Femininity and the Environment

Before I begin, I have to confess that I am using this blog as a means of "getting the creative juices flowing" as I prepare for a talk I'm giving on Monday. If you know me, then you know I'm always harping on the need for a major cultural revolution in our country. This (blog) relates to that (revolution). My talk is on what John Paul II referred to as "a new feminism", which he challenged women to promote in the encyclical Evangelium Vitae.
Recently I was listening to NPR (I love NPR), and they were talking about mountain-top removal, a practice used by coal companies in Appalachia to harvest coal. As you can imagine, it's pretty invasive and is not something the landscape can EVER recover from. In case you were wondering, mountains do not grow new tops. The practice also causes flooding (I'm not sure how that works) and often the victims of this flooding are poor residents who live in the valleys below. The radio show highlighted a meeting of such residents, many of them life-long. These local people were infuriated. In addition to the fact that many had lost their houses and even loved ones, they also view the mountains as their heritage. This is what they will pass down to their children and grand-children. They are being robbed (an image employed by one woman) of something that cannot be replaced. The report then flipped over to the CEO of one of the major coal companies responsible. His response was that coal mining is a "nuisance business" and that the responses of the people are emotional reactions to the nuisance aspect of it. What matters are the facts of the situation. I'll let you figure out what facts he might be referring to. But his response to the heartfelt conviction of the people is infuriating, or should be. I've heard it before. It's the reducing of deep moral conviction to mere emotion. Of course, many times deep moral conviction is accompanied by emotion. And it should be. But there is something profoundly important and essentially human to care about something that has moral ramifications. We should care. And whether right or wrong, the opinions of people who care should be respected, because they reflect a very important aspect of what it means to be human. We are not fully thinking if we think only with our heads and do not allow our heart (meaning our gut, our convictions) to participate. This is one reason why having a well-formed conscience is so important. The head and the heart must go together.
When I began preparing for this talk I made a connection that is basically the point of this blog. Women offer something to our society which could radically reform our culture if we allow it to be heard. We offer that heart. You've heard the old sayings about man being the head and woman being the heart. Perhaps you bristle at the sentiment as part of the attitude that sought to keep women from reaching their full potential. And maybe those who originally cited it did have this attitude. But despite that, there is something to this idea. What I mean is that the true glory of women does not lie in being capable of doing everything a man can do just as good or better. Think about it - the underlying assumption here is that men are better than women, and as such is the standard that women should aspire to to "be successful". I say no. There is something inherent in femininity, in its uniqueness, that is amazing and exactly what this modernized world is often missing. That is the intuitive awareness of another person in his or her otherness, and the simultaneous and natural ability to care for this other (can also apply to the created world). This is exemplified in motherhood, a role tragically denigrated by many mainstream feminists. Please do not get images in your mind of barefoot women in aprons with stifled dreams and aspirations. What I am talking about is a great spiritual strength and one that is fundamentally feminine.
In a world that tends to mechanize, that prizes efficiency and cold rationality as virtues, where the poor and the suffering are overlooked as burdens and obstacles to true progress, we need women more than ever to tap into the dignity which lies in their uniqueness, to call upon that spiritual strength which is God-given and natural to her and begin to touch every aspect of society. This is what John Paul II referred to as the "genius of women". Let us bring to the world that sensitivity that results in a rediscovery of what is essentially human in a culture that tends to dehumanize.
Hopefully this makes sense, because my eyes are starting to go cross-eyed from staring at this computer screen. Thanks for reading!