how a woman can win

This was originally posted at Ignitum Today. Pingbacks include Pillar of Fire and Big Pulpit.

“New research shows that The Pill reduces lubrication, arousal, and a woman’s ability to orgasm, thus lending credence to my theory that a lot of hormonal birth control “controls” whether or not you give “birth” by making you never want to have sex. We just can’t win with our ladyparts, can we?” –Jezebel

We women can’t win because we’re playing the wrong game. The Jezebel article sounds like a team of short people complaining that they just can’t win against the team of tall people in basketball. If you want to win, don’t play a game where the deck is stacked against you.

It’s so easy, comparatively, for men to enjoy sexual encounters without consequences. They can’t get pregnant and can easily walk away from the responsibilities of parenting, remembering to take the Pill, dealing with the side effects of the Pill, deciding whether to abort, and balancing all of this with the rest of life – careers, college, work. Oh, and men are less susceptible to STDs.

The deck is stacked against women in the game of increasing sexual pleasure while decreasing consequences. We aren’t going to win. As if it weren’t already obvious that we’re submitting to men and agreeing to their rules, My Daily Moment published a list of pros and cons of one-night stands which encourages women to enjoy sex like a man.

But why? Why should women do that? What’s wrong with enjoying sex like a woman? What’s wrong with being a woman?

Many women enjoy hooking up without commitments and obligations; I won’t pretend otherwise. But hookups are not risk-free, especially for women, and we bear the brunt of the consequences. It isn’t fair.

So let’s play a game that is fair – a game where women aren’t shortchanged, where we’re free to enjoy sex like women. Where we’re free to be women, and where it’s okay to have bodies like ours – bodies that, naturally, get pregnant from sex. Where pregnancy doesn’t ruin our plans, reputations, friendships, or financial stability. Where our sexual partners don’t get angry over our pregnancies but love us all the more – and stick around and help with all the challenges that come along.

The true liberator of women, I think, is Catholic marriage and motherhood.

Objection 1: Catholic marriage is designed to keep women barefoot, pregnant, and overwhelmed with screaming children and poopy diapers. It is also designed to keep them in the house not doing anything worthwhile while men are out doing Important Things.

I reply that: we’re playing the wrong game again. The short guys would have an advantage if they figured out what they were good at (debate? rock climbing? dance?) and challenged the tall guys to a game of that. Basketball isn’t the be-all and end-all of life. Neither are hookups. Neither are careers.

So what are women good at?

Motherhood. It’s something men cannot do. The Catholic Church says motherhood is awesome. And Catholics who are faithful to the Church (the ones who are against contraception) really believe that.

Exhibit A, a quote from a Catholic priest (Joseph Cardinal Mindszenty):

The most important person on earth is a mother. She cannot claim the honor of having built Notre Dame Cathedral. She need not. She has built something more magnificent than any cathedral: a dwelling for an immortal soul, the tiny perfection of her baby’s body. The angels have not been blessed with such a grace. They cannot share in God’s creative miracle to bring new saints to heaven. Only a human mother can. Mothers are closer to God the Creator than any other creature. God joins forces with mothers in performing this act of creation. What on God’s good earth is more glorious than this: to be a mother?

Motherhood is difficult, yes. But joining forces with God and bringing new life into the world? Lovingly caring for the tiniest, weakest, most vulnerable people? Forming and shaping the next generation, raising them to be responsible adults capable of making the world a better place?

Find me something more noble and more important than that.

Of course, Dad has an indispensable role to play, too, and if he is a good dad, he sticks around and contributes toward it. Motherhood is particularly glorious in that Mom gets to be the vessel in which God creates a new life.

So, let’s look at men’s role in all this – the second objection to my premise.

Objection 2: Catholics don’t believe in divorce. Women are expected to be chained to husbands who are probably abusive, or are otherwise worthless slobs.

I reply that: The Catholic Church expects more out of men than the modern feminist does. And men can live up to that.

The Catholic Church expects fidelity out of men, and men can be faithful. The Catholic Church expects maturity out of men, and men can be mature. The Catholic Church expects self-sacrificing, spouse-serving love out of men, and men can do this, too.

St. John Chrysostom recommends that husbands say this to their wives (and mean it):

“I have taken you in my arms, and I love you, and I prefer you to my life itself. For the present life is nothing, and my most ardent dream is to spend it with you in such a way that we may be assured of not being separated in the life reserved for us … I place your love above all things, and nothing would be more bitter or painful to me than to be of a different mind than you.”

The Catholic Church teaches that any kind of abuse is sinful, and as husbands have a particular duty to their wives and children, abuse of wives and children is even more sinful. The Church also teaches that it’s sinful to seek sexual pleasure from anyone or anything except your spouse – which means no affairs, no masturbation, no porn (which, incidentally, makes it harder for men to appreciate real women). Women who marry Good Catholic Men are pretty well-off – loved and appreciated for who they are, not for how well they do in bed. Those men are not leaving you to change diapers and manage your crazy hormones all alone.
Incidentally, Catholic wedding vows bind husbands just as much as they bind wives. While it is not possible to break the bonds of marriage except by death, the Church permits separation in the case of abuse, for the protection of the children and the abused spouse.

So what?

So we can relax. The Catholic Church provides a safe haven for women; we aren’t under attack here. Motherhood is seen as an incredible gift, and men rise to a higher standard of maturity and love their wives. Getting a lifetime commitment from someone who thinks you’re awesome and will give his life for you, and to play a game we’re naturals at – what could more liberating than that?

And that’s how we win.

virtue is...

This originally appeared on Inspired, Tuesday, July 31, 2012.

Ah, beauty. We’re tempted to pluck a couple more eyebrow hairs, worry about the color of our shirts, look in the mirror one more time. Or, under the guise of being modest and counter-cultural, we don shapeless denim jumpers, long skirts and tennis shoes, thwarting any glance that might come our way.

Either way, every other woman we see is more beautiful than we are. Oh, I want to be like her, we feel. We pretend we don’t care – beauty is vain and frivolous, and we are mature women, not vain and frivolous women. Our own beauty doesn’t matter, we tell ourselves. We’re above that.

Oh, but it does matter. And it’s impossible to shake this desire because God gave us our beauty to cultivate, not to worry about or smother. The world needs beauty, especially feminine beauty. As women, we have not just permission but a mission to fill the world with beauty.

Beauty invites. Just try to walk past a sunset without noticing, through a forest trail without wondering, into an art gallery without pausing. Beauty beckons: “Come and see, and be at peace.” It lifts our minds and hearts. It humbles us and takes us outside of ourselves.

Doesn’t the world need this? Couldn’t the average American stand to have his mind and heart lifted, to be humbled and taken outside of himself?

A beautiful, virtuous woman unwittingly proclaims “virtue is beautiful.” Her visible beauty attracts beholders to the invisible beauty of virtue. It’s not a matter of “I look great, and you’ll look like me if you do these certain things,” the empty promise of many clothing and jewelry advertisements. It’s not about looking better than other women or about the woman's body but rather Christ. A woman’s beauty invites, and if she is virtuous, her life points to Christ. Sunsets and forest glades, while good, can only vaguely point up. A life lived virtuously points squarely at God. Beauty draws others into that life in Christ.

Not one of us has a perfect body, and not one of us is exempt from the belief that a different color here or different shape there would improve things tremendously. But we have all been endowed undeservedly with feminine beauty. Let’s accept this gift the way we want our own gifts accepted by others – enjoyed and cultivated, not worried over or neglected. Let’s stop fretting about our looks, an attitude that proclaims “virtue is uncertain,” and instead gratefully accept the beauty God has given us. Let’s find clothes that complement our bodies without overemphasizing our sexuality. Let’s get cute haircuts, for pete’s sake. And let’s throw out the shapeless jumpers, the thoughtless clothes that smother this gift of beauty and proclaim that virtue is frumpy.

Then let’s live in such a way that everything we do points to Christ and magnifies him. Let our every action say “He that is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name.”

All you who seek to honor these doors,
Marvel not at the gold and expense but at the
Craftsmanship of the work.
The noble work is bright, but, being nobly bright, the work
Should brighten the minds, allowing them to travel through the lights
To the true light, where Christ is the true door.
The golden door defines how it is imminent in these things.
The dull mind rises to the truth through material things,
And is resurrected from its former submersion when the light is seen.

-from the door of the abbey of Saint-Denis

marriage and mission

A version of this appeared on Catholic Exchange a few weeks after Luke and I married. Read the article here. It originally appeared on Inspired Saturday, March 17, a few months before our wedding.

So your old roommate’s in seminary and your sister just made first vows, and you’re feeling a little guilty getting excited for your wedding. Marriage isn’t exactly a straightforward regimen toward holiness (you do get to have sex, after all) and isn’t it the default life plan for the leftover people, the ones who didn’t make the vocational cut?

Not at all. If God has called you to the married life, he’s entrusted you with a serious mission. With one foot in the natural world and one in the supernatural – for Christian marriage is a natural state made supernatural by the grace of the sacrament – Christian married couples have a unique means to evangelization. Today’s world needs marriage – needs good Christian marriage – to stand as a sign of contradiction to the world and show the truth and beauty of the faith.

First, love. Everything is about love. Why did God create the world? Why did Christ die on the cross? Why did the martyrs suffer? What makes people saints? What is the greatest and most fundamental desire of the human heart? What is the whole point of everything? Love. Not the warm, fuzzy “luv” rooted in fickle hormones, but the hardcore, disciplined, self-sacrificing love that God is and asks of us. When people seek love, they naturally look to the opposite sex; often, they snuggle close and are left unfulfilled. Christian married couples give the world a concrete example of what real love looks like in a context where the world expects to find love: a relationship between a man and a woman.

Our world is obsessed with sex, and Christian married couples show that people are happier and more fulfilled with a sexually ordered life. The world says sex is a great means of exchanging pleasure (in which you hope not to exchange diseases). Christian marriage says sex is a great gift from God and has a purpose: to express a love deeper than any pleasure, and, if God wills, to let that love become incarnate in a child. Celibate religious show by their lives that joy doesn’t depend on sexual activity. Christian married couples show by their lives what sexual activity is for. Our world needs to see that, too.

Our world doesn’t like to be constrained by commitments; it considers them impediments to freedom. Christian married couples find freedom in commitment. Christian spouses don’t worry that the back door may still be open; they are free to be themselves entirely and to give themselves completely to each other without worrying that the other might leave. Christian married couples show that commitment is a source of a deeper freedom: a freedom for excellence, a freedom from one’s own whims and inconstancies – and those of one’s spouse. Commitment prohibits sexual flings with the attractive co-worker. Commitment requires that spouses work out their disagreements. The sacrifice required to turn back to one’s spouse in love during times of temptation is tiny compared to the deep pain many spouses know from regret, betrayed trust, and divorce.

Our world assaults motherhood and children. The world speaks of pregnancy as a disease and a hormonally manipulated and malfunctioning reproductive system as a healthy one. Children are burdens and motherhood is a hassle you try to fit around your important work, the world says. Christian families affirm the value of motherhood and children. The Christian ethic that proclaims the sanctity of all human life, from conception till natural death, doesn’t stop at mere existence but proceeds to sanctity. Christian married couples welcome children and refuse contraception and abortion, but they don’t stop there. Christian parents devote their lives to the good of their children, attending to their physical, spiritual, emotional, and psychological needs. Christian parents love. They don’t merely want their children to survive to adulthood and hold a job but to grow to adulthood as whole persons willing to give their whole selves when they find their vocation. Christian parents who are dedicated to their children work to fill the world with loving adults and, eventually, to fill heaven with saints. Christian parents show the world that children are gifts, not burdens.

Christian married couples can’t give the witness of wearing a cassock or habit in public. They can’t say Mass or hear confessions. They can’t spend all day feeding the poor, or studying and writing, or praying in a chapel. Priests and religious live another form of that hardcore, disciplined, self-sacrificing love – work essential to the life of the Church and the world, but work married couples can’t do. We need priests and religious to commit their lives to that work. But we need Christian married couples, too. A Christian marriage isn’t the same as everyone else’s marriage. Infused with the grace of the sacrament, Christian married couples can evangelize in a way that priests and religious can’t, giving a powerful example of authentic love exactly where the world expects to see it. In a unique and necessary way, Christian marriage affirms the existence of real love.

And isn’t love exactly what our world needs?

for the men

This was originally posted at Inspired, Sunday, February 5, 2012.

Dear Liberal Arts Men,

There are lots of beautiful women on campus. Why aren’t you dating?

Not a whole lot miffs and baffles liberal arts women more than the fact that good men don’t ask them out. In the words of a dear (female) friend of mine, “It’s not fair. They get to pick whoever they want. We can just put out bait and hope.”

These women (and for a few years, I was one of them) befriend off-campus students so they can borrow their kitchens and feed you something better than cafeteria food. They sing while washing the dishes. They laugh at your jokes. As graduation approaches, they tell you that they’re looking at this or that type of job, but that what they’d really like to do is raise kids. They’re practically wearing signs that say “ask me out.” They’re waiting for you, and opening doors won’t cut it forever.

You, liberal arts men, need to do your part. Take them to a dance. Take them to dinner. Start a relationship. Something. Dating is not a lifelong commitment. Asking a woman to a formal dance (and asking her to dance at the formal dance) is not a marriage proposal. An evening of conversation and dance is a fun thing to do with friends; a relationship is discerning marriage. Neither requires an irrevocable vow.

That means you don’t have to finish discerning (and, Catholic men, you don’t have to 115% rule out the priesthood) before you ask her out. If you don’t ask her out because you’re only 80% sure you’d want someone like her helping you raise children, then you’re really not asking her out because you’re scared. Ask her out, then talk about the other 20% (and the 80%) while you’re dating. Share ideas and see if you reach the same conclusions on the important things. That’s what dating is for. That’s not what pre-asking-out-analysis is for. Be discerning before you ask her out, but not scrupulous – there’s way more to her than you’ll find out while “just friends.”

Most liberal arts women want to be stay-at-home-moms and they want men like you to marry them so they can. They want men like you because you’re responsible, because you’re funny, because you’re clean, because you’re trustworthy, because you’re strong. Generally, people discern their vocation to marriage by dating and generally, people don’t marry without dating. Liberal arts women know that after leaving the little bubble of [name of little conservative liberal arts college] and enter the great sea of secularism, they are much less likely to find a man they would trust their future children with, unless they land a job at the pro-life think tank down the street. (And you’re much less likely to find such a woman after you graduate.) You have a responsibility to give these women a chance at marriage to a real man, a good, virtuous man who goes to their church. Ask them out. You’ll find out way more about her than you knew before – and you might find that you want to marry her. Or that you don’t. But if you’re already 80% sure you do want to marry her, it’s time to take the next step in your discernment.

Yes, it’s scary asking them out. You know what else is scary? Childbirth. So we’re even. Ask her out already.

Sincerely,
Mary (and Luke, who asked)

radiance

Originally posted at Inspired, 8/24/2012

What is beauty?

The philosophers say “id quod visum placet” – that which, when seen, pleases. Beauty is complete, proportional, and radiant, they say.

It’s easy to see what completion and proportionality are. If my left eye is missing or swollen out of proportion, I’m less beautiful.

But what is radiance?

My mother knew. Not so many years ago when I was a child, she read me the story of Cinderella from a picture book. She pointed to a drawing of Cinderella in her rags helping the stepsisters, dressed in their finery, on their way out the door to the ball. Cinderella, of course, was much more beautiful than the stepsisters.

“Do you know why?” my mother asked her melancholy daughter. “It’s because she has a smile on her face.”

I looked, and of course it was true.

Maybe that’s what philosophers mean by “radiance,” that elusive and undefinable characteristic of beauty – maybe they mean joy.

on aging

I plan to be beautiful my whole life.

I don't plan to be 20 my whole life, but I plan to be beautiful my whole life.

I will grow old and get wrinkles and gray hairs and stretch marks, but I'll tell you what, they'll be sexy stretch marks.

When it is my birthday, people will ask if I'm 29 again, and I will say no, I'm 67.

I am a fallen woman, and deep in my heart I doubt. I wonder. I ask: "am I beautiful?"

I won't take my question to the world: they will say "no, you are old and wrinkled, and all beauty is vanity."

I won't take my question to my husband, a fallen man. Some days he will say "yes" honestly. Some days he will conjure this required answer.

I will take my question to God, and he will say "I made you, I created you, I know you better than anyone else. Yes, you are old and wrinkled and beautiful. You are a captivating, beautiful woman, desired and loved. Let me wash you with my blood so you can be seen." And deep in my heart, deeper than my doubt, I will know this is true.

I will empty myself and let Him fill me with His love.

And I will go to my husband and say "Look!" and I will not be ashamed of my wrinkles; I will not be afraid. I will be beautiful, and my husband will see my beauty. He will speak and I will hear Christ's voice: "you are truly beautiful."

I have no beauty that does not come from my Creator. To Him I owe infinitely more than I have or am. I deserve nothing. But "deserve" is irrelevant to love. I am empty and grateful.

I hate shopping for clothes.

I had a package to mail, then I was heading out to Miller Road. I hoped to return with a pair of jeans and a Tekiela book, but also in the back of my mind were hiking shoes, spankies (for skirts at swing dance and worn-through jeans), toothpaste, cough drops, and any sort of food I could bring back to college with me.

I went to the post office and spent about $10 mailing the package, feeling vaguely guilty for mailing it the cheapest way so I'd have more money for clothing. They said 5-10 business days, 5 would be right on time. I went to the bank and deposited a check, and then I was off to Miller Road.

First stop: Target. I browsed the clearance racks first, then the regular racks. I found a few pairs of jeans that might fit, checked the prices, put a few back, and walked into the fitting room.

How I envy men and their easy-to-use sizing system! Women's clothing is sized in an utterly arbitrary fashion, probably designed to assure us that we're not fat. In addition to this, we're all shaped in frustratingly unique ways and we all have different ideas on beauty and modesty. The fitting room is one of the most frustrating place in the world. You start with a simple question: do the pants fit? And the answer is ridiculously complicated. I tried to map it out in an easy-to-use flowchart, but I gave up. Try this:

Question 1: Do the pants fit?
++If you answered NO, try a different pair and go back to Question 1.
++If you answered YES, you are a liar.
++If you answered MAYBE, go on to Question 2.

Question 2: How do they fit around the waist?
++If you answered WAY TOO TIGHT, try a larger or smaller size and go back to Question 1.
++If you answered WAY TOO LOOSE, try a larger or smaller size and go back to Question 1.
++If you answered JUST RIGHT, you are a liar.
++If you answered SORTA TIGHT, remember that jeans stretch out after a while and go on to Question 3.
++If you answered SORTA LOOSE, remember that you can always wear a belt and go on to Question 3.

Question 3: How long are they?
++If you answered WAY TOO LONG, try a larger or smaller size and go back to Question 1.
++If you answered WAY TOO SHORT, try a larger or smaller size and go back to Question 1.
++If you answered JUST RIGHT, you are a liar.
++If you answered SORTA SHORT, try a larger or smaller size and go back to Question 1.
++If you answered SORTA LONG, remember that you can hem them and go on to Question 4.

Question 4: How do they fit around your butt and thighs?
++If you answered PRETTY SURE THESE ARE GUY JEANS, try a larger or smaller size and go back to Question 1.
++If you answered MY BUTT GOT SWALLOWED UP BY A DENIM BLUE WHALE, try a larger or smaller size and go back to Question 1.
++If you answered THIS WOULD DISTRACT EVEN THE MOST CHASTE MEN, try a larger or smaller size and go back to Question 1.
++If you answered I CAN COUNT THE CHANGE IN MY POCKET BY TWISTING AROUND AND LOOKING IN THE MIRROR, try a larger or smaller size and go back to Question 1.
++If you answered JUST RIGHT, you are a liar.

Question 5: Do you like them?
++If you answered THEY'LL DO, then go pay for them and leave the store before you get distracted elsewhere.
++If you answered YES, you are a liar.
++If you answered NO, then try on a shirt that you already know will look good. This will make you feel a little better about the jeans. Then go pay for the jeans, because you've already spent three hours at this store and there's no sense in spending another three hours elsewhere.

I tried on a handful of jeans at Target, but didn't find anything. Fashion Bug was a couple stores down, and I figured why not try my luck there? I parked and got out of the car.

Fashion Bug tried to get around this problem with their Right Fit revolution. "Try on a revolution,” the sign said. “What is RIGHT FIT? It’s the revolutionary result of the most extensive fit study in 60 years. Our unique fit and sizing system is based on 3 different body shapes: straight, moderately curvy and curvy. Resized with Right Fit technology, L.A. Blues jeans and Studio 1940 dress pants are now available in plus and misses Right Fit sizes.”

Right Fit was color-coded. There were signs on the walls and tags on the clothing. I perused them eagerly, hoping to cut down on fitting-room time. The signs read:

Do your current pants or jeans:
fit your waist, but are baggy? fit your hips/thighs, but have to be unbuttoned? Try RIGHT FIT YELLOW.
fit at the waist? but are slightly big in the thighs and hips? Try RIGHT FIT RED.
have to be cinched at the waist? or have a gap at the back? Try RIGHT FIT BLUE.

Already I don't fit! I needed Right Fit Green. Sometimes I feel like unbuttoning my jeans, but I have to tie them up and at least two people have made fun of me for the gap in the back. I picked up two pairs, a blue and a yellow, in size 2 and walked to the fitting room.

I swam. For good measure, I put both my legs into the right leg of the blue pair, and hopped around until I saw a mermaid in the mirror. While I pulled my own jeans back on, I glanced at the tag.

Size 5.

Turned out I'd been browsing the plus sizes without realizing it, so I tried the other side of the store. Two full racks of clearance jeans, about $15 per pair, and in all three Right Fit colors! I picked up three, the smallest size I could find in each color, and tried them on.

Yellow 4M: baggy, but waist and length were good.
Blue 6M: I'd wear these advertising a weight-loss product.
Red 4MP: tight around the waist, baggy elsewhere.

"Did you find what you needed?" asked the clerk.

"No," I told her, "but I know where to look now." I put the jeans on the rejection rack and went back to clearance.

Blue 3M: waist was good, but baggy enough to look like guy jeans.
Yellow 3M: I had to suck in my gut to get these on, but I got them buttoned. I could barely move.

The clerk saw me add more jeans to the rejection rack, and she asked if she could help. I told her specifically what the problems were with the jeans, and she told me to try size 3 red.

Red 3M: too tight at the waist, a little baggy but they're clearly girl jeans

I told the clerk what happened and she suggested trying yellow.

"What size?" I asked her. "Yellow 4 was too baggy and I could barely squeeze into Yellow 3."

She tried to convince me that the red ones would stretch out at the waist, but I didn't want to try my luck. I wasn't Straight, Moderately Curvy, or Curvy, so it was time to move on.

Old Navy?

It was the next clothing store in the plaza. I usually don't like to pay Old Navy prices, but I've had some luck with their clearance racks before, so I decided to give it a try.

What luck! Jeans for $15 on the clearance racks! I took four pair, two size 0 and two size 2, into the fitting room.

Size 0 sort of fit, but were ugly.
Size 2 sort of fit, but were ugly.
Size 0 was way too tight.
Size 2 was way too tight.

I tried on almost a dozen pair, almost the entire S/XS clearance rack, and finally found two pairs of pants that I liked. They weren't jeans, but they were good pants that I wouldn't mind getting grass stains on. I hung up the jeans and empty hangers on the rejection rack and carried the pants to the checkout counter, walking past $30 and $40 jeans. I'd found two pairs of pants for less than $30 total.

Hard work pays off.

Next stop, Borders. I found the Tekiela book, remembered the Amazon.com price, and bought the book because it was cheaper in the store. Ten minutes.

Sports Authority was right next door. I didn't want to spend any more time shopping, but they might have spankies. I walked in the door.

Shoes on clearance!

Well, they were all to big for me, but I went over to the regular shoe aisle. An employee was on me like a dog to dropped food. "Can I help you find anything?"

"I need something waterproof and good for backpacking."

I liked the $70 shoes and almost bought them, but then I saw a $55 pair marked down to $29. He found a smaller pair for me and they fit well. Also, if anything went wrong in the first year, including normal wear--soles coming loose, stitches coming out, color fading, etc.--they'd pay for it or replace the shoe.

He brought the shoes up to the counter while I hunted after spankies. I found some, they fit, and I brought them up to the counter.

I didn't realize I had to pay extra for the shoe-insurance. I asked how much it cost.

$4.99, she said.

"How much are the shoes?"

She beeped it with the red laser.

"It ain't even worth it," she said, partly to herself. She looked back at the guy who'd helped me find the shoes. "It ain't even worth it," she told him. "The shoes are only $10."

I paid for them and drove home in the clunky light-blue Olds.

Mission accomplished.

fail

"Mary, you're such a woman," he said, and I apologized.