“Every woman carries within herself a secret, something mysterious and sacred.”

Feminism is nearing its final battle. The vile and odious terms that are becoming connected to the modern feminist movement have inspired distaste among many.

Not long ago, I was perusing a book store and stumbled across the “women empowerment” section. Titles like “Slut”, “Nasty Women”, and other terms too vulgar to even pen overtook the shelves.

In what world does demeaning our dignity and worth count as empowerment? What joy should a woman find by referring to herself by some of the most base and disgusting terms? How, I ask in all sincerity, is this noble or encouraging?

This kind of over the-top gross vulgarity has pushed many women to give up the idea of “being a feminist.” Anger seldom becomes and even more infrequently sells an ideology.

On one hand, we have cause for rejoicing. Women should refuse being considered “ugly, nasty, crass, and angry.” Women should be disgusted that WAP is considered a song of empowerment as opposed to a sick, base graveling anthem to misogyny. The fact that the ugliness oozing out of the feminist movement is giving some women cause for alarm is a good thing.

Yet, the varying flavors of feminism seem to have created more confusion and hurt among young women. Through this battle of questioning the role and worth of a woman, more and more young women find themselves rejecting the crazy-feminist brigade, but also rejecting their femininity.

In order to ameliorate this wound of women who find themselves stuck in the chasm of anti-feminist and anti-feminine, we must examine feminist theory juxtaposed femininity.

Thinking like a man is not a compliment.

Women are disgusted by their own bodies. — Simone de Beauvoir

These are nasty words, articulated by a woman deemed to be an intellectual, thinker, and leader in feminist theory. Simone is vicious towards the female sex, and in her push towards feminism, she encourages misogynistic women. I think this is vital to comprehend: feminist theory does not glorify women as women, but rather finds fault with women as women.

If we look into Simone’s personal life, we find that her father rejected all religion. He also praised his daughter for her ability to think, not like a woman, but like a man. Simone stated her father never embraced her. Yet, she revered him, and his praise about her masculine traits thrilled her. Ironically, a woman who pushed for “feminist theory” was reared on mysoginy and hatred of her own sex. She rejected her mother, and her mother’s Catholicism. She fell into the Dualistic theory of Marxism: the oppressor and the oppressed. Motherhood was the oppressed. Men and women are at odds. For Simone, this belief would mean rejecting femininity, the maternal, and being more masculine.

Simone’s outlook is inherently anti-woman, and anti-feminine. In promoting “feminism,” she ultimately encourages hatred of the female person. Naturally, a woman who rejects motherhood and sees it as inferior —who sees women as inferior— would hate her own body. Why? Because a woman’s body is fashioned as a shelter for human life. If we do away with that concept, we start to see a woman’s body as exhausting and even disgusting.

Society has been indoctrinated to believe that femininity, as our Faith, the Bible, and Our Lady teach us, is putrid and weak. The break from the feminine did not start in the 70s, it began much earlier. We see it in Marxism, in Freudian Marxism, the Industrial Revolution, and even in the fall of Adam and Eve. The devil seeks to destroy women in a unique way because women are the heart of society. The devil is the father of lies, and of death, whereas woman was named ‘mother of the living.’ Genesis 3:20

Girls who hate women hate themselves.

Conversely, femininity teaches us that a woman can only fulfill her mission in accepting the mantra “be it done unto me.” This is the mark of the woman: her receptivity to be blessed, to conceive, to be a vessel of love, goodness, and new life. The woman who abdicates from this chooses not to be blessed, not receive, but to be an empty vessel.

In this abdication, she becomes a slave to selfishness and the flesh. It is no wonder that so many women, who reject the idea of receptivity of a woman, fall into impurity. They promote a perversion of what they were called to defend.

“I am the handmaiden of the Lord; be it done unto me according to thy word.” Receptivity is not weak.

Holy receptivity needs to be restored to society. Receptivity is not passivity.

Receptivity is the act of giving one’s soul to God. In fact, our faith teaches us that receptivity is part of growing in holiness. This is why Leon de Bloy states “the more holy a woman is, the more she is a woman.” The woman gives herself to be a home and shelter.

Women are afraid to be women because they have been fooled into believing they have so much to prove to the world. They need to be empowered.

They are afraid of appearing weak and tender. Our society has taught women that those things are bad. However, strong women are feminine women. A woman who hates her femininity is weak; she is incapable of fulfilling her end because she has rejected it. She fails to recognize her strength, her capacity for greatness because she believes, like Simone de Beauvoir, she should be like a man.

“Woman’s unhappiest moments are when she is unable to give; her most hellish moments are when she refuses to give.”

This is not empowerment. This is a sad, sad wound that so many young women hold in their hearts. Even if they claim to reject feminism, many still reject femininity. Oftentimes, women adopt coarse language, pick up boyish habits, dress provocatively, sleep around, and/or speak disdainfully of their own sex to show that they are of value.

Yet, without authentic femininity society crumbles. For example, chivalry held the idea that man protected the women and children; women protected the virtues of modesty, chastity, and purity, and these virtues protected society, the family, and the individual soul. This beautiful belief highlights how key women are to maintaining a virtuous and healthy world.

Women are the heart of society. A weak, dying heart will beget a weak, dying culture.

Heart of Society: A Woman’s Secret

“Every woman carries within herself a secret, something mysterious and sacred. This secret is, on a natural level, the potential of new life. . . When the female egg is fertilized God ‘touches’ the female body to create a child’s soul.” – Alice von Hildebrand

The woman receives the seed. A sperm fecundates an egg, and then God creates a new soul. He creates it inside of the woman’s body, which denotes divine contact between God and the woman. God creates something so beautiful inside of the woman, and gives her the honor and responsibility to carry His newest, most precious creation.

Every woman’s body is fashioned to be this shelter, sanctuary, and home, to be able to carry two souls: her own, and her child’s.

Her body is marked by a “Holy Seal.” This is her mystery, for it is only a woman who is honored with the role of carrying something so precious and sacred: a life that will live forever. It is only the woman who experiences that kind of Divine contact, where God directly creates something within her.

Every woman has that potency within her, even if she never becomes a physical mother. As such, women have a unique dignity and honor that men do not possess. Women who deny their femininity forfeit this honor.

“Man came from the slime of the earth; but woman came from a rational creature, made to the image and likeness of God.” — Fulton Sheen

Only a woman can fulfill the calling of the woman, for a only woman holds the secret of the woman.

And that secret can do wonders to heal our world.