. _Stephanie Von Buchau

Now why does it not occur to Ms. Von Buchau that Tosca, whom the author is aware is very religious, is tormented by the guilt of an extramarital liaison? ‘She hides nothing from her confessor’ so it is obvious that her confessor, unless he is a complete heterodox, has been telling her to give Mario up. Being the sort of passionate creature that seizes every opportunity to delight others, she would hide this misgiving from an atheist who, being also a devotee of Rousseau, thinks their affair is natural and perhaps even preferable to a Church witnessed union.

Then of course the fact that Mario is not bound to his dark Floria by any religious, social, or philosophical, principle renders the woman (and so many women sharing her circumstances) insecure to a fateful extreme. If Tosca’s hysteria is the reason for the opera’s tragic outcome, all who provoked it should have a share in the blame, but feminists only blame the woman for acting on her feminist instincts. In literature, film, and song, the same pattern repeats itself--scorn is poured on the woman that dares to have succeeded in feminine mystique.

Flitting from the Left to the Right, Laura Schlessinger is unambiguously anti-woman in her stance against the feminine. Instead of taking a balanced view of the good and bad in both sexes and their qualities, she essentially sides with the male. She agrees with feminists concerning what the best things in life are (careers, ambitions, etc.), but she thinks women are to blame for not dominating in them as men do. Henry Higgins monologue from the musical My Fair Lady, ‘Why Can’t a Woman Be More Like a Man?’ is her anthem. Many other women cut from her cloth also disdain feminine fluff and intone that women deserve to be subjected to man, as if as a punishment for their emotional irrationality.

When participating in the annual March for Life in San Francisco, I found that the middle-aged women who came to chide, insult, and occasionally scream at us, focused on the females in the group the most. Pro-life women are traitors after all, choosing sexual imprisonment over the extinction of another being’s life. Were the issue not so grave, it would have been comically ironic the way some brushed their right index finger over their left and schoolmarmishly said, ‘Shame on you!’ No doubt Maureen Dowd wears an expression of matronly disappointment every time she sees a woman wearing a shirt with ‘MRS.’ girlishly sequined across it.

In spite of all the ill feeling liberated women express against men and masculinity, one really ought not to take it seriously. As soon as men give these women what they want, they are more than forgiven for their gender. As a former Times contributor, Nina Burleigh said of Bill Clinton:

‘I would be happy to give him a b------ just to thank him for keeping abortion legal. I think American women should be lining up with their presidential kneepads on to show their gratitude for keeping the theocracy off our backs.’

This from a member of the same party that applauds itself on ending sexual exploitation of women!

It is not man that the new woman abominates, but woman. When the pyschiatrist, Karl Stern, wrote his epic work, The Flight from Woman, he naturally centred on men who despised the womanly, but he also spoke of women who abominated anything traditionally or 'stereotypically' feminine:

The female counterpart to all this (i.e., the uber masculine male) is frequently encountered today in the woman who finds it difficult to accept her womanly role. This is quite independent of the injustices imposed on women in many societies: it is rather an over-evaluation of masculine achievement and a debasement of values which one commonly associates with the womanly...an aping of man. (Karl Stern, The Flight From Woman: Introduction, paranthetical note and emphasis is mine)

That abhorrence of the womanly much the same feeling the independent, pragmatic Laura Cheveley bears for Gertrude Chiltern in Wilde’s An Ideal Husband. For it is not Robert Chiltern, but his wife and her old schoolmate that Mrs. Cheveley actually despises: ‘I hate her. I hate her now more than ever.’ (Act III) Yet, even Lady Chiltern is not the real object of scorn, but the morality the woman represents. It is not so much the women of the past and the ‘young fogeys’ of today that feminists dislike, but the duties that imitating them entails. And what exactly are those duties?