One of the first things I looked into when church-shopping was their stance on women. At my old church, I’d desperately tried to justify my identity based on a preconceived mold of womanhood. There were girls who went to college to meet a husband, and girls who skipped college all together to start a family; there were ladies’ teas and quilting parties and little girls in skirts chasing each other.
How was a single woman in her 20s, commuting daily into Manhattan for work, fitting into that?
The fear of “not fitting in” isn’t isolated to childhood. Perhaps it’s worse as an adult, because you have more sense of identity. But that confidence cracks when you don’t see others like you. Even in your fellow women, who you want to sit around and drink tea and laugh with. You’re all women of God, but your lifestyle doesn’t match those of the strong, Godly women around you.
This was one of many hesitations about the Catholic Church, too. Even if I happened to agree with their teachings (ha, that’s a long shot!), I saw their women as either mothers with a gaggle of children or pious nuns. But my friend invited me to Theology on Tap, and the atmosphere (literally a bar) was unassuming. It wasn’t a Church with a capital C. So I went, and the speaker that night was a consecrated virgin.
I sat at my grimy bar table, staring at her, and she looked so… normal. I hadn’t been aware consecrated life was a thing. She wore the same kinds of clothes I did. She was overweight, and joked about her sin of gluttony. I liked her. She had dedicated her life to God, in the same fashion other women dedicate their lives to their husbands.
That night, I realized there were options.
I began following Catholic feminist bloggers, and studying femininity in the Bible. How quickly I learned that women of the Bible aren’t docile baby-makers. They are overwhelmingly caretakers, certainly, but they are warriors. They are judges. They are servants. I learned that on the way to his death, Jesus only spoke to the women. They loved fiercely, and he honored them in return—even as he died.
Catholicism has helped better define womanhood and where I fit into it. Rather than remind me that I should “be fruitful and multiply,” there is more focus on the love itself. Maybe that love is meant for biological children. Maybe it’s meant for orphans. Maybe it’s meant to help the poor, and those without homes, or those who can’t leave their homes. I’d rejected femininity because it appeared weak, but I’ve relearned what femininity even means. It’s not being a doormat, or letting the men do the heavy lifting. It’s a different kind of strength, more of the emotional sort, where we can spread comfort and love when there seems to be none. Like fix a broken heart with a hug. Or buy or a knit a blanket for someone who is cold.
It’s not a lesser humanity. It’s complementary, and it’s where I belong.
Femininity isn’t about fitting into some predetermined mold. There are options, and it’s not just one thing. You can be a wife, or a worker, or both. You can dedicate hours to the Church, or teach your children good values, or both. Once I was freed from the expectations of a life I didn’t fit into, I learned all the many things I’d been overlooking—including, maybe, some of those things I’d originally rejected.
