Association Of Catholic Bloggers

It ain’t easy being male. Not that I would know, but lately being a wife and a boy-mom, I’ve had a lot of sympathy for the less-fair sex. Feminism ran rampant, going so far beyond its noble beginnings with woman’s suffrage and ended up shaping our entire culture into a place where genuine masculinity is no longer welcome. It starts when they are so young. Boys are forbidden to play “cowboys and Indians” because that is racist. They can’t play with sticks and toy guns because that is training them to be violent. When a little boy can’t sit still for six hours straight in a classroom, he is put on Ritalin because he must be disordered. He probably isn’t disordered, he is probably just a boy! They don’t sit very well and they like to pretend to shoot things. Surprise, surprise! By the time they reach adulthood, the male species as a whole has been socially castrated, forced to take his God-given natural aptitudes for manly pursuits and competitiveness, and trade them in for avoc

Saint John Paul II states in Mulieris Dignatem "Each woman inherits her femininity as an expression of the image and likeness of God that is hers."  We could say likewise about each man's masculinity.   Therefore, when man or woman thinks that one is somehow "less than" the other, they are also showing disdain for that which is part of the essence of God.    Masculinity and femininity, fully expressed, can teach mankind much about it's relationship to God and to each other.  Humanity suffers when women choose to squelch their feminine virtues in favor of masculine ones.   It also suffers when men feel they have to hide their masculine traits in our feminized culture.  The fact is, that the best of both  masculine and feminine virtues should be developed in both men and women rather than one in favor of the other.  Their expression, however, will differ.  St. Theresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein) wrote  " Christ embodies