A few years ago I attended a one hour lecture on Toxic Femininity by Dr. Carrie Gress at a Catholic Parish. The Doctor’s web site is located here:
http://www.carriegress.com/She has written a book called "The Anti-Mary Exposed: Rescuing the Culture from Toxic Femininity" that gives more detail on the material that she covered in her one hour lecture.
In the culture of anti-Mary, the values of the elite women of modern culture (i.e., the women in charge of this feminist initiative at NuScale) are opposite of the virtues of the Blessed Virgin Mary. With the spirit of anti-Christ there is a corresponding spirit of anti-Mary. The spirit has taken hold of women since the 1960s. It is a restoration of the myth of Lilith in feminist, lesbian literature. Lilith is mentioned in the ancient Sumerian epic Gilgamesh, as well as Isaiah 34:14, “And wild beasts shall meet with hyenas, the satyr shall cry to his fellow; yea, there shall Lilith (the night hag) alight, and find for herself a resting place.” [I checked Strong’s Concordance to confirm what Dr. Gess said about Isaiah. Sure enough, the Hebrew word used is לִילִית which is transliterated as liyliyth or Lilith.] The word lullaby derives from the Arabic "Lilith-Abi" which means “Lilith be gone.” Writer James Joyce calls Lilith the patroness of abortion. She is known as the night terror seducing men and killing babies. She is used in today’s feminist movement as an icon standing up to Adam, opposing patriarchy. According to Catholic exorcists, she is one of the top five demons hardest to exorcise.
There is a similar spirit of Jezebel who flaunts authority. These spirits create a cultural dynamic that will breakdown the fabric of society.
In the Ten Commandments of the Old Testament Moses tells us the things we should NOT do. In the New Covenant the Blessed Virgin Mary tells us the things we should do. Our Lady gives to womanhood a dignity equal to that of manhood – equality in dignity, NOT equality in function [my addition]. (This is just the opposite of what NuScale's feminists maintain.)
In the 1960s women did not know these stories of Lilith, but today they have become powerful as the Judeo-Christian values in our culture have become weak. Indeed, Wicca (pagan witchcraft) is more popular with more adherents than the Presbyterian Church USA.
Kate Millett “was an American feminist writer, educator, artist, and activist” and “has been described as "a seminal influence on second-wave feminism", and is best known for her book Sexual Politics.” She was heavily influenced by Marxism. She organized 12 women who met in NYC to promote Maoism and “consciousness rising.” These women created a Litany by which to make revolution:
“Why are we here today?” the chairwoman asked. “To make revolution,” they answered.
“What kind of revolution?” she replied. “The Cultural Revolution,” they chanted.
“And how do we make Cultural Revolution?” she demanded.
“By destroying the American family!” they answered.
“How do we destroy the family?” she came back.
“By destroying the American Patriarch,” they cried exuberantly.
“And how do we destroy the American Patriarch?” she probed.
“By taking away his power!” “How do we do that?”
“By destroying monogamy!” they shouted. “How can we destroy monogamy?”
“By promoting promiscuity, eroticism, prostitution, abortion and homosexuality!” they resounded.
These 12 women became the anti-apostles. By evil imitation Satan likes to mock Jesus. Just as the Church has its heroic women saints like St. Monica, St. Helen, St. Catherine of Sienna, etc., so too does Satan have his anti-saints. These are the opposite of everything that is holy. Phyllis Chesler exemplified this in her book “A Politically Incorrect Feminist” with the subtitle, “Creating a Movement with Bitches, Lunatics, Dykes, Prodigies, Warriors, and WONDER WOMEN.” All these women had big issues with their mothers or fathers or both.
Helen Gurley Brown is another such woman, the editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan magazine for 32 years. Her goal was to make women cosmopolitan and to make Cosmopolitan magazine like Playboy magazine. She actively promoted abortion on demand. To be popular in her magazine, a woman must be neither virgin nor mother, which is just the opposite of Mary Who is both Virgin AND Mother.
There are four chief lies behind the movement of feminism:
1. Men are the enemy because men cause wars. But a Wonder Woman (like Lynda Carter on the old TV show of the 1970s) can save the world. The cognitive dissonance is this: Women want to be just like men while telling men to be just like them. The goal is a genderless people.
2. Women can have it all. But the truth is that no woman can have everything all at the same time.
3. Children are the enemy. A child must take second place to career and personal happiness. Because of that ideology, while abortion existed previously in history due to civil war, invasion, etc., abortion was never on such a massive scale as today. Death from abortion exceeds 3000 per diem, greater than mortality from cancer, heart disease and war.
4. Women must be powerful, not fruitful.
One the warnings from our Lady of Fatima in Portugal the early 20th century was that if Russia was not converted, then its lies would be spread through the whole world. Indeed, while the Soviet Union fell and Russia has returned to her Orthodox Christian roots, the lies of communism (in the form of feminism) have been spread through the whole world. Under communism women must work in industry, and if that meant abortion, then so be it; everything was dedicated to the “Almighty State.”
A new Matriarchy (those 12 women who met in NYC in the 1960s) were to replace Patriarchy in modern culture. Thus, today there are few if any celibate pro-life conservative Christian women. These new women are NOT nurturing of children and NOT loving of husbands. When such an ideology was forced on the Russian people in the old Soviet Union, while they were powerless to stop it, they knew it was wrong (hence Russia’s rapid return to Eastern Orthodox Christianity). But today’s people in Western Europe and North America know no better (hence the domination of evil women in industry's like NuScale's).
A Polish man by the name of Ryszard Legutko wrote a book entitled, “The Demon in Democracy: Totalitarian Temptations in Free Societies.” An excerpt from the Amazon summary of this book is essential: “Ryszard Legutko lived and suffered under communism for decades—and he fought with the Polish ant-communist movement to abolish it. Having lived for two decades under a liberal democracy, however, he has discovered that these two political systems have a lot more in common than one might think. They both stem from the same historical roots in early modernity, and accept similar presuppositions about history, society, religion, politics, culture, and human nature. In "The Demon in Democracy," Legutko explores the shared objectives between these two political systems, and explains how liberal democracy has over time lurched towards the same goals as communism, albeit without Soviet style brutality. Both systems, says Legutko, reduce human nature to that of the common man, who is led to believe himself liberated from the obligations of the past. Both the communist man and the liberal democratic man refuse to admit that there exists anything of value outside the political systems to which they pledged their loyalty. And both systems refuse to undertake any critical examination of their ideological prejudices.”
Side Note: The Founding Fathers of these United States created a Constitutional Republic where the individual right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are sacrosanct, NOT a liberal Democracy where a simple majority may determine the fate of a nation. The Constitution limits both the power of Government and the power of a dictatorial majority. Without the Christian religion, a Republic will become a Democracy which will always devolve into Dictatorship. Indeed, John Adams wrote the following words in 1798, “The general principles upon which the Fathers achieved independence were the general principals of Christianity… I will avow that I believed and now believe that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God. We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
What liberalism like its parent communism does is three-fold:
1. Liberalism stifles cultural diversity into a monogamy of one point of view only.
2. Liberalism destroys the language with an Orwellian Newspeak, suing alliterations such as Planned Parenthood and War on Women.
3. Liberalism has an uncompromising hostility towards dissidents.
Example: Serena Williams recently blamed her poor performance at a tennis match on “the Patriarchy.”
Studies show that today feminism has NOT made women happier. Depression, drug abuse, sexually transmitter diseases, suicide, and divorce are all on the rise. There is no faith, no sense of purpose. But in contrast, devout Catholic Christian women are happier.
Studies also show that correspondingly men are not happier either. Furthermore, women have turned themselves into victims. Why did this happen? It started in the 1960s when motherhood and virginity were both targeted. This is in stark contrast to Mary Who is both Virgin and Mother. What is important in womanhood? Virginity and Motherhood.
Mothers are the soil in which seeds are planted. They are nurturing, cultivating vessels. Consider the words in Romance languages that are feminine which reflect this:
Latin – English
Terra – 1st declension feminine, Earth
Humus – 4th declension feminine, Soil
Aqua – 1st declension feminine, Water
Navis – 3rd declension feminine, Ship
Women have these capacities of nurture and cultivation on both physical and spiritual levels. Example: Mother Theresa was both a virgin nun and a nurturing spiritual mother. Because of her cultivation, her religious order flourishes after her death. This is what a good mother does.
A woman’s deepest fear is that she will not be provided for. Satan preys on that fear. He thus comes after the dirt, the soil, the woman, hence our culture of contraception and abortion which prevents anything from taking root. This is the cause of women’s unhappiness today.
St. Edith Stein (whose Feast Day we have just passed) was a German Jewish philosopher who converted from Judaism to Catholicism and became a Discalced Carmelite nun. She was murdered at the Auschwitz concentration camp with other Jews on August 9, 1942. She once said, “The woman’s soul is fashioned as a shelter in which other souls may unfold.”
The Blessed Virgin Mary is really our model. Her focus was on being fruitful. At the Wedding Feast of Cana (John 2:1-12) she said to the servants, “Do whatever He tells you.” That is Mary’s constant admonition.
It was during the end of Dr. Gress’ talk that I wonder whether or not the degeneracy of today’s culture (exemplified everywhere now in industries like NuScale's) stemmed in large measure from the rejection of the Blessed Virgin Mary within Protestantism. Dr. Gress confirmed that when someone asked a similar question. When Protestantism rejection veneration (NOT worship) of the Holy Mother of God, an archetype of a heroine equal in all dignity to men was removed from women. With the rejection of Mary came the rejection of women’s religious orders and any God-given role women had in the Church.
Side Note: Now the pendulum swings the opposite way as some sects – so-called “Catholic” and more and more Protestant ones – embrace the heresy of woman priestesses and women pastors or ministers, placing them in roles for which God never intended them.
When women model the Blessed Virgin Mary, then they become happy. Women understand suffering, but in emulating Mary they have joy and peace.
Ferminism does NOT empower women. Rather, it will promote women into roles and positions for which they are NOT prepared, thus causing their failure and it is that - setting women up to fail - to which I object most strenuously. No one has more power, more authority, more influence than a mother. Feminism removes all that and denigrates women as mere cogs in an industrial machine. One day, however, at the Final Judgment, Jesus Christ the Great Judge will cast anti-Christ, the False Prophet, the Devil and all their works - feminism, socialism, Islam, modernism, humanism, secularism, etc. - into the Lake of Fire to burn forever and ever. Let us repent before that day comes.
