Katherine Bennett - The Power of Surrender - an antidote to Feminism 29th January 2024

Here Katherine reflects on true femininity away from the lies our culture tells about feminism. She draws on Catholic thinkers, in particular.
Gertrude von le Fort, Alice and Dietrich von Hildebrand, Pope St John Paul II and Peter Kreeft have all written powerfully on this subject. Inspired by those thoughts, Katherine explains the problems in the culture and the crucial need for a return to true femininity.

Feminism has robbed our culture of the invisible pillar (feminine)that gives integrity to the visible (masculine). Woman as bride and mother brings those unique gifts to any and every endeavor.

Woman transmits history making capabilities into a given generation. The virgin guarantees these capabilities to man as person. As married woman she has the freedom to love in a more specific way ('my husband, my children') as unmarried she transfers her freedom to love to a larger world. The world in which she cooperates on a project or the world embraced as a whole through prayer.

The woman as bridal reflects the reality of the cosmos as the inseparable joining of two spheres of being, and as the primal fact that God has established one half of existence as irrevocably feminine. Von le Fort describes woman in the secular world as the feminine force as the cooperator in a project. The field of her power ranges over all things, even over the domain of intellectual creation. The woman having surrendered herself under whatever form, brings the dowry of half a world. "The profound consolation that woman can give to mankind today is her faith in the immeasurable efficacy of forces that are hidden" Von le Fort

We need a renewed spirit of companionship between men and women in their distinct but cooperating roles. The woman stakes her life for the child so after its birth her life no longer belongs to herself, but to the child. The form of the mother is that of she who loves so profoundly that she places her life in the service of life, this is the love over which death has no power. The mother for whom the human race is calling, is not just the woman who has a biological child. To be a mother is to turn especially to the helpless to incline lovingly and helpfully to every small and weak thing upon the earth therefore the principle of motherhood is a dual one, it attaches itself not only to the birth of a child but to the fostering and protecting of that which has been born. "The world has need of the maternal woman, it is for the most part a helpless child" Le Fort "She feeds the hungry and consoles the afflicted, the weak and the guilty and the neglected, persecuted, even the justly punished, all those with whom the judicial world no longer wishes to support and protect, find their ultimate rights vindicated in the consolation and compassion of the maternal woman. For her the words of

Antigone will always be valid 'Not to hate, but to Love with you am I here"
The Bible reveals the deep mystery of masculine and feminine. Scripture is key. The Magisterium of the Catholic Church and the Pope as guardian of the deposit of faith espouses truth about woman and man.