Sex and the Catholic Feminist: New Choices for a New Generation

by Sue Ellen Browder

In Sex and the Catholic Feminist , Browder challenges the notion that you can't be a feminist and believe in God. She echoes John Paul II's call for Catholics to embody a "new feminism," a radical new view of women's dignity. Her goal in this book is to "follow one golden thread of feminism in America—the pro-life thread—to show why it has been ignored by the media and left out of public conversation for fifty years." For Browder, the pro-life movement is about more than abortion and contraception; it's about loving and respecting all human life. While tracing the history of feminism in America, Browder discovered at the core of these various feminist movements a search for personhood. Where do women place their identity and find their fulfillment? Browder ultimately concludes that in our noisy, consumerist society, placing one's identity anywhere other than in God will prove disappointing and unfulfilling. "My hope is that some thoughts presented here will spark a new conversation and help heal one of the deepest political divisions in our nation." — Sue Ellen Browder

Genres: Christian, Catholic, Religion

152 pages, Paperback

Published February 1, 2020

Reviews

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

WAS THE WOMEN’S MOVEMENT HIJACKED BY THE SEXUAL REVOLUTION?

Journalist Sue Ellen Browder (who has written for many publications, including Cosmopolitan) wrote in the Introduction to this 2020 book, “Once we arrived in San Francisco, the Walk for Life was like no other protest I’d ever witnessed. Here were literally thousands of women, men, and children---Black, Caucasian, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, EVERYONE---marching peacefully together side by side with one common aim: to end legalized abortion on demand in America… As I walked along with this crowd of thirty thousand strangers united … in an army of love… I suddenly saw that the abortion story in our nation is not about ME vs. YOU, what I want vs. what YOU want… The story American needs to hear is about ALL of us working in harmony, united in love---TOGETHER. Viewing the pro-life phenomenon from the outside as an observer (as I’d previously viewed it) was a radically different experience from the beauty of the story now unfolding around me as a participant.” (Pg. 11-12)

She continues, “Father Frank Pavone (national director of Priests for Life)… addressed the crowd… he looked down, seemingly straight at me, and pointedly asked, ‘What are YOU going to do?’ I was flabbergasted. Until that moment, I had been thinking about writing a history of the women’s movement; now I realized that I HAD to write it. I had to record how the women’s movement … and the sexual revolution (with its divisive demands for abortion and contraception) got joined together, as I had witnessed the story unfold…” (Pg. 12-13)

She goes on, “Of course, to many ears, the very concept of pro-life feminism sounds scandalous… You can’t be a feminist and believe in God, right? You certainly can’t be a feminist, love marriage, and be a happy, full-time mom, can you? Well, at least that’s the story our culture usually tells. What’s popularly called ‘feminism’ in our culture is associated with so much anger, political outrage, resentment, and pain that many women and men understandably want nothing to do with it.” (Pg. 13)

She adds, “Pope Saint John Paul II urged Catholics not to reject feminism entirely nor to embrace it entirely, but to embody a ‘new feminism’… What a strange notion. A NEW feminism?... He certainly wasn’t talking about women becoming priests… no utopian plan---whether it’s feminism, Communism, or any other ‘ism’---will ever turn this world into an earthly paradise. On the contrary, the painfully outdated sort of feminism I once believed in and actively promoted has gone hand in hand, not with a feminine utopia, but with contemporary turmoil, including a divorce epidemic, millions of aborted babies, a … porn industry, widespread gender confusion, and a free-for-all sexual culture on high school and college campuses that makes it easy for a young woman to say yes to sex but almost impossible for her to say no… And yet. In the midst of all this… a NEW pro-life feminism?... However are we to find such a thing?” (Pg. 14-16)

She summarizes, “I came to see that it’s not feminism per se that’s contrary to the Judeo-Christian worldview… but the false joining of feminism with the sexual revolution… What’s contrary to these values… [is] reducing a woman’s personhood to her sex organs… denying motherhood, rejecting marriage, discarding the family, and then pretending this reduction of her personhood somehow augments her freedom… What began as a revolution for sexual freedom has disintegrated into a degrading parody of freedom that has left many women and men disenchanted, angry, wounded, and lonely… My hope is that some thoughts presented here will… help heal one of the deepest political divisions in our nation.” (Pg. 17-18)

In the first chapter, she states, “The real battle is over … what it means to be a person. It’s a conflict between … women… who put the quest for sex, career… and other self-gratifying pleasures FIRST in an attempt to create their own identities, versus… women … who believe their identities are given to them by God and the path to human wholeness is found primarily through self-giving love for God and others… This book is not meant to divide … woman as ‘wrong’ and ‘bad’ and others as ‘righteous’ and ‘good.’ Rather, it’s my hope that once you see how we got where we are today, the insights you gain … will help heal the tragic divisions between women and men that have so wounded our nation.” (Pg. 24)

Of Betty Friedan’s book ‘The Feminine Mystique,’ she says, “this prescription for female happiness hasn’t created the glorious utopia on earth Bett promised… Why didn’t Betty’s promises pan out? … First, she oversimplified and misnamed the problem. The women she surveyed were… miserable … not merely because they were ‘just housewives.’ Second, she … misnamed the solution. The world of total work has not set women free…” (Pg. 33)

She recalls, “Kinsey’s statistics didn’t apply to average women… The seductive marketing story we told at Cosmo—sex without commitment is glamorous… is still constantly being told and sold to young women… As for finding a scientist who would agree with Kinsey’s controversial research, that was no problem for us at Cosmo, either. If you couldn’t find a real scientist to applaud Kinsey’s propaganda … you could simply make up an expert to quote… Did I ever invent an authority? Yes, I’m sorry to report that I did.” (Pg. 51, 55-56)

She recounts, “The abortion vote that changed the world took place on … November 18, 1967, at NOW’s Second Annual Conference… the once-united women’s movement split into two factions: feminists FOR abortion and feminists AGAINST abortion… Approximately one-third of the women at that meeting … walked out and later resigned from NOW in protest over the abortion vote… Literally overnight… ‘reproductive rights’ had become synonymous with women’s fight for equality… the false joining of feminism with the sexual revolution had begun.” (Pg. 77, 79)

Of Kate Millett’s book ‘Sexual Politics,’ she comments, “Kate saw something… I failed to see for many years: no-fault divorce, unmarried sex, contraception, and abortion on demand were… direct attacks on the family… Her antifamily theory of ‘patriarchy’ as the enemy flooded into the culture… Soon it became nearly impossible for the American public to tell feminism and the sexual revolution apart… sadly, even Helen Gurley Brown and Kate Millett found no peace in the counterfeit, sexualized, pseudo-feminist philosophies they’d counterfeited and sold to the world.” (Pg. 102-103)

She notes, “One of the central strengths of our democracy … is that we’re a large nation made up of diverse people… Propaganda put out by organizations like NARAL and Planned Parenthood works very effectively on female magazine writers and editors in New York City… But it doesn’t work nearly as well in cities like Cleveland, Omaha, and Salt Lake City, or in small towns in Texas, Kansas, and Arizona.” (Pg. 111)

She suggests, “If pro-life feminists … are everywhere, why haven’t we heard more about them? For one simple reason: because media people like me, locked tightly inside our culture’s little ideological boxes, simply cannot see them…If feminism means primarily one thing to you---the ‘right’ to abortion---then, strange as it may sound, you literally CANNOT SEE hundreds of thousands of pro-life feminists marching before your very eyes…. They just look like weirdos to you… who are best vilified or ignored.” (Pg. 123)

She concludes, “the old pro-abortion feminist movement… is no longer a viable women’s movement. Rather… pro-abortion feminism… [is] primarily a movement financed largely by the abortion and contraception industries and their supporters, and it is being propped up … only by mountainous reams of propaganda … I’m convinced one way to wake them up faster, and to keep more women and girls from being hurt, is for pro-life feminists to take back the F-word and shout it to the skies.” (Pg. 127)

Mainstream feminists will be repelled by this book, but it will appeal strongly to pro-life persons (particular Christian, and Catholic) who are nevertheless in favor of social equality for women.

[Maureen Tarango · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow - this was a very impactful book. I wish Ms. Browder had named it differently, however, as it is not primarily about either sex or Catholicism, and I think this title will limit the readership. It is actually an insightful chronology of the important events in the history of feminism from the early 1900's to now, from the perspective of a women's movement "insider" who experienced it from both sides and personally knew many of the major influencers. I think this makes her uniquely qualified to provide little known facts and details that have not previously been revealed to the public, and makes her conclusions much more worthy of consideration. My only other criticism is that at times (not always) her style is a bit too conversational or emotional, which is understandable given the topic, but may be interpreted by some as more like opinion and less neutral. I recommend this book for all women (and men) to understand the truth of how the women's movement got into the crazy mess it is in today, especially younger people who may not know much of the history.

[C. Price · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book, as a pro-life feminist and as someone who had thoroughly appreciated the thorough history of how feminist became pro-choice in Ms. Browder's first book, Subverted.

Many of the things in this book are fair criticisms of what is known as liberal feminism, but they completely ignore and thus mislead the reader about radical feminism, which criticized liberal feminism for these things half a century ago.

Radical feminism is primarily concerned with the ways that male violence (including in prostitution and pornography) subordinates women and girls, not abortion rights. Radical feminists criticized (and still criticize) the sexual revolution because it enabled male entitlement.

But Ms. Browder conflates these often-opposed-to-each-other feminist visions, and so ignores the most serious charges feminism lays against male dominance.

At one point in the book, she even blames pornography on feminism, which is an absurd claim, considering that comprehensive critiques and attempted legislative solutions came from radical feminists against pornography in the 1970s and 1980s (she quotes one of them, Andrea Dworkin).

As someone who was a feminist during that era, Ms. Browder should absolutely know and acknowledge this, and to do otherwise is very misleading in a book that is supposed to be about feminism. (And most of these radical feminist works, especially those by Andrea Dworkin, are available to read for free online, see http://www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/dwork...).

If you're not aware of the history of how white male lawyers manipulated liberal feminists into centering abortion rights, the book is still probably worth reading for that information (but Subverted discusses this more thoroughly).

In the end, instead of offering an alternative form of feminism that is also pro-life, this book really invites women to resist only that part of their subordination that expects them to see child-killing as a solution to inequality.

[Kathleene M · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Must-Read

A careful and well-documented history of the feminist movement, pointing out where and it has succeeded, and where and how it has betrayed itself.

[Marissa Alexander · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was interesting, but she employed so many logical fallacies that it was frustrating to read at times.