Is the Feminine Genius the Answer to a More Authentic Female Identity?
By Christine Lacayo
Has radical feminism accomplished everything it set out to achieve for equality and liberation of women? Has transgenderism helped trans people find their identity, peace, and happiness?
How did we get to where we are today where we disagree as humanity on what the definition of a woman is and whether or not men can get pregnant?
Doesn’t it sort of feel like we’ve found ourselves in Stranger Things’ wild and lawless Upside Down alternate dimension, disconnecting the truth of our gender, sexuality, language, law, and medicine on the hunt for purpose and identity? Today, it seems we live in a world where there is no real truth because everyone holds their own truth, but we also seem to be more lost, troubled, depressed, anxious, and alienated than ever before.
There’s a hidden answer to alleviate all the confusion and it’s called the feminine genius, a concept that affirms the dignity of our human female bodies, the truth behind our sexual differences from males, and the interconnectedness we share with creation.
Embracing this genius develops the moral and spiritual strengths of women and reminds us that our dignity is not defined by our external qualities or physical appearance, it’s defined by our unique and diverse talents and gifts. Accepting this feminine genius also helps foster and reaffirm a healthy patriarch liberated from violent, dominant, and oppressive character traits.
So how did we get where we are today and how do we find the path forward in a world desperate for a more authentic female identity, healthy matriarchs, and strong patriarch leaders?
Environmental Feminism
As an active environmentalist throughout college, I always felt different from many of the environmentalist women I surrounded myself with. I was never an extreme vocal feminist, I don’t really prefer the label “feminist,” although I strongly identified (and still do) with many of the perspectives and goals of the feminist movement like equal rights for women as well as awareness of oppression and sexual objectification of women.
Environmental feminism otherwise known as Ecofeminism is a term that was founded on the premise that environmental degradation and oppression of women stem from the same root, a patriarch capitalist oppressive system.
Ecofeminism at its core is a call to dismantle the hierarchical social structure where man feels superior to nature or woman. To name only a few issues with these structures, women and children face greater health issues from environmental damage, they lack equal access to education opportunities, effects of climate change are felt much deeper for women who have to travel greater distances for healthy food and clean water, and there are cultural barriers around the world hindering women from owning their own land (Earth.org).
I understand this and I agree completely that there needs to be action and change to dismantle these injustices felt by women around the world. Where I don’t align is when the treatment of women’s bodies starts to get dicey or when the male gender is obsessively shamed or only recognized as a form of domination.
I would go as far as to say that the extreme feminist who believes, “my body, my choice,” is also a direct parallel to Ecofeminism and environmental degradation. Natural resource extraction and violence are one and the same for women and the planet.
How is the extraction of fossil fuels, waterways, deforestation, and overfishing not the same as violently extracting an innocent human that naturally forms in the womb fed and nourished by a woman’s very own waterways and nutrients?
Blinded by Darkness
I realize not everyone grows up with strong and healthy patriarch figures and that many women carry deep male wounds that have led to anger, anxiety, embarrassment, or shame but a vicious cycle of anger and hate for men will only lead us to more violence and division.
If we are fighting for equality, shouldn’t we believe in a safe, loving, and supportive environment for men as well so that our boys and future fathers can grow up to become the healthy, loyal, just, and virtuous patriarchs our society so urgently needs?
I often wonder if this feminist movement that claims to be pro-woman really is a movement that upholds womanhood and what it means to be a woman.
The more the diagnosis of “gender dysphoria” explodes around us, the more I clearly see the underlying agenda seeping into our society as a direct attack on what real feminine sexuality is all about.
We live in a culture so steeped in anxiety and depression, where our very existence, purpose, and meaning in life have become so clouded and confused, that it has teenage girls wearing “binders” around their breasts to stunt their growth, popping testosterone, and undergoing double mastectomies all in search of happiness and true identity (Nypost.com).
It’s not surprising we’re seeing such a craving for answers, society has become blinded by our own darkness losing all sense of what truth even means.
Female Sexual Liberation & the Hookup Culture
The hookup culture is literally shoved down our throats everywhere we turn, from TV and films to dating apps, magazines, and friends encouraging one-night stands. Culture tells women to hook up and have casual sex with whoever they want, whenever they want but no one talks about the underlying pain and consequences that come with that.
When a woman entertains casual sex, she naturally invests more and has more to lose than a male. What if the woman got pregnant from that one-night stand? Women are also naturally more emotionally attached than males, leading to all sorts of resentment and negative feelings.
Our bodies are a perfect temple and a beautiful gift. When you decide to let someone else inside of you, there should be a deep level of trust, love, and commitment.
My first boyfriend in college constantly tried to persuade me to have sex with him. After so many attempts at telling him no and why I felt adamant about my decision, he continued to coerce and convince me. It was so strange to me that this guy who wasn’t, and most likely would never be, my husband felt so strongly about engaging in such an intimate and sacred way with me.
I felt strongly that this act was for no one else, but my husband and it bothered me that society had seeped into so many young people’s minds to make me feel like the “weird prude Catholic girl” and him like the “normal college dude.”
While I was living in Costa Rica, I became close with a lot of the “spiritual woo-woo” circles that very much embraced women’s sexual freedom and liberation. I wondered if they ever thought about how maybe this normalization of female sexualization is what is putting females in sexualized situations that can quickly turn unpleasant or dangerous.
Although the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 70s presented itself as freedom from social norms and conventional traditional female roles so that you could do what “feels good and natural,” the consequences were everything but good and natural, causing a rise in family instability and sex to become more transactional.
It was evident that this renewed sense of female sexual liberation gave men more access to sex without the emotional attachment that women desired. You can’t correct male sexual abuse and harassment and refuse to see how sexual liberation has played a strong role in getting us here.
“Feminist ideology undermines women’s ability to grapple with the consequences of sexual freedom. Its defects are threefold: It holds out a utopian vision of equality; it promotes rights without responsibilities; and it predisposes women to view themselves as victims incapable of ensuring their own interests.”
Toxic Femininity
Everyone talks about the toxic patriarchy, but no one talks about toxic femininity very much alive in society today.
According to Swiss psychologist Carl Jung, there are universal archetypes that represent personalities and types of people that influence human behavior and form part of our collective unconscious.
In Jung’s analysis, there’s a darker side to every archetype. For example, the Nurturing/Caregiver mother can turn into the Devouring Mother consuming her children in such a psychological and emotional way that they are left unable to fend for themselves forever relying on their mothers for the rest of their lives.
Licensed Clinical Psychologist, Dr. Ramani, shares how the narrative of narcissistic parents is that you’re never good enough and you’re encouraged to suppress your own needs, the opportunity to talk about your feelings, or the space to be seen or heard for who you are.
Similar to Jung’s Devouring Mother, this type of suffocating narcissistic mother or father turns their children into inept adult children who grow up so dependent on their parents, that they desperately seek a partner who will fill that nurturing role in their lives. Or they become jealous oppressors trained to endure and carry on toxic patterns with their partners.
When you’re deprived of unconditional love, encouragement to explore your interests, or have never been seen or heard for who you are, you’re being set up for a vulnerability of identity, behavior, and self-esteem.
The confusion of a child who grows up around toxic personality traits means that they’ll also seek other confusing and complicated partners, gravitating to what feels familiar.
Both psychologists’ studies reaffirm the need for a child to grow up with a sense of identity, safety, and unconditional love to develop into confident and emotionally mature adults who know who they are.
Clearly, culture isn’t the only source that dictates the future of the patriarch.
The Real Feminine Genius
Instead of following culture, we should be leading culture with radical conviction.
There’s a wonderful beauty and strength in being unapologetically feminine in our sensitivity, in our unique ability to bear life and to bring another human into this world, and in our receptivity and nurturing energy needed to renew the world.
Of course, I believe we should have equal pay, respect, and opportunities as men, but to completely dismantle and redefine what it means to be a woman in an effort to try to be more like men, is self-sabotaging.
We are not men. As women, we have different talents that were breathed into us at the time of conception separate from what our male counterparts were given.
In 1994, the United Nations held a conference on Population and Development where abortion was almost passed as a universal human right. In response, Saint John Paul II introduced the concept of the “feminine genius” to offer a holistic more authentic approach to what it means to embody our femininity, an expanded mirror for our role as strong and empowered females in society. He uses this term to celebrate the uniqueness and advancements of women and to counter the sexism and radical feminism being pushed around the world at the time, much like it still is today.
His Letter to Women published on June 29, 1995, lays out a different perspective of feminism from what popular society would have us believe. The letter focuses on the four special gifts of women: generosity, sensitivity, receptivity, and maternity. Gifts that we were given as females to heal the world by just our very existence and confidence as women.
His letter dives into how man and woman were created not to compete but to compliment. He apologizes for the world’s failure at recognizing a woman’s dignity and how through our Mother Mary we can find true meaning and purpose in being a female.
"The Church sees in Mary the highest expression of the "feminine genius" and she finds in her a source of constant inspiration…Putting herself at God's service, she also puts herself at the service of others: a service of love. Precisely through this service, Mary was able to experience in her life a mysterious, but authentic "reign". It is not by chance that she is invoked as "Queen of heaven and earth". The entire community of believers thus invokes her; many nations and peoples call upon her as their “Queen." (Letter to Women, Pope John Paul II)
I once told a friend, “Just keep smiling and heal the world.” She responded, “I’m done healing the world, I’ve done enough of that.” Sadly, she didn’t understand what I meant by my comment. Instead of feeling like she has to take on the whole world alone and solve all of our problems, my invitation was to heal the world simply by just being her, through her beautiful smile, her exotic Latina dance moves, her quirky way of dressing and expressing herself- through simply living her feminine genius.
As women, we often don’t even realize how magnetic, powerful, and inspiring we are just by being us.
Our feminine genius is so powerful and if embraced fully, it can offer a way to dismantle the anti-life values, the sexist patriarch, and the sexual objectification of women that culture has managed to idolize.
“Thank you, every woman, for the simple fact of being a woman! Through the insight which is so much a part of your womanhood you enrich the world's understanding and help to make human relations more honest and authentic.” (Letter to Women, Pope John Paul II)
I believe every woman today is uniquely called to confidently recover these whole gifts that God breathed into us at conception as roadmaps to our true feminine vocation. We need brave and bold women to take up that calling to help humanity from falling into the confusion and evil we’re seeing unfold before our eyes.
