Sons of Adam, Daughters of Eve: C.S. Lewis' Images of Gender

by Joshua Herring

Lewis presents the needed antidote to transgender ideology. Where transgender ideology proclaims that the individual should perceive himself as a self-created being, Lewis presents the human person within the doctrine of creation. As such, each human is made male or female. Lewis develops a neo-Platonic articulation of gender, where gender is “more real” than sex. By this articulation he means that sex is the result of the prior concepts of the masculine and the feminine. These terms exist first as ideas describing directionality. God is masculine towards humanity, in that he projects being towards us. Humanity (and all of creation) is feminine towards God because we receive being. These concepts exist first as ideas in the mind of God, and then manifest themselves biologically. In Perelandra, Lewis presents Malacandra as the incarnation of the masculine. Malacandra is sexless, yet masculine. His eyes look outward “as towards an ancient foe.” He is described as standing on the threshold, seeking to guard and protect the home. In contrast, Perelandra as the incarnated feminine has eyes that go inward, that thrum with life. The feminine is an inward orientation for creating conditions conducive to life. These images pair together. In That Hideous Strength, Lewis constructs the core problem of Mark and Jane’s marriage: Mark is insufficiently masculine, and Jane is insufficiently feminine. In their separate journeys, they each become more themselves. The novel closes with their mutual choosing of each other, letting Lewis suggest that the cosmic redemption achieved at Belbury is secondary to the redemption of a marriage. Lewis does not develop these concepts himself; rather, he inherits them primarily from Spenser and Milton. I show Lewis’s connections to both Spenser and Milton, and then trace Lewis’s further explication of gender in the Narniad. Lewis reminds his readers that all of reality, gender included, is a gift. The proper response of a gift is first to receive it, and then work out the potential within it. Lewis helps to reenchant the imagination to rightly perceive the complex nature of human beings.

Genres: Philosophy

234 pages, Paperback

Published March 20, 2026

Reviews

[Jeremy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hoping to write a review for WORLD.

Interview at Mere Orthodoxy. Review at First Things.

[Maya Joelle]

You got me at 'neo-Platonic articulation of gender'

[Landon Loftin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lewis read too many old books to be seduced by the resentful and reductionistic accounts of gender that have, since his day, come to occupy a prominent place in the Western imaginary. For him, gender was neither an arbitrary construct nor a merely biological reality to be begrudgingly accepted or mitigated through cultural and political reform. Like so many of the premodern writers he loved, Lewis saw the complementary differences between men and women as a gift to be received and celebrated. In this illuminating study, Herring draws us into the philosophical and imaginative depths of Lewis’s vision.

[T.]

My review here: https://blog.acton.org/archives/12831...