Where are all the women philosophers?

When I was just a little girl, my father and I would discuss religion and philosophy a lot. It was my favorite thing to do with him. I was so happy when he had a free minute to delve into the secrets of the universe. One particular summer afternoon, my father became unusually excited with something I said. He went and grabbed a compilation of the works of various philosophers. He showed me the table of contents. He said, “Do you see this? Do you know what all these philosophers have in common? They're all men. There is no major, well known female philosopher of the same caliber as these. You can be the first one.” 

Of course, this is a moment I could not possibly have forgotten. My father's love, how much he believed in me, even his admiration of my childish attempts to articulate difficult things, all of this has affected me to the core. Because of his encouragement, I've continually been an avid writer who loves to write about the meaning of God and life. 

Today, during mass, a flash of realization came to me. The reason for the “lack” of women philosophers is because they are mostly Catholic saints. Authors with a primarily Catholic focus are often avoided like the plague by protestant readers. I have never known a protestant who would be “caught dead” reading the writings of a pope, although so many of them have doctorates in philosophy as well as theology and many are philosophical geniuses. I have a 700 page copy of “The Theology of the Body” by Blessed Pope Paul II at home to attest to that. I read it sometimes to refresh my mind of concepts long forgotten and not well understood. 

Regardless of what I have come to consider bias, St. Teresa of Avila, St. Catherine of Sienna, and St. Hildegard of Bingen (my father's current favorite) are all theological and philosophical geniuses. They have earned the title “Doctor of the Church.” Those who bemoan the “sad fate of women” who are unable to become priests in the Catholic tradition may not have considered the tens of thousands of priests for the past 2000 years of church history who did NOT earn the title of “Doctor of the Church.” 

Certainly, this is an example of the equal value the Church gives to the sexes. The Church is female by her very nature. Therefore, having males as protectors and spouses to her makes sense. In today's world, sexes (now almost exclusively called genders) are becoming more and more blurred every day. Many people think this is a wonderful thing and there are lots of churches in the world that they may want to be a part of, but the Catholic Church does seek to preserve the original “man and woman created He them” condition of the humans he originally created. I love the sense of preserving an increasingly lost integrity of the concept of men and women.

I am proud to be a female and a philosopher in the sense of a “lover of knowledge.” I was inspired to write about this topic because this is the saint day of St. Teresa Benedicta (also known as Edith Stein), whose great heart in providing comfort and spiritual help for many starving to death in concentration camps is better known than her amazing philosophical mind. Today's homily reminded me of my father's words to me, back when I was a wide-eyed child in elementary school. Of course, I doubt I will become a “great” woman philosopher, but I will never stop seeking to know and live the truth. And I am proud to be a member of a Church that values what I most love to do above all else.

Mother and Baby: Who Cares Anymore?

When I was a little girl, I wanted more than anything to grow up to be a mother. I had a baby doll I pushed in a carriage. I dreamed about having a house full of kids. I think I was about eight years old when I told my mother, “When I grow up, I want to have a baby.” My mother said, “No, honey, you don't want that. You want a PhD. Your PhD is your baby. A PhD is far more rewarding.”

I stared at her, confused. So, thinking through this logic in my mind, her PhD was more important to her than me. Of course it was. That's why she spent all her time studying for it and ignoring me. On the positive side, my mother wanted me to grow up to be an intellectual achiever. On the negative side, she had no idea how those words would impact my belief that I was not wanted or valued by her. I'm glad she did give birth to me, though.

I was raised by two pro-life democrats. Yes, they do exist, in greater numbers than either Republicans or Democrats think. The value of unborn life was a value I always took for granted and never really thought about much. The first time I really thought about it, I was sixteen and a friend of mine, whom I'll call Betsy, thought she was pregnant. We went to a crisis pregnancy center (CPC) so she would get a free test. While the worker there was reading the test, we were shown a video on the miracle of life. I was transfixed, amazed at the wonder of how human life grows. Betsy groaned. “I can't believe we came here,” she said, “These people are trying to get me to believe that a fetus is a human and take away my right to do what I want with my body. Let's get out of here.”

We left quickly after finding out her test was negative. I asked Betsy more questions. She told me to read books by feminists like Gloria Steinem. I read that and more and found out a lot about Betsy's point of view. I wondered if she could be right. Because I was from a liberal democrat family, so were almost all my friends, and all of them but me were pro-choice. As I grew up more and more of my friends were having abortions. Two in particular had five and six abortions each. Having an abortion was nothing to them, but just having “a bunch of cells” removed. No concern seemed to cross their minds at all. At some point of time, I believed the “cell story” too.

I'm very lucky I did not get pregnant in my teen years or twenties. I didn't need a man. I was a free and independent woman. Nobody should tell me what to do. Marriage? That's a piece of paper.

I lived in a heavily abortion-minded climate. I would tell my friends, “I can't have an abortion myself, because I'm not sure when the soul enters the body. If I'm not sure, how can I take even a little risk of murder?” Yet because I wanted people to like me, I would also say, “Since we don't know, I guess you're free to take the risk if you want.” Of course, I never judged anyone for having an abortion. I still don't think a woman who has gone through with it is someone to be condemned. Most women choose abortion in a state of panic and often under pressure by family. More than half of abortions are due to the fear of not having financial resources to care for the child.

Add to that how little most women know about fetal development. I really believed that for the first two months, all that's in the uterus is a clump of undifferentiated cells. People told me if I went to a crisis pregnancy center, people would lie and try to show me that a baby was in there. I didn't realize I could just pick up a biology textbook and see that at only three weeks after implantation, there's a heart in there that begins to beat. By eight weeks, every organ in the body is there in the uterus. No, you won't hear that at Planned Parenthood, because they don't want to disturb you. But, they will tell you CPC's lie when the materials they are teaching from are either written by medical doctors or come straight out of biology text books.

I got pregnant for the first time when I was 36. I was not married and my boyfriend had just thrown me out and changed all the locks on the doors. He thought I was lying when I said I was pregnant. I stayed with a friend who watched me take three pregnancy tests and she took all three of them to my boyfriend. He said, “So what?”

I really wanted that baby. I wanted the baby so much I cried when I was pregnant. A child was all I ever wanted. I remembered my parents said they both cried when they found out my mom was pregnant, but they had really good stable jobs and owned a house. What did I have? Absolutely nothing to offer this baby. Yet, I wanted it more than anything in the world.

I left California to stay with my dad in Georgia. Yet, on the way to Georgia, passing through Louisiana, I started bleeding heavily. I went to an emergency room and took another pregnancy test. No more baby. I could die. When I got to Georgia, I saw what I'd lost. A job, relationship and home in California. A future baby. And with the loss of contact with a new age group, I realized it was a very convincing sham of spirituality. My disillusion was pretty total, my depression pretty deep.

I tried to rebuild my life so I could have a home and family, yet everything I tried to do failed. In 2009, I moved to Eugene, Oregon to try to start over, age forty. My life seemed to lose more meaning every day. When I re-discovered God and a church family, I was prostate by the weight of a life not lived as I had ever wanted. I came back to the solace and strength I had gone to in my young teen years, the Catholic Church.

To make a long blog shorter, my life is rich in meaning and purpose today. I am deeply happy. I volunteer in a Crisis Pregnancy Center now, and yes, I do want to save babies. I also want to help make life easier for mothers, so they won't feel the overwhelming need to abort. Sometimes, I still get weepy when I put together layettes with all the cute little baby clothes, because I wish they could be for a baby of my own, but I'm so glad to be doing something for any baby, especially a baby that might not have ever been.

I don't see our culture valuing motherhood very much anymore. I don't see it much looking at the lives of celebrities or in movies or television shows. My own mother didn't value it much. My inborn desire to be a mother was stifled quite a lot. Yet, I will be forty-four in about five months, and the one thing I wish I'd been able to do was to marry and create a stable home for a child.

Most people know that the Catholic Church makes saving the lives of the unborn a very high priority. It's easy to see from whence that sentiment stems. How can anyone look at paintings or sculptures of Mary with baby Jesus and not contemplate her safe, sacred womb and the violence of invading that sanctuary with a blade?

When I hear woman say it's not a decision to be taken lightly, I wonder, why? If there's any chance in their mind it might be murder, where is the decision in that? I know, I know, there are atheists in this country who don't believe in a soul. Why should they care about when or if a baby is aborted? I also know I've said every word I just said to women who have said, “So what. It's my body!”

I used to ask women why it is that when you are two months pregnant and you want to be, you say, “My baby is growing,” but if you are two months pregnant and don't want to be, you say “The fetus needs to come out,” just as if it were an appendix. Women used to look at me, stumped. But recently, I read an article by a woman bragging about this very thing, about how free she was that she could call the contents of her uterus anything she wants, baby, fetus, whatever. I shook my head. No hope, I thought. No one will ever listen.

The war over abortion is ugly. I have become the enemy in many people's minds. I have crossed demarcation lines and have become a traitor. Some will not even post on my Facebook page or read my posts. Perhaps I think they're evil villains for what they've done in the past. Of course I don't. Abortion is murder, but none of the women I've know who had abortions consciously intended to commit murder. Most of them were badly deceived. Abby Johnson, an ex-Planned Parenthood director who is now pro-life, says that overwhelmingly, the most common question women ask on their way to the surgery room, while they are groggy from medications, is, “Will my baby feel pain?”

Deep down, perhaps they know the truth. Deeper down, perhaps it's way to painful to face.

Source:

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/prenatal-care/PR00112/

(Note: Their week numbering is based on the whole cycle of pregnancy and the first two weeks are called "getting ready." So, week three of implantation is their week six.)