Become Who You Are
What’s the meaning and purpose of my life? What is my true identity? Why were we created male and female? How do I find happiness, joy and peace? How do I find love that lasts, forever? These are the timeless questions of the human heart. Join Jack Rigert and his guests for lively insights, reading the signs of our times through the lens of Catholic Teaching and the insights of Saint John Paul ll to guide us.
Saint Catherine of Siena said "Become who you are and you would set the world on fire".
Become Who You Are
#698 Feminism and Christianity: Autonomy, Power, and War on Marriage and the Family
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Culture keeps telling women to chase autonomy and call it freedom, but the bill always arrives: isolation, fragile bonds, and a quiet ache that career can’t soothe. We sit down with scholar and author Carrie Gress to map the deeper story—how modern feminism operates like a shadow church with its own creed, sacrament, and evangelization, and why marriage and family have become the frontline of a spiritual battle many people can now feel in their bones.
Carrie shares how Theology of Home helps women see ordered womanhood lived attractively, not argued abstractly, and why Gen Z’s growing skepticism of old scripts is a bright sign of hope.
If you’re ready for a conversation that connects history, theology, and real life—and points toward a path where women and men both flourish—press play.
Something Wicked: Why Feminism Can't Be Fused with Christianity
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Email Jack: info@jp2renew.org
know there's what I call the three commandments of feminism. And these are fascinating when you actually look at what they are. I I I first tracked these in the early 1800s. And when I tell you what they are, you're going to say, oh yeah, they're still alive and well in the culture today. But the first one is contempt for men. The second one is promiscuity. And the third is the occult. She says everything that you know about feminism is is likely wrong. And I I think this is the the real issue is that feminism has passed itself off as something that's been beneficial to women. It's been helping women. It's just about voting and education and career opportunities. And it completely sweeps under the table the the reality that that was there.
SPEAKER_01:Welcome to the Become Who You Are podcast, the production of the John Paul II Renewal Center. I'm excited to be with Kerry Gress today. She wrote a new book, Something Wicked Why Feminism Can't Be Fused with Christianity. Right before we came on, I was telling her a little bit about the young men that are joining us for Claymore, our apostolate for young men. Very exciting exciting to see these young men in this toxic sludge of a culture that we live in and still waking up and saying hey there's got to be something more what what is it? And it's fun and gratifying to be able to walk with them to show them there is something more to that human heart. Unfortunately, Carrie as I bring her on here the young women that we're meeting are not as quick to respond. And my heart goes out to them it really goes out to them. You wrote a very important book and I was fascinated as I was reading it unpacking how deep this goes and and I'm just hoping Kerry in some way that we can help these young women because again it's really damaging what's happening and we're seeing a decline in in Western civilization the UK Germany these these civilizations are coming right before our eyes so there's an urgency there's an urgency the work that you're doing I think the work that we're doing here too and and maybe we can come together and help these these young people and all the people that love them and we want to try to explain what what is going on with women in general and I'll just say one more thing to you and see if if this has any connotations for that you know we keep hearing about these these liberal older you know white women on on uh you know on these protest lines right now protesting ice and all kinds of things and I you see that same damage that same almost like a an oppression like a like an evil oppression just pushing down on them and I just want to shake them in a nice way and say man you got to wake up to something more this is going nowhere. So hey God bless you thanks for through for for joining us today.
SPEAKER_00:My pleasure. It's great to be here. So yeah I think it's it's fascinating. When I first started writing about this issue about 10 years ago you know it was really it felt like that was the uptick when you really started seeing women just behave in this really unbridled way on a regular basis, not just at women's marches or, you know, here and there, but it just ended up be feeling like it was everywhere. And I I think you're you're on to something by by recognizing the generation that it is I think it's boomers and Gen X have been we're so deeply indoctrinated in feminism and and the kind of the belief system of it. And that's really what we're seeing manifest itself whether you think that's on a spiritual level or just a physical level I do suppose. It is both in the public square. And you know it's incredibly tragic because it's so misguided and um and there's been really very little to push back against it. And that's, you know I think the biggest tragedy.
SPEAKER_01:I'll just say one thing that's just on my mind as we're talking is you know this quote from Sister Lucia who had written a letter to John Paul II and Cardinal Kafara. This Lucia a reminder to everybody that it was the main visionary of Fatima she oh died in 2005 so not so long ago she had written to John Paul II about the spiritual battle that we're seeing and she said the last great battle between our Lord and Satan will be over marriage and the and and the family. And this is really what's just come apart at the seams you know we meet so many young people that are suffering with mental illness and and things and we see this so we see this decline of civilization on one side but the human heart being hurt on the other side. You compare feminism to a shadow church, Carrie what do you mean by that?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah so I I think um when I I you know I've been thinking about this issue for a long time and I was trying to find a a quick way to explain to college students I did Seek last year and I was trying to think of a really easy way for people to understand what feminism is all that different.
SPEAKER_01:So did you speak at Seek?
SPEAKER_00:Not this not in 2000 twenty s twenty six but twenty five I think okay awesome that's awesome. And um and it was really um you know what came to mind was just this recognition that everybody's heard Peter Craft say um talk about abortion as the sacrament of feminism or the left or whomever um but I I realized you know feminism has created this idol and it's this idol of autonomy. And this is really what women have been sold and told and you know this is what motivates so many women in the in the West today is this idea that our career is the most important thing, that our our agency making our own choices, our own decisions. That that's really what we're worshiping in in a matter of speaking. But then there are all these other elements like how that's done. You know, there's what I call the three commandments of feminism. And these are fascinating when you actually look at what they are. I I I first tracked these in the early 1800s and when I tell you what they are you're gonna say oh yeah they're still alive and well in the culture today. But the first one is contempt for men. Uh the second one is promiscuity and the third is the occult. So if those things don't describe our young women in college today and you know and beyond, um I don't know what does but you're right.
SPEAKER_01:You know now I have a contempt for men, but yet I'm gonna let them use me. And then uh you know because we we're destroying the Imago day right there, this image and likeness of God expressed to our our bodies, of course Satan and the occult comes comes right in, right? Because we're spiritual people.
SPEAKER_00:So I mean each one of those maps on to a different person of the Trinity the contempt for men is the dread the hatred of the Father the promiscuity is what you just said the destruction of the um the Holy Spirit in our soul or in our body and then the um the occult is of course the the rejection of Christ's authority over the world. So it's really you know and that that was one of the things that was really fascinating when I saw those pieces come together. It was actually my husband who f who pieced that together for me the spiritual aspect of it. But it's really fascinating because you can then see why it's so difficult for women to come to leave feminism because it has such a tight control and it does so much damage on all of these different levels really you know enslaving a woman spiritually, physically emotionally all of those things. So that was another piece of it. There was also the theological virtues which I think are absolutely fascinating. I haven't really done read anybody else talking about this but if you look at again kind of the emotional unhinged nature of women today, um, that was very intentional.
SPEAKER_01:It actually started I love what how you said that emotionally unhinged. And when I say I love it, it just expresses it very very well.
SPEAKER_00:It's what's happening, yeah. But this in the 1800s was the the socialists realized that if they could get women to be angry, that they were going to be a lot more politically active and than if they weren't angry. And so they intentionally started these groups that we we now know as consciousness raising groups that were to make women angry not just about the injustice that they saw in their own life but other women's lives and it just spread like wildfire. So instead of faith, hope and love, as we see in Christianity, it has contempt, anger, and envy are basically the the kind of the three elements that are are driving um feminism. So that's a whole other piece that I think we haven't weighed waded into enough to really see that this has been very intentional and and real manipulation of women and their emotions for political gain, you know, really across the board. So yeah, so we have an idol which is autonomy, we've got the three commandments, we've got the theological vices I would call them, you've got the sacrament which is abortion you've got an its own kind of evangelization, which, you know, bro broken people break other people. So it's just this easy passing of um you know the bad ideas of feminism from one woman to the next. So anyway, yeah, it's when you start looking at it through that lens of the the church, you really see you know Satan can't create anything he can just mimic things and copy things. And I think that's really what's happened with feminism and um you know one of the reasons why we need to to scrutinize it more and just reject it outright as something that can be compatible with with Catholicism.
SPEAKER_01:When you start out with we're talking about you know the spirits and evil right off the bat you know there was a time maybe just a decade ago that people wouldn't have caught on uh to this they'd say well yeah it's kind of you guys are talking religion and faith but you know what not today people are you know you're on i the weeds and the weed are separating themselves you can see it but either way they both know that this is a spiritual battle. When I'm talking to people now I sense you know when I'm talking to a group I I'll say you know who's sensing something weird you know spiritual and everybody boom boom boom boom boom right so they get what you just said in in a sense right you're unpacking it uh in in a way that people can understand and identify it you need to be able to identify it don't you to put a name on things as you said when you talk about you know socialism Marxism etc these ideas have consequences don't they and and to refute that you have to be able to use language and bring it out enough to come back the other way. In other words the ideas that you're bringing to the table Carrie um uh need to be out there and and you think well what can we do? Well I'll tell you what all these ideas that you're talking about start small don't they? And they just keep pushing their way through.
SPEAKER_00:Of course there's some satanic help behind but we also have some spiritual help behind us too they do a lot of it yeah yeah no without a doubt and I think that's one of the amazing things is feminism has been able to sort of hide itself. I think there's some very clear tactics that the feminists have used to to like make sure that it doesn't get scrutinized. And one of those is you know the one that every man has heard well you can't talk about this because you're not a woman. I've heard a ton of you know people just saying well I I I benefited from feminism because I have a PhD so therefore I I can't criticize it. Feminism is just about women don't you want to help women so we know these there's these kind of barriers that it's created such that it it is protected. And then when you really start looking at the meat of it, you know, it's very clearly diabolical communist socialist you know has all of these deep deep problems to it. And then you can see the fruit of it.
SPEAKER_01:And this is you know one of the amazing things that I did in my research was really stack up you know what if we we if we really see feminism as this ideology and as the engine for abortion um which I think it is I think that you know people will say the sexual revolution well where do they think that came from it came from feminism and communism and the the new left if we really believe that then the fact that we are killing between 40 and 70 million children through abortion annually in a in a few years we're we're totally outdoing the numbers of every other you know major mass um killing tyranny it's way more than all the wars uh put together all of them together in a I I want to interrupt you just for a second before you go any further because uh you know you're doing some important work. This is an important book and I so let me tell people a little bit about you, Carrie. So you you mentioned you're a PhD, a scholar at the Institute for Human Ecology at the Catholic University of America. You're the founder and editor of the online women's magazine Theology of Home the author of 10 books including the Theology of Home series The Anti-Mary Exposed and the end of woman and so thank you for all that and you reside in Virginia and I've had uh Noelle Meering who who uh co-founded the Theology of Home uh with you uh on the show and you guys are both doing uh terrific work let's back up just a little bit because for those of us who um hear this word feminism yeah and we get confused a little bit isn't feminism good I mean it you know you know wasn't it caused because you know men were oppressive and and wasn't Susan B. Anthony didn't she have a you know wasn't there a reason that she needed to push back and say hey you know we need to be equal and uh and and so where what's the difference between that and where we're at now and maybe you can give us just a little a little background because the the history you lay out in in your work is is is is worth the the price of admission uh alone.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. No, I think this is a really important point. Um there's a a really wonderful woman named Janice Fumingo who's been doing kind of parallel research that I've been doing. I think she's been doing it longer than I have um although I didn't know about her until recently but she says everything that you know about feminism is is likely wrong. And I I think this is the the real issue is feminism has passed itself off as something that's been beneficial to women. It's been helping women it's just about voting and education and career opportunities. And it completely sweeps under the table the the reality that that was there. If you really start looking at the women who were involved particularly in the first wave and this is really where there's a lot of confusion people tend to think the first wave was good was just about voting and helping women and then the the real problem problems came about in the second wave. And that's what I lay out in the book is absolutely the problems were in the first wave largely because of the fact that that the f those early feminist women compared themselves and compared the plight of women that they articulated to that of slaves. And you know there's there's obviously a real audacity in that to begin with these are like the wealthiest women in in the their societies and they're comparing themselves to bought and sold slaves. We're kind of doing the same thing today with the Yeah and I go into that in my book The End of Woman actually that the these these um cycles that we've gone through throughout the the centuries. But the important thing to know is that these women were all Unitarians which is really important because a Unitarian does not believe in the divinity of Christ. It doesn't believe in the Trinity you know most of us are familiar with Thomas Jefferson and deism that you know the God is the the watchmaker and then just lets things go. That's that's kind of a similar idea. In light of that Mary Wollstonecraft is one of you know the foundress of feminism so to speak she had this belief in a Unitarian God and she thought that any kind of male intermediary between a woman and God was actually a stifling of her potential. So even Jesus is actually an obstacle to a woman's capacity to be able to relate and be in touch with God. And this idea gets you know swirled throughout the the 1800s but in more than that they go further and they actually are trying to um demolish Christianity because they believe that Christianity is a tool that men have used to enslave women because they they don't have a proper appreciation for femininity the gifts that women have they may have still appreciated maternity to a degree but it doesn't take very long for that to get washed out of the ideology. So I think these are really important things. You know Katie Stanton and and Anthony had a newspaper called The Revolution. This was not some sort of like nice Christian lady organization.
SPEAKER_01:Another woman that they worked with that nobody I think you said that she was an agnostic, right? Susan B. Anthony Susan B.
SPEAKER_00:Anthony ends up becoming an agnostic or an atheist it's it's um unclear there was uh three um days of burning of her notes by one of her biographers. So we've we don't have a lot of of Anthony's work. But there's another woman who's really fascinating named Matilda Gage who worked with Anthony and Katie Stanton and she was deeply into witchcraft. And uh she taught her daughter and son-in-law about witchcraft and she did seances with them and gave them books. Theosophy was another you know major um occult element that they were involved in. And after she died her son-in-law writes a novel and that novel is um the Wizard of Oz he um L. Frank Baum and so if you look at the Wizard of Oz you can see all of these elements of of the occult. You see the the good witch and the bad witch and then you see this wizard. Well who's the wizard supposed to be he's supposed to be the the patriarch um you know this idea of let's expose men for the weakness that they are behind the curtain. There's no real power there. You know, all of that is is stemming from this movement. So it's really amazing when you start looking at the the specifics of it and really seeing you know these were not good, healthy ordered Christian women that that wanted what we want today as Catholic women. These are women who really were trying to radically transform culture. And Katie Stanton was very much she would work with whoever she could to gain popularity. She joined forces with the temperance movement who was they were very Christian women and that's why we've never heard of Matilda Gage because Matilda Gage said I'm not joining those women um because she was a witch. Quite a few of them were wild yeah there's another woman that that Katie Santon worked with who was called Mrs. Satan by the press. She was a um fascinating woman Victoria Woodhull was her name and she had the first brokerage firm in um New York City because she had the capacity to consult spirits about what should be bought and sold and that's how she was successful. So it's it's it's just this wild story that I think we have this impression of the 1800s are very pristine and Victorian. But then when you look at the reality you see like it was kind of a disaster just you know in terms of what was happening on on all these spiritual levels um culturally the corruption was horrible. So anyway, yeah I I think that we need to go back and think about feminism in a very different way than kind of these tidy boxes we've been told.
SPEAKER_01:You bring us back in the book at some point to you know Genesis. This all goes back to Genesis three, right? And uh you know we we we walk away from God or turn our backs on God and we put loincloths on, right, Kiri and and we didn't put loincloth on our eyes or ears right we put them on our our sexual parts and you see this you know you get rid of of of God the sense of God and you get rid of the sense of who we are to one another this this continues to play out doesn't it and and I and I'm wondering just like Adam was in the garden he should have been there to to protect Eve right he should he should have been there and and and and you wonder if he was would this have happened and I wonder it in with these early feminists certainly the young women that we're meeting today and I'm not trying to make a a connection here but I'm asking you we see so much hurt so much brokenness so many poor relationships uh sometimes dysfunctional families uh how much of that was brought on do you think carry and I uh you know by by men that that weren't also weren't Christians or or didn't live up to you know what they proclaimed and and and demeaned uh women or or or looked at them and and and I'm generalizing here But a lot of this hurt, and I don't want to put the blame anywhere because this is just all over, right? I mean, right at this point. Um But these young guys are asking. I want to stand up. They're starting to see the light. They're starting to say, Wow, I have to really respect uh the girl that I'm going out with, right? I have to see her not as an object to use, but as someone to love, right? They grew up in a pornographic culture here, uh, which is very difficult for these young guys, but they're trying, right? Now, how many of these women, these young women, were just hurt? You know, if I'm speaking to 300 uh young people today, you know, and I'll ask them, I said, how many of you grew up with both biological parents? It it'll be less than half, Carrie. It'll be less than half. A lot of and a lot of divorce, a lot of children out of wedlock. And and so now I I go back to your earlier states of uh of your book where where women said, you know, no, I have to be free of this. You know, I I'm how much of this was happening, do you think? You know, do you do you do you have a Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I I think that's a great question. Um I want to say two things about it uh specifically. The first one is that the the reason feminism got started was for this purpose, to try to protect women. But rather than saying, you know, we need to shore up men and teach men to be better per se, the idea was how do we get women away from them and sort of bubble wrap them, um, away from the vulnerability that's created by the family, by having children, by our fertility. Um, that as the movement moved forward, that that's really what happened. And um, so I it's it's amazing to look back and say, the same issues that the early feminists were fighting for are still alive, like no one's fixed them. We've actually just like poured gasoline on them and let a match because of the fact that what we've allowed to happen is this idea, use the word of use. Um, we've made people disposable and we've made them objects instead of subjects. Um, we've ignored the the dignity. And all of that stems from really this important role that I think motherhood plays. Um and this is not to say that men aren't important, but to see just dramatic how dramatically the culture changed when what happened in the 60s. Women changed their behavior when it came to sexuality. That was the that was the big change that happened with the sexual revolution. It had all these ripple effects for men, um, you know, denigrating everybody through promiscuity. But also what was lost through all of that was this idea and the notion of what motherhood is. Uh, you know, we haven't said anything good about motherhood in 50 years. And so you can really see why this is targeted. In fact, um, Sue Alan Browder, I'm sure you saw her book, Subverted, where she talks about her life as a Cosmo writer um before her conversion. And she she talks about how she was allowed to make up any story she wanted to for Cosmopolitan magazine, as long as the woman was not a virgin or a mother. Well, who's the virgin mother? You know, it's our lady. Like this is what's really trying to be erased, are all these incredible gifts that women have and bring to the family that allow their children, children to be mentally healthy, to be safe, to be cared for, to be protected from sexual predation. All of these kinds of things have really exploded because the the family has been so broken up and because we've been promoting this idea of autonomy so dramatically. Um so yeah, it's it's really ironic, you know, if you you can see how much this movement has been trying to fix something, um, but it doesn't have the capacity to fix it. It's only made itself worse. And, you know, there's always that continued cry, like, we just need more feminism. And, you know, the amazing thing being like, well, where's where are we lacking equality at this point? You know, at this point, women are protected in a privileged class. Um, and I think this is one of the reasons why you don't see a lot of more, a lot more women engaged in questioning it, because we get a lot of privileges because we are are women. And um, you know, nobody wants to turn those those kinds of things down. So in any event, I I think it's important.
SPEAKER_01:I I think what you what you said earlier was so important. You know, let's let's look at the fruits of this thing, you know, in their lives. So I'm speaking to to women a lot in in the work that I do, and I'm privileged to do that. And meeting uh women that came back into the church later on in life, many of them had no children though, or one child. Uh I just met a woman um that had one child, one one daughter, but then her daughter never had a child, so now she's in her late 70s, early eighties, and has no grandchildren, no nobody living by her. Her husband uh uh either divorced her, I I I think, or he's out of her life now. But anyways, um so now she's alone, you know. And she's a wonderful woman coming back into this heart of Christ, and you can see this, but but the the the importance of getting this down to young women too, yes, uh, is to say, hey, you still have time and that's huge. I think to look at the fruits of this.
SPEAKER_00:Exactly. I think that's what's really important because younger women are not thinking, where's what am I what's my life gonna look like at 70 and 80 when they're in their 20s?
SPEAKER_01:That biological clock ticks quickly, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00:It it absolutely does. And I think that that's a just such a key issue is we have to help young young women realize how important these years are and that you know, the fact that career is taking precedent over all of these things. And, you know, the new thing now is to get your eggs frozen while you're in law school and graduate school. You know, I mean, it's really horrible what what we're putting on young women. Meanwhile, you know, then you have these older women who are just living with this incredible amount of regret because nobody told them this is really where the feminist ideal will lead you. It will lead you to isolation because it doesn't prioritize family, it doesn't prioritize relationships, it doesn't prioritize children. And it's it's leading you directly to this. And I think that's you know, the saddest part is that nobody's telling these women, you know, but they're so focused on jobs and career and being able to travel and you know, all the freedom you can just go to bed whenever you want and get up when you want, you know, all those things that are are really hard when you become a parent. Um, and yet then you see the fruit of it exactly as you said, just these, you know, tragic women who their lives turn out in a way that there's no there's no going back. This is not what they intended. And of course we know Christ is going to use that and and you know, their lives are not devoid of of meaning and purpose. But you just, you know, it's a real tragedy to have blown by that because of an ideology that, you know, nobody's pointing out and saying, this is a real problem, and we want you to have a fuller, better, more beautiful, and compelling life that you're gonna look back on and have this incredible um legacy to show, no matter what it is. If it's a spiritual matern um maternity, if it's a kind of um, you know, you mentor others, you teach others, you are a biological mother. Like I think that's the bigger problem we have too, is we haven't expanded out motherhood into all of the ways in which women are called to mother up mother others. And we've just made it this the biological piece instead of a real attribute that women have and need to be sharing constantly, you know, wherever they are in their life.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's a great point. You know, two two two things I want to uh touch on. One is is the difference between um uh is it uh uh Woolstonecraft and and Hannah Moore, because I you know they come from they're they're kind of they're contemporaries, right? But it shows one way to live this out, and it's gonna get into to a bridgeway into you you wrote a piece from John Paul II, uh Mulieris uh Dignitum, you know, the dignity of of women, and somehow John Paul got this and and and you know, f uh familiaris, uh consortio, uh a letter of the families, etc. He expresses all this. I mean, I I bring these things up and it's in your it's in your book. But he would say, you know, that this radical gift of of women is for relationships, you know, and it's this radical relational thing. When I started to, when I heard that for the first time many years ago now, I started to look at my wife and my daughters. I have I I have two two daughters along with uh with with my son and eight grandchildren, by the way. And that's really what I'm worried about. I'm thinking about your book, I'm thinking about our work, and I want to make sure we bring this down to these young people because they're dating now and all this kind of stuff, right? And and so uh this radical relationship, and I and the point I was gonna make is my wife connects everything all the time. You know, our our our our relation, my relationships with my kids and my grandkids, this comes through my wife. She's always keeping us connected, right? When you take that away, we lose the fabric of the whole culture and a whole nation and the whole world, don't we?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. No, that's exactly right. And I think, you know, Europe in particular is really suffering from this. This incredible amounts of of loneliness. I when I was there recently, there was an ad for an a grocery store that now is uh providing a line for older people who want to have a conversation with the clerk on the way out, because that's the only person that they're going to talk to likely throughout the day, is the grocer, um, the you know, the clerk that's checking them out at the grocery store. So I think that's exactly right. As women, we're this is what we do is we provide cultural glue. We we're the ones that are checking on people and making sure they're okay and providing meals where we can or taking care of children when parents need a a break or looking out for the elderly. And and that has absolutely um been lost because we've we've prioritized productivity, work, income, you know, again, this ideal of female autonomy that doesn't need these other things. And yet that, you know, how much joy is there when you really are able to help somebody in a situation like that, where you're able to love somebody back to a place through through the gifts that God has given you, uh, you know, wellness or wholeness or um or even accompanying them through a very difficult time. I think those are all things that, you know, the the church has done an amazing job through the witness of the saints in pointing out. And so it just feels like a s an incredible uh, you know, sleight of hand to suddenly say, okay, Catholic women, you need to start listening to Mary Wollstonecraft. When you we have, you know, all these amazing women who have have through their either their witness or their writing talked about something deep and beautiful, just like you were ex, you know, expressing with Moulier's dignitatum by John Paul II. Getting back to that essence of womanhood and the ways in which God uses it to restore and heal and build culture instead of trying, you know, going back to some place that has only led to the destruction of culture and the destruction of woman.
SPEAKER_01:You say something else that's so beautiful in there in your book. It's the beauty of the mystery. You know, when I'm talking to young guys, I I remind them of that. You know, unfortunately, uh so many of their um their innocence has been stolen so early through this pornographic culture. Right that again, sometimes we have to work with them to get this out. But we I try to bring it back to a point, uh Carrie, where I say, you know, the first time when you're a young guy and you saw you saw the the girl, right? I said, you know, it's she's not you're you're you're not enamored just with body parts. You're attracted to her, but there's something that moves deeper, isn't it? And and it's it's the mystery. It's the mystery of the woman, right? It's it you're drawn by her body, as John Paul would say, you know, uh love is attraction, love is desire. But you're drawn into that, and we have to stop for a minute and just pull back and say, Oh, yeah, this is much deeper than body parts. I, you know, I sometimes I'll get weird with them. I'll say, you know, let's just say take her top coat of skin off. I mean, she's got muscles and nerves and black. I said, is that what you're looking for? Body parts? I said, no, the body parts bring out the the beauty, but the beauty is the heart, right? The mystery that's in there. This is the mystery reflecting a mystery, the beauty and mystery of God Himself. And if you if you if you get that, guys, if you get that, you're gonna start to see women and see the mystery, the awe and wonder of all God's creation in a in a fantastic way. But but a woman that's open to this, that has a heart for that, these guys are are are starting to understand, wow. Yeah, I want to meet her. I want to talk to her, I want to hear what she has to say. I I want to see what's into her heart. You know, I want to look into her eyes and see into her heart. Right. This is so beautiful, isn't it, Carrie? It's so beautiful.
SPEAKER_00:No, I I think you're you're hitting the nail on the head in terms of that idea of you know men wanting to be elevated by the beauty of a a woman instead of denigrated by it. I mean, this is what we've done things long.
SPEAKER_01:This is what fires us up. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um yeah. And I I think that is something that young women aren't hearing because we are being told that you have to sort of fit into this model that's um overly sexualized or overly um career, careerized for lack of a better word, um, and told that those are are the things that that make us attractive. Instead of really understanding that and and this was something that I had to go through in my own life was just really understanding that, you know, being bitter and ambitious and um self-absorbed are not compelling qualities in a woman, that that those are actually going to repel people from you. Um, instead of really um those things that I I knew came naturally to me and come to so naturally to other women, but that I had really stifled. You know, what happens when you start caring for people, not in a creepy way, but in a way that that you're you're dialed into who they are and what their needs are in a healthy, you know, ordered way. Um and that's really I think something that we have have lost because we've over-sexualized the the visual instead of really saying, well, where's where's that beauty that we actually want? And you know, this is one of the fun things about the first book that I wrote, The Anti-Mary Exposed, was really going into that idea of a woman's beauty, because nobody has ever described the Virgin Mary as anything but the most breathtaking, beautiful woman you've ever seen. Um, hands down, every apparition actually was in the Marion Op um, yeah, the Marion Option book that I wrote. Every single apparition said she was the most beautiful woman. Um St. Therese said you would want to die just so that you could see her again. Um, and there's something, you know, this isn't just like you said, physical attraction. This is there's something deeper, and it's this reflection of the beauty of God. And and so that has to be the real question of what is sacred beauty and what is it, how is it that we cultivate that in our own lives? And and much of that has to do with just being, you know, honest, loyal, thoughtful, caring, compassionate, you know, these basic things that I think women um were taught on a lot of level instead of like digging into that idea of of being envious of everyone around us or competitive or competing, you know, we have to get rid of that um as a kind of a default in young women and get back to what it is that I think people are really drawn to. And and that's really where we're gonna find flourishing in terms of relationships and family and certainly the church um and culture beyond.
SPEAKER_01:That's so important what you said. You know, when I'm thinking as you were speaking there, how many women want to be men? And if if you in look at what we got the trans culture and all this crazy way, you know, this is all more from all these things that we're talking about. You know, when I think about the these, you know, these the radical feminists, at least I call them that just so I can get past the the people maybe in a short conversation or questioning, isn't this good, you know, and Susan B. Anthony in the beginning, blah, blah, blah. So I'll just say radical feminism, which it's it's all kind of been radicalized now. Um But at the end of the day, uh if they could only understand that, you know, we're called to be a gift, right? To a gift to one another. Uh, you know, John Paul would say to young people, young people, you know that your life has meaning to the extent that it it becomes a gift to uh to others. Uh but to be want to be a man, I mean, I I I don't, you know, it's it's it's insane, you know. Um I mean, if if my life is a woman just wants to be a man because I I see power, uh freedom, control, whatever that is, uh that's still not gonna lead you where you where you want to go. You uh why why would they model men? Is it because of the power or or or yeah, you were dominant before, now I can be dominant.
SPEAKER_00:Feminism fundamentally is about power and control. Uh and I think you if you you know anybody pays any attention to it, you can s you can see that. And part of it is because you have all these broken women that that led it. Um and this is, you know, you mentioned Hannah Moore as a contrast to Mary Wollstonecraft. She was an Anglican woman, contemporary of Wollstonecraft, actually much better known than Wollstonecraft. And she said, well, why would you want to be a a fake imitation of a man instead of authentically a woman? Yes.
SPEAKER_01:Um and I, you know, all my whole triad that everything I just said, you just summed it up right there.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah. So but this is what's happened, though, is that what was trying to be created through all of these um ideological for ideological purposes and by ideologues was getting rid of womanhood, because that's really the woman is heart of the family. If you can get a woman, you can destroy the whole family. This is, you know, this is very intentional. This was not just an accident. Um and this is why our you know our Mores uh uh look actually much more like early socialism, I'm sorry, early communism in the Soviet Union and like the 18, 1920s than anything else, because this is what they were going for was the destruction of the family. So that said, it all that's happening. You can walk through the movement. This is what I do in my book, The End of Woman, and see what is it they're slowly taking away from womanhood. Um first of all, it's any kind of importance of the the maternal and mother. Um, first of all, it's it to take away the home. Um, and this home completely lost any of its grasp and power and and the beauty of it with the Industrial Revolution because everybody, everything that happened in the home suddenly was happening outside the home. So immediately children become a liability instead of an asset because somebody has to take care of the children in the home. Then you take away the idea of marriage and children of family. Um, and we can see this um uh obviously unfolding. Margaret Sanger is very instrumental in this in terms of curtailing women's fertility and the pill. Then you're actually taking away, you know, you keep moving forward, you're taking away that the a woman's actual body um through the trans movement. Um so it's really this effort to erase and eliminate the the beauty and the goodness that women have the capacity to bring into the world. It's been very, you know, it's plotted through all through history. You can see it, um, the the last century in particular. Um so yeah, I think these are things that we we've got to be aware of the way in which we're being manipulated, but we also need to start focusing on well, what are we missing? Um, what what do we put back into the culture as women? And um what are those gifts that we we talk about? And so I'm all for, you know, spending women, especially in the church, spending more time doing things like theology of home. You know, our books um sold so well, partially because we're helping provide a model for women to see what ordered womanhood looks like. Um, instead of, you know, the culture has set up this kind of dichotomy of either you're a savvy career woman, you know, the girl boss, or you're just a doormat. And, you know, gratefully we're breaking through that to a certain degree. But there's a healthier middle that we're not really talking about that I think is actually much more compelling and that, you know, most women would identify with if they actually could see a model of it. So I think that's one of the ways in which we can help young women. Um, certainly my blog, Theology of Home, I I've got, you know, uh eight articles go out every morning to women to try to help women think about things in a way that's that's healthy and ordered.
SPEAKER_01:Wait, you said how many articles?
SPEAKER_00:Eight. Um, aggregate content from all over that I think Catholic women would be interesting.
SPEAKER_01:Oh so theology of the home.com, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So that's the um Is that where those is that where these articles are going? So there's theologyofhome.com will get you there, but you can also go to theologyofhome.substack.com.
SPEAKER_01:Um for make sure I'll get those links right and get them in the show notes because what you said is so important, you know, what we try to do. Uh huh. Go a go ahead.
SPEAKER_00:I just want to say you we often think of these things as fluff or not important, but this is how the culture was destroyed through fluff, through Cosmo magazine, through Through Vogue, through um Glamour, all all these different magazines and media shows, the Oprah Winfrey show. Um, you know, this is what has undermined us as uh culture and as women. And so we've got to start taking it seriously and really helping women you know absorb these things in a healthy way, in a way that they want to get them, not in, you know, necessarily through a book that they have to trudge through. They may not want to read. Why don't why can't we make it a little bit more fun and like visual candy or you know, things that are are going to be absorbed easily and in a way that's actually really feels really life-giving to women, I think because that's those are important things.
SPEAKER_01:They need to see a model, just like men. What we try to do with this apostolate is model something. They had to see that image. And and the only way these young women are gonna get that is if women like you and and and the generation that be came before them, and maybe even two generations up, start saying, be honest and start to say, hey, I I I understand where you're coming from. I did this already. Let me just share with you, let's talk together with the hope, uh, Carrie, that that they it touches their heart again to to to give women there's so much over their hearts right now. Yes, right. What you're trying to do is just saying, hey, how do we open up their heart? The only way to do that is an encounter with Christ, but that encounter is going to come through you. You know, we we forget this. We forget that it's our example in life that attracts these young people. When I'm speaking to men that are out there talking about Claymore, I'll say the most important thing you can do is is witness. You be the witness. How do you encounter your heart? How do you encounter Christ? Be the witness. Well, women need that. What you're expressing right now is so important because it's these it's these little things. If it's bantering, though. How how do we get them connected then in uh Carrie? In other words, we go to your your website, we start to look at the things that you're doing, then I have to share this with women live. So do I bring this into my home, my parish? How do I connect the dots? How do I do connect from what you're doing and start to build relationships in my life so that I can share it? Because that's where that's where all of a sudden I my heart starts to soften, right? You know, Jesus called it the hardness of heart now it softens. And I and I'm given you're almost giving me a permission to sit with my heart, which is gonna ache. You know, and maybe that's why we don't want to do it.
SPEAKER_00:Um no, I think that's such a great point. And this is one of the things I've seen in response to my books is that people begin to realize, particularly men, the compassion that we need to have to women. Because most women have not chosen this path. This has been foisted upon us, and no other alternative or model has really been made available to us. So um I actually have a book right here. I'll just show you, show the cover um because I think it's important. Um so this is the the third book, and this whole cover actually has a whole deep meaning.
SPEAKER_01:Wait, wait, wait. Is that the one that you just wrote? Yeah, this is the one that's and I'll and I'll make sure that I put that up behind us too in in an image. Yes.
SPEAKER_00:In any event, that the point being that um I I intentionally chose a cover that I wanted to be peaceful and elicit a sense of order and beauty. Um and my other covers have been a little bit edgier. But I think you know, there's there's we need to give good material to people. And I wanted it to be a cover where people didn't feel like, oh, I can't give this to somebody. Um, you know, this isn't gonna be a good gift for somebody. Um so I think I mean Wicked is on the cover, right?
SPEAKER_01:So it you have to have a good image with it, you know, right? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, no, it's true. But I think the visual counters significantly, you know, versus like uh eating an apple or something. You know, there were a lot of different options that we could have gone in, and I think this was, you know, intentionally um trying to communicate something. But I think that's really an important piece is not being afraid to um communicate some of these deep truths, either in the role of our lives or um, you know, materials that we give people. I I think that there's um there's a lot of different ways that we can do that. Um one of the most important things that we need to do, though, is really try to deal with the this idea of cult um misplaced compassion that most young women have, the sense of, I want to go change the world. Not really realizing that, you know, like Mother Teresa said, if you want to go change the world, go home and love your family. Um, just how important that idea is of the local, because that's really where 100% you can start actually making change on the local instead of you know helping people halfway around the the world. Like we ha God is always gonna start with the small things and train us in that and then go to the big things. Like we can convert that um significantly. So there's some, you know, basic points of things that we can do to help women really start getting this right. Um, and and a lot of that has to do with just obviously crying trying to create as many materials as we can for women to be able to absorb this, but it's also in you know, very practical things in terms of helping them order their desires and see clearly that what they've been fed is not life-giving and not gonna lead them to where they want to go.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Oh my gosh, that's so beautiful. We gotta read more. So, so give us where where can we buy this book and and and your other books too. I you know, theology. I mean, I I I want to get that one too.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you've got to get it.
SPEAKER_01:It's because if we don't study both sides, right? And this is what theology of the body obviously does, right? And you're well aware of that. You know, it's it's not a man's book, it's not a woman's book, right? It's this beautiful reflection of Trinitarian love. And I and that's probably why those early feminists wanted to get rid of the Trinity, you know. I mean, because when you get rid of the Trinity, you don't understand that ebb and flow of the self-giving love and the fruit that comes out of that, uh, which would be a child, you know, it is a reflection of the the Holy Spirit, you know, of the Father and the Son, you know, the love between the Father and the Son. And we take that out, we see what happened, right? So it's it's so beautiful. So, anyways, give us give us where where can we buy uh where can we buy it?
SPEAKER_00:The best places uh to get a copy is is um my own website, theologyofhome.com. If people want to sign copy or personalize to somebody, um I you can do it that way. Otherwise, Sophia Institute.com, um Sophia Press has it. Um Amazon, of course, has them as well.
SPEAKER_01:So we're uh your site's the the the the the one we'd like people to visit. So we'll go to your site.
SPEAKER_00:I agree, but uh yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And you're gonna send me the Substack uh link, so I I make sure I get that right. Hey, God bless you. You're you you know, any any parting words, Kerry, you're really a blessing. Keep up the good work. Uh we really need this, and we need to get this down to young people. And if we don't do it quick, we won't have a civilization to worry about. And and you know, if these young women will just start to open their hearts a little bit when they meet a young guy that's not pushing himself on them and and just explore each other, right? And and and and this this bad word, I know it's a terrible word called chastity, which would which would protects them from being hurt and being used. They they they have to understand that, right? They they have to allow you know their love or their at least their relationship or their getting to know one another flourish without without sexualizing it, because and you know, I I just learn this more every day, the damage that that that this does. It's it's sacred. I I this is kind of heavy to go out this way, probably, Carrie, but it's sacred. It's so beautiful, it's so sacred. They need to understand this. They'll at least keep themselves from being drastically hurt uh while they're figuring the rest out, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. No, I think all of that is hugely, hugely important. I will say uh on a more positive note, I you know, I take great hope in what I'm seeing, particularly in young men. I'm also hearing from a lot of young women who just want, you know, nothing to do with feminism. They may still be indoctrinated in it in terms of their their life, but they're not committed to it as an ideology. And I think the these are signs of incredible hope um across the board. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_01:So you're seeing it too in in in women because that's in smaller ways.
SPEAKER_00:In smaller ways, Gen Z.
SPEAKER_01:Gen Z?
SPEAKER_00:Is that where you're it's it's definitely happening. Um certainly much more than than their elders. So I I think it's heartening. I think this is we're gonna see a big change. And I I'm even seeing it among women you know my age or or younger who are try are trying to really dig into this and find the truth of it. And I I think that's very, very hopeful because that these are the things that are gonna change the tide on a on a national and popular level. And and I think that's coming.
SPEAKER_01:Carrie Gress, uh, your pleasure. Thank you so much. Thanks for being with us. Thanks everyone. Thanks for joining us today. Talk to you again soon. Bye bye.