It is an old joke to say “the masculine embraces the feminine”, meaning that one can (a.k.a. once could) say “he” or “man”; and be understood to mean “a person” or “the human species”. It is, in my opinion, archaic to assume that using a term that is male can be assumed to include men and women. But if anyone is going to be archaic I suppose it is going to be the Pope who is tasked with head up one of the biggest, oldest traditions on the planet, the Catholic faith.
But a beleif can be ancient and progressive. For example, the the Pope’s Christmas message touched on the preservation of our planet–a bridge between ancient and modern ideas of stewardship and protection. Specifically Christianity and environmentalism.
However, three years ago Pope Benedict gave his Christmas message in gender neutral terms. So my appreciation of his 2008 message was undermined by the confusion of jumbled genders in passages such as: “Since faith in the Creator is an essential part of the Christian Creed, the Church cannot and should not limit itself to transmitting to its faithful only the message of salvation. She has a responsibility for Creation, and it should validate this responsibility in public. In so doing, it should defend not just the earth, water and air as gifts of Creation that belong to everyone. She should also protect man from destroying himself.
And is this use of the masculine to embrace all humanity as casual an unintentional anachronism? I would argue that it is, in fact, a deliberate step back from gender neutrality–given the very next part of the message:
“It is necessary to have something like an ecology of man, understood in the right sense. It is not outdated metaphysics when the Church speaks of the nature of the human being as man and woman, and asks that this natural order be respected. This has to do with faith in the Creator and listening to the language of creation, which, if disregarded, would be man’s self-destruction and therefore a destruction of God’s work itself. That which has come to be expressed and understood with the term ‘gender’ effectively results in man’s self-emancipation from Creation (nature) and from the Creator. Man wants to do everything by himself and to decide always and exclusively about anything that concerns him personally. But this is to live against truth, to live against the Spirit Creator. The tropical rain forests deserve our protection, yes, but man does not deserve it less as a Creature of the Spirit himself, in whom is inscribed a message that does not mean a contradiction of human freedom but its condition.”
This makes is clear to me that a deliberate choice was made to desert the use of gender-neutral language and insist that the female listener subsume herself within a male identity. And further that the interests of the Earth are to be subordinate to preserving what is presumed to be the correct role for humans, which differ depending in being of the male and female sex–with an explicit repudiation even of the notion of culturally-created gender. And, lest the full implications of this be missed, the very next passage goes further:
“The great theologians of Scholasticism described matrimony - which is the lifelong bond between a man and a woman - as a sacrament of Creation, that the Creator himself instituted, and that Christ, without changing the message of Creation, welcomed in the story of his alliance with men. Part of the announcement that the Church should bring to men is a testimonial for the Spirit Creator present in all of nature, but specially in the nature of man, who was created in the image of God.”
I am not a person of faith, but I have a reverent and deep respect for ancient and ongoing beliefs that are at the core of human culture. Most people believe in God and religion is a great force that moves across the face of the planet. The Catholic church and Christian leaders in general have increasingly embraced the need to protect the planet. But so long as this secular and universal concern is explicilyt subordinated to an agenda of opposing divorce, gay marriage, extra-marital sex and evolving gender roles I doubt our ability to overcome the selfishness of pollution and wastage that is threatening to irrevocably degrade the planet.
I do not expect the Catholic faith to change in its position on these issues. But I did hope that the common cause of inter-faith communication and protection of the planet could be raised above, or held equal to, agendas that are less universal and less inclusive.
The Pope’s message should, of course, be tailored to those of the Catholic faith, but three years ago it reached out to and indeed embraced those from other religions and secular traditions. In 2008 it is beginning to sound more like there is no room for us at the Inn*. Women, animals, and the wider environment may come in from the cold–so long as we accept the idea that the creator made a place for us in the basement, not in the living-room.
*”Inn” in the Bible being a translation of a word meaning “upper room”. At the time of Jesus’ birth a house often had an upper floor for the people and a lower room in which animals were kept.
In our current culture it often seems that you are meant to pick sides: be girly, or don’t. But I am a liberated woman who also likes a lot of feminine things, even those developed in an overtly sexist context. But I don’t see why not having to wear pastels means you can’t wear them–or why not having to play will dolls means you can’t like dolls. And I think the marketing boffins have found a way for us to break free from feminine assumptions, but have our girly stuff too.
The site has a photo feature titled, disparagingly, “weight Loss Fads”. This apparently includes the title thumbnail, a women boxing (obviously for weight loss? Obviously a hilarious fad?) and Gloria Swanson* (excerpted here)using hand-weights (ditto?). If women exercising is innately hilarious I do wonder about the overall goal of the program and why Bally fitness are apparently so deeply involved in it (as advertisers).
