Here’s the Rub

When we speak of women’s (and non-binary gender’s) roles in the Church and world, we, more often than not, receive quite marvelous reflections like this one from Robancy A. Helen, a member of the Idente Missionaries, in her article “Women Everywhere Live Out Mission of Caring for Others” in the May 10, 2022, Global Sisters Report:

Womanhood is a gift to humanity. Women of the world give life to others with love, sacrifice and commitment, no matter where they live and what they do. They are an embodiment of God’s love for others. We cannot but be grateful to women for what they do and what they are for humanity in society, despite the many challenges they face all over the world in their different social, economic, religious, cultural and political contexts.

We love to hear words like hers. She goes on to say:

Thinking and reflecting on the role and responsibility of women, I was reminded of how nuns/religious women — who have offered themselves to God — should cherish our sacred calling for the people we serve around the world with our distinctive ministries. It would not be wrong to say that we have given our lifetime to God and Church, as married women give their time and service 24/7 to their families. Likewise, we nuns dedicate our lives fully for the sake of God’s glory and in service to humanity.

We deeply appreciate the tribute these words bestow upon us and how they remind the world of the often overlooked and underappreciated gifts of women. She ends with:

If our dedication is for those who are in need — children, youth, women, elderly, differently-abled, orphans, the poor, and the marginalized — we will be as happy as Mother Mary when she met Elizabeth (Luke 1:39-45).

So, thank you, Robancy Helen, for honoring us.

Yet, something about these passages bothers me – and maybe you. And so, still from Global Sisters Report, here is another point of view:

Women are taught that in order to be good, to be fulfilled, they need to be “good” in relation to others. They need to be good mothers, good daughters and good co-workers. In order to have these roles, we must serve others sometimes before ourselves. We’re taught to fill up others’ cups before our own. And culturally, the patriarchy is set up this way. (Emphasis mine)

Caileigh Pattisall, a Good Shepherd Volunteer serving New York City, wrote these words in her article “Thinking Existentially at the ‘Gates of Hope’” on April 6, 2022. She had been listening to an episode called “Overwhelm” in the podcast “We Can Do Hard Things” with Glennon Doyle in which Doyle was discussing “gender expectations and the weight of the invisible load that caretaking can hold” which in turn led to “a deeper conversation about gendered socialization”. She quotes Doyle:

“[These systems of oppression are] ridiculously connected, because if you’re going to overtax women of their time, of their money, of their energy, of all of it, then in order to make it sustainable in a patriarchy, what you have to do is hold up the ideal of a woman as that [of] a woman who is serving constantly to the extent that she has no self,” Doyle says in “Overwhelm.” “How do we make that desirable? ‘Oh, I know, we will create this idea that the epitome of womanhood is this selfless woman.’ ” (Emphasis mine)

Caileigh Pattisall is determined to define and defy this particular trap set for us by a patriarchal world and certainly by a patriarchal Church:

The idea of success through this paradox is for women to serve others so much that they lose themselves in the service of others.  I want to strive to be in service to others, but I do want to know the context, the game I’m playing. I don’t want to uphold the expectation that women are meant to lose themselves in their relationships with others…. I want to show up to these roles as fully myself, not someone who’s lost inside a role they think they’re supposed to be playing. (Emphasis mine again)

Finally, she defined for herself and for us what it means to truly “plant ourselves at the Gates of Hope”. She had heard the phrase from a psychiatrist who had just lost a patient to suicide. Although personally devastated, the doctor told her, “You know I cannot save them. I am not here to save anybody or to save the world. All I can do — what I am called to do — is to plant myself at the gates of Hope. Sometimes they come in; sometimes they walk by. But I stand there every day and I call out till my lungs are sore with calling, and beckon and urge them in toward beautiful life and love.”

“Planting ourselves at the Gates of Hope,” however we define it – and it is we who define it – is a role for us all equally, inclusively, profoundly, and honorably.