The Church, the Age of Faith, and Woman

“Contrary to popular belief, the decline of women’s rights in history has always corresponded to a retreat of the Church within Western societies, especially from the Renaissance onwards, for the Church has been the most zealous advocate of women in history,” Solène Tadié at National Catholic Register writes — Why Feminists Should Celebrate the Middle Ages (and the Catholic Church).

Citing at length a scholar who “masterfully demonstrates that women reached their zenith in feudal times (between the 10th and 13th centuries)” and “that the cause of women was inseparable from the defense of the Middle Ages,” she writes:

While the women’s liberation movements that ensued in the 19th and 20th centuries are not illegitimate according to the historian, she already noted 40 years ago the “suicidal tendency” of many of them. According to her, they encouraged women to “deny themselves, to be satisfied with copying their partner’s behavior, seeking to reproduce it as a kind of ideal, perfect model, denying themselves any originality from the outset.”

“Why don’t we women invent our own solutions, as other women did in their time? Don’t we have anything original to offer the world, for example, in the face of today’s serious shortcomings?” she wrote. She goes on to conclude that “we can only assert ourselves by creating” and that “it is difference that is creative.” These were prophetic words indeed, a few decades before the emergence of ideological movements whose vocation is the pure and simple negation of the essence of beings.