Latest / The Lila Rose Show / E50: Toxic Femininity vs True Femininity

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E50: Toxic Femininity vs True Femininity · The Lila Rose Show

0:00
Taylor Swift's global tour is approaching $2.2 billion in
0:05
North American ticket sales alone.
0:07
Meanwhile, women are flocking to the movie theater to see Barbie,
0:11
which has passed $1 billion at the box office.
0:16
Some are saying that Taylor Swift's tour may be the highest
0:19
grossing, most lucrative tour of all time.
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I think there's a deep hunger for the representation of the
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feminine. The color pink, the feminine
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experience, the love songs that Taylor sings about her ex or her
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dream man. All of this is part of the
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feminine experience. Could it be that in a world that
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is pushing women to be more like men while at the same time often
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denigrating men, there exists a deep hunger for the feminine?
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But is femininity the color pink or what is true femininity?
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Of course I would argue femininity can include the color
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pink, but it is so much more. In this episode of the Lila Rose
1:00
podcast, we're going to talk about true femininity and
1:03
representations of it in media versus toxic femininity and
1:07
representations of that in media.
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2:04
The big question that hit the world last year with Matt
2:07
Walsh's film from the Daily Wire was What is a woman?
2:11
I think that question can be answered very simply by saying
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it's a biological adult female, but there's so much more to
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being a woman than simply being an existing as a biological
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adult female. The way to live out one's
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femininity involves so much. And So what does that look like?
2:28
What is true femininity look like?
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And then what are all the sort of false models that are out
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there today in femininity? Recently, as an example, Lizzo,
2:37
the pop singer, has been accused of the sexual harassment of her
2:42
staff. She's somebody who is very much
2:45
on the pro body positivity train.
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She is someone who's very publicly, very overweight.
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She's a very talented artist, but part of her persona is to
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celebrate being very overweight. And many people criticize both
2:58
the sexual harassment and her celebration of, of obesity as a
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problem. Meanwhile, we have a lot of
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women in media and culture today who are really selling the their
3:10
bodies. I mean, only fans is a
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mushrooming business with millions of people on it, many
3:17
of them women who are selling their bodies.
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You know, the Kardashian empire in no small part is built on
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selling a very hyper sexual version of femininity, sexual
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sexuality and basically selling, you could argue immodesty.
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OK, are there positive representations of media, of
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women in media today? What are they?
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How do we wade through the bad and celebrate the good?
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So what I'm going to do is break down how I see true femininity
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versus toxic femininity. This also matters a lot right
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now because there's so much conversation about toxic
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masculinity. You've probably heard this.
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I just did a podcast episode with Nancy Pearcey, the author,
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author and professor, who talked about her book The Toxic War on
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Masculinity. And that's really a common
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phrase in culture today, toxic masculinity.
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And it is usually referencing that man who's that Uber alpha
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male who's all about himself, all about his power, who really
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doesn't care about other people. It's as machismo attitude and
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people denigrate that and it's understandable why because you
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ask your average man and Nancy mentioned this in the last
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podcast. You know what, what is that
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funeral? If you're at a funeral as a man
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and you're celebrating a great man, What is he celebrated for?
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Well, typically he's celebrated for his honor, for his
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integrity, for his service of his family, for his hard work to
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provide and protect. That's how how we understand
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across cultures are really great and noble man.
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So the toxic man, as our culture calls him, or the toxic
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masculinity as our culture calls it, is actually a not a real
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masculinity. It's a false version of it.
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And true masculinity is about providing and protecting and
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caring for the being strong for one's loved ones.
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OK, So what does that have to do then with femininity?
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Is there a toxic femininity that is the kind of partner or the
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enemy, you would even say of the toxic masculine?
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We don't talk about that that much in today's culture because
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I think women in some ways are infantilized today.
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Women are seen as the kind of perpetual victim.
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It's hard to see the woman as in any time the villain.
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There's a lot of, I think, passes that women get for
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behavior in our culture and men maybe are held to a higher
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standard people. Some people blame feminism for
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this to say that we overcorrected the inequalities
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between men and women to now make it more in unequal for men.
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Other people say, well, it's because we pushed women into
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men's places saying that that's where they belong.
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They need to work like a man, act like a man, and they weren't
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actually working or acting like men.
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They were acting and working like the worst men, meaning the
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promiscuous man. Well, I'm going to be a
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promiscuous like a dude. Well, that's not even being like
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a true man because true men are faithful and loyal.
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You're just being like a extra bad man and a bad woman.
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So all of these conversations are happening, which I think is
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good, but I wanted to break down what I see as the toxic feminine
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because I do think it exists today and the toxic feminine
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today. The first reality of the toxic
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feminine today, in my opinion, has to do with people call it
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narcissism. And that could be kind of a
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clinical personality disorder name you could give it.
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But the attitude that it's all about me, it's all about me.
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So the toxic feminine is obsessed with oneself to the
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point of not acknowledging, valuing or caring for other
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people. So the toxic feminine is, it's
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always not my fault. It's always other people's
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fault. I'm always the victim.
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I'm not going to take responsibility.
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It's a hyper obsession with one's own physicality, one's own
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beauty or one's own career or one's own anything.
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And it is so self focused and self absorbed that it doesn't
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make space for love ultimately, because love is about willing
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the good for other people and ultimately receiving good from
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God and other people. You can't do that if you're
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totally obsessed with yourself. And fortunately, a lot in our
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society is encouraging women to be obsessed with themselves, all
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about self actualization. I mean, the entire pro abortion
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movement today, as they call it, the women's rights movement,
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which is such a crazy misnomer to say that women's rights are
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to kill a baby, which include a lot of mini females in the womb,
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tiny females. But the whole idea of women's
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rights is your power to kill a person, a human life in you,
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your own child, son or daughter. Think about how crazy that is
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and how much that is toxic femininity to say that my power
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as a woman is to kill another woman or man, a boy or a girl in
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my womb. Michelle Williams received the
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Golden Globe. She's a very famous actor.
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And this was a couple years ago. And she went to the award
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ceremony clutching this golden idol, basically this golden
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trophy, thanking her right to choose the abortion that she had
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had years earlier in her career, thanking the death of her child
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for the success of her career. When you put this in someone's
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hands, you're acknowledging the choices that they make as an
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actor, moment by moment, scene by scene, day by day, but you're
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also acknowledging the choices they make as a person.
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I'm grateful for the acknowledgement of the choices
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I've made, and I'm also grateful to have lived at a moment in our
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society where choice exists because as women and as girls,
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things can happen to our bodies that are not our choice.
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I've tried my very best to live a life of my own making, and not
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just a series of events that happened to me, but one that I
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could stand back and look at and recognize my handwriting all
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over. Sometimes messy and scrawling,
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sometimes careful and precise, but one that I had carved with
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my own hand. And I wouldn't have been able to
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do this without employing a woman's right to choose.
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So sad. They're all cheering.
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They're cheering for an abortion, the death of a baby
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that she's celebrating and crediting with her.
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When to have my children and with whom?
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When I felt supported and able to balance our lives, knowing,
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as all mothers know, that the scales must and will tip towards
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our children. Now I know my choices might look
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different than yours, but thank God or whomever you pray to that
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we live in a country founded on the principle that I am free.
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It's. AI mean it's a it's completely
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picturesque, clutching that literally a golden trophy that's
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going to turn into dust, you know, in the future at some
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point. Like that does not have an
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eternal soul that has no, you know, human value as the reason
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she was glad that she killed her baby, that she exercised the
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right to choose as she said it. So that is, I think, a almost
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perfect to a tea depiction, a living story, a living parable
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of toxic femininity that I prize so much my career, my physical
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beauty, my success, that I would literally kill a child and thank
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the death of my child for some sort of worldly accolade like
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this golden calf, basically. So I mean, it's very dark stuff,
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right? And that is the excess of our
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culture today, that dark view of womanhood.
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That womanhood is about me, me, me, me, me, me.
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And it's at the cost of you, even if you are a small,
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vulnerable, dependent child. Okay, another bit of toxic
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femininity to put in there. People heavily criticized Amber
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Heard last year and the Amber Heard the Johnny Depp trial when
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she and he went to court to debate whether or not and to
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determine before a jury of their peers whether or not Amber Heard
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had unfairly slandered Johnny Depp and ruined his career.
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And ultimately, she was found guilty for misleading the public
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about their relationship because she claimed that she was
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completely the victim and he was this aggressor.
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But the facts were much more complex than that.
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It looked like they were both aggressors and maybe they were
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both victims at different points in the relationship.
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I found the whole trial very sad, quite frankly, and
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heartbreaking that the whole world was just glued to the
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screen watching this really train wreck of a relationship
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playing out. I mean, there have been broken
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parts of everyone's life and this time in their lives was put
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on full display for the whole world to see.
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It was completely tragic. But there were news articles
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afterwards talking about Amber Heard's behavior, saying is this
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the toxic feminine? So that kind of title started
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going in, sort of being used in media as something to apply to
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Amber's behavior because she ultimately, people said,
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manipulated Johnny Depp and was deceitful in how she behaved to
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try to paint him as the villain and her as the victim.
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Now, you could have probably argue the same things about
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Johnny Depp. So this isn't to say he's coming
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out smelling like roses. I think he was actually abusive
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too. But the reality here is she was
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living out very publicly, tragically.
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We all got to see it in the history of her behavior with
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Johnny, a very toxic femininity. So that femininity in that case
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was in many ways using her beauty and her really her
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personality, her charisma and charm to manipulate other
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people. And that's another trait of
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toxic femininity, where femininity which can be so
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beautiful and so inviting and can inspire people to greatness.
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Instead, the beauty of the feminine is used to manipulate,
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to inspire lust or to otherwise deceive or to control other
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people, using 1's sex appeal to control other people.
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Unfortunately, we see some very popular public figures, women
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doing this and they're doing it very overtly.
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An example, of course, would be the Kardashian empire.
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And again, I'm not judging anyone's hearts here because I
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do not know their hearts. But I can say that the
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representation of womanhood is often very crass.
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And by crass, I mean if you see the the female body is beautiful
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and it's something that should be celebrated and cherished.
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But when you're overtly using your sexuality to sell things,
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you know, your body parts to sell things, to inspire lust or
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greed or envy, that's where it crosses the line.
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And that's what pornography ultimately is.
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Pornography is not about respecting one's body and
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respecting other people's bodies.
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It's about hyper objectifying yourself to inspire lust in
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other people. And unfortunately, a lot of the
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Kardashian empire has used actual lust and scandal around
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sex in order to build their monetary empire.
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I mean, Kim Kardashian's career was launched with a sex tape,
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and so much of her persona online is hypersexual.
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I mean, there's these very infamous images of her
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hypersexualized in order to attract attention.
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That's not, I would say, true femininity.
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I think that's a toxic version of femininity and it's not a
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good role model for future generations.
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Now, again, I'm not trying to attack Kim Kardashian or any
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Kardashian personally here. I think that I'm sure they have
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good intentions and I think that they can be, they can be really
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good role models. But I think it's important to
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call out that part of toxic femininity today.
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Just like a man's toxic masculinity can be using one's
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power. Men at large are more physically
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powerful than women. Men's toxic masculinity can be,
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you know, rape and assault and attacking women and attacking
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those that are vulnerable, using your physicality to harm other
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people. A form of toxic femininity can
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also take its place in physical abuse.
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It's not like women can ever be physically abusive, but another
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form of toxic femininity can be using one's body to deceive, to
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manipulate, to seduce, to inspire lust.
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Now, I'll say one last thing is important nuance here.
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It is very possible for a woman to is very modestly closed to
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inspire lust if the man's a lustful man.
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So I'm not saying that men, women are responsible in that
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sense for a man's lust. I mean, it's a very important
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point. But I do think women are
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responsible for respecting their bodies and modesty to the point
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where they're not using their bodies to sexually exploit or
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sexually seduce other people. So that's just, it's an
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important distinction. I want to add there.
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OK, a few other qualities of toxic femininity.
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This stuff is kind of rough. So I'm looking forward to
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getting to what I see is true femininity and some positive
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remodels. But I guess we started with the
15:30
toxic because I was talking about toxic masculinity.
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So now we're talking toxic femininity.
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But a couple other things. So I just talked about toxic
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femininity, using beauty or sex to manipulate or control or
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inspire less, right? Another toxic version would be
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rejecting feminine beauty altogether.
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I think that's also a toxic femininity.
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So if you reject your femininity, you hate your body.
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You know, if you are at war with your body, you're not going to
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be able to live your feminine beauty and genius.
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Obviously, there's extreme cases of this with gender dysphoria
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where women actually or girls actually hate their bodies or
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are trained to hate their bodies.
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You know, we had a great interview with Chloe Cole about
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this. We talked to Doctor Marian
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Grossman about this play, The social Contagion of hitting
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young girls today who just hate their body going through
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puberty. And so they just want to destroy
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their female body and be boys. You know, they don't want their
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breasts. They don't want to go become
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curvier. They hate that about themselves.
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This is tragic. And I would say in this case,
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it's kind of a toxic femininity that is imposed on them by a
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emotional disorder or a mental health disorder that they're
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struggling with. And they need love, care and
16:41
support. But what happens in a society
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that weaponizes toxic femininity and tells girls, oh, you should
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be this way, you should hate your body, or if you believe
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you're born in the wrong body, then you must be and we will
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literally help you go to war with your body by having a
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double mastectomy. Like in the case of Chloe Call,
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the young girl had a double mastectomy at just age 16.
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Or in the case of countless other girls going through this.
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So toxic femininity also isn't just about exploiting one's
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feminine sexuality to control, control and to inspire less, but
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toxic femininity can also be about a rejection of ones
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feminine and a coldness towards ones own femininity.
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All right, a couple of other things that I think are
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important. I think toxic femininity also
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sees men as conquests and as enemies.
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So it's two things, one or one or the other conquest.
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I'm going to conquer this man and I'm going to control him and
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seduce him and manipulate him. Or toxic femininity could be I
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want to compete with this man. I'm at war with this man.
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He's my enemy, you know, he's against me.
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And I do see this in certain streams of our strands of
17:50
feminism today where sometimes men are just seen as all bad and
17:55
all the enemy. Basically, we take the worst men
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and we say that's all men and that's wrong.
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You know, I think the Me Too movement had a lot of good
18:02
aspects to it, to call out sexual behavior or or assault
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and and, you know, bad behavior in the workplace and just
18:10
condemn it. But when you do that, take it to
18:13
the point of believe all women and that any woman accusing any
18:17
man is always right and that a man has no defense for
18:21
themselves if they're accused of anything.
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I think that's what becomes toxic.
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To say that women are always the victim, men are always the
18:27
villain, and that men are always, can always be the enemy.
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I don't think that that's true. OK, a couple other things.
18:35
Toxic femininity. I mentioned this earlier with
18:37
Michelle women. Michelle Williams hates
18:39
fertility, hates children, hates our ability, our unique
18:44
superpower as women to be mothers.
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Look, your ability to bring life into the world as a woman is
18:51
what makes you uniquely a woman. Now, that doesn't mean every
18:55
woman's going to be a biological mother.
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Maybe there is a problem and they're not able to be.
18:59
Or maybe they're not called to be that because they will never
19:02
marry. They're not called to marriage.
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That can be the case for many women, and that still means they
19:07
can live out their femininity in other ways.
19:09
But your ability to bring life into the world is a deeply and
19:13
uniquely feminine trait. It is, I would argue, the most
19:16
unique of all feminine traits. It is what your body is, makes
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your body different than a man's body, your ability to bring life
19:23
into the world. So what happens when women at
19:27
large are told that their empowerment or their success is
19:32
to be powerful and successful and not a mother, and that they
19:36
should actually kill their babies if they become mothers?
19:39
I mean, it's the most anti feminine thing you can imagine.
19:43
And yet that's what's being sold to us in the name of women's
19:45
rights. So toxic femininity absolutely
19:49
includes a rejection of children and a rejection of our
19:52
fertility. Think about birth control today.
19:55
Birth control at large are pills that we take to effectively
19:59
temporarily sterilize us and shut down our natural beautiful
20:04
hormonal systems so that we can be constantly fake pregnant.
20:09
Our body actually with hormonal birth control thinks we're
20:11
constantly fake pregnant so that we are not able to get pregnant.
20:17
It is the most anti woman healthcare practice.
20:20
I mean besides abortion that is out there.
20:24
It's basically attacking our beautiful biology and our
20:28
fertility and treating it like a sickness or a disease.
20:31
Your fertility is not a disease. Your fertility is a sign of
20:36
health. It's a your womanhood.
20:37
It's beautiful. If you have issues with your
20:39
fertility like heavy periods or cystic acne, then instead of
20:43
taking this, this pill and a birth control pill like a
20:47
panacea, discover and go to a healthcare protectioner who will
20:50
really go under the root cause of that.
20:52
Why are you facing this struggle with your cycle or you know,
20:56
with your skin or whatever it is with your hormones?
20:59
How can we balance your hormones and get you healthier instead of
21:03
shutting down and suppressing your hormones So your femininity
21:09
is a beautiful gift. Toxic femininity rejects your
21:13
body and the physical systems, your reproductive system as a
21:16
woman and treats it like an enemy or a threat.
21:20
The last thing I want to mention about toxic femininity is I
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believe that toxic femininity also weaponizes emotions.
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So emotions are a part of life. I'm going to do an episode in
21:29
the future on emotions. Actually, everyone experiences
21:31
emotions. We all have them, some more than
21:33
others, and they can be very intense and powerful.
21:35
And emotions can be very, very powerful mechanisms to be used
21:39
for good. They can teach us things.
21:40
They can give us insights about ourself and experiences and
21:43
other people. So emotions aren't good, and
21:45
they're not bad, they just are, and they can teach us things.
21:48
But emotions shouldn't rule us. And I do think there's a
21:51
tendency in our society to be ruled by our emotions.
21:55
I feel this way, and therefore I think that this is true, right?
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So my subjective experience of my emotions means that XY or Z
22:06
is true or not true, or I get to decide my truth based on how I
22:09
feel. And yes, your feelings are real
22:11
and they should be acknowledged and they should be dealt with,
22:13
but your feelings do not. You need to direct your reality.
22:17
We have free will to make our decisions and our choices.
22:21
So I do think there's sort of this, you know, there can be a
22:24
hyper emphasis on feelings to the point that feelings are
22:28
ruling the roost as opposed to feelings are important input,
22:31
but they should not rule the roost.
22:34
And again, maybe we'll address this in a future episode.
22:36
Let me know if you'd like to see that.
22:38
All right, so that's toxic femininity roundup.
22:40
All About Me Uses beauty and sex appeal to control and
22:43
manipulate. Rejects feminine or rejects
22:45
feminine beauty entirely. Sees men as the enemy or as
22:48
conquest. Sees children as enemy or as
22:51
burdens. Doesn't honor commitments,
22:52
weaponizes or is ruled by emotion.
22:54
Oh yeah, I forgot one more thing.
22:57
I think toxic femininity also puts other women down and is
23:02
always competitive with other women and sees other women as
23:06
threats as opposed to collaborators.
23:09
I don't really want to use a pop culture example here.
23:11
I'm sure there are. I'm sure you guys have one.
23:13
But I think you know what I'm talking about.
23:15
You know, cattiness, pettiness, attacking other women, jealousy,
23:19
like all that stuff is not true femininity.
23:22
It is toxic femininity. All right, that was a long list.
23:26
Let's go positive now. Positive femininity.
23:29
What are the things, what are the things that if a great
23:34
woman, let's say like your grandmother passes away and
23:37
people are talking about her life, what are the things that
23:40
people remember as the beautiful things about her?
23:44
I recently attended the funeral of my grandmother and what she
23:48
remembered, what she was remembered for included these
23:51
attributes. Her love of her family, her love
23:56
of her kids, her love of her husband, her beauty, you know,
24:00
her charm, not in a way to harm other people or manipulate, but
24:03
to bring joy and to bring the family together and to celebrate
24:09
beauty and to celebrate the the beautiful aspects of life.
24:12
You know, fashion and food and the things that can just make
24:15
life so lovely. Also her kindness, her
24:19
generosity, how she would go out of her way to welcome people to
24:22
the home and her hospitality that she was always inviting
24:26
people and making friends wherever she went.
24:28
She would often say to anyone that she's just like met on the
24:32
String St. She'd say you and I are related
24:36
and she'd like joke around about how basically everyone was
24:38
related to her. People loved it.
24:40
I mean, people thought it was so charming, but people remember,
24:43
like, her vivaciousness and her kindness and her family
24:46
orientedness. And I'm going to guarantee you
24:49
that if you think right now of a woman in your life that you
24:53
admire or a great woman in the past that you look up to, maybe
24:57
you don't even know them personally, what is it about
25:00
this woman that you truly admire?
25:04
Yeah, it can. It might include that her
25:07
physical beauty or her fashion sense.
25:09
Yeah, of course. Those things are wonderful, but
25:12
I'm going to guess that it includes her goodness, It
25:16
includes her virtue. It includes whether or not she
25:19
loved her family and whether or not she was like family focused.
25:24
She cared about her kids, she cared about her marriage.
25:25
She cared about the community. I'm going to guess that though,
25:28
Or did she care about the nation?
25:30
I'm going to guess that those things made her femininity so
25:34
beautiful. And here's a little secret.
25:37
Some of the things that are most beautiful about the most
25:40
feminine female are virtues that when a man lives out the same
25:46
virtues and makes them beautifully masculine, isn't
25:50
that a cool thought? Like let's take courage for an
25:53
example. A courageous woman, a woman who
25:56
is fearless and speaks her mind and her convictions of her
25:59
heart, not to harm other people, but to help them.
26:02
And she does it in a way that's feminine, that's loving and
26:05
good. That's a beautiful feminine role
26:07
model. Similarly, a man who's espousing
26:10
that same virtue of courage and he's fearless and standing up
26:13
for what's right and defending the vulnerable looks just
26:16
beautifully masculine. So that's the secret to a lot of
26:20
this, is that virtues are what underpin the most beautiful,
26:25
feminine and masculine. They're just lived out in that
26:28
more feminine way versus masculine way, which is just
26:31
unique to each person, each man or woman.
26:33
And by the way, share in the comments a story of that maybe
26:37
grandmother or mother or aunt or just someone that you admire and
26:41
you believe left a truly beautiful legacy as a woman.
26:45
All right, So what are the qualities of a truly feminine
26:48
woman? And in many ways, they're the
26:50
reverse of the toxic woman. So first of all, there's someone
26:54
who works in harmony with other people in their community.
26:58
You know, they're focused on interdependence and love, not
27:01
radical. I'm all about myself, but
27:03
they're focused on, I love other people and I love my family.
27:08
And if I have children, I love my children.
27:10
And I, I am focused on, you know, honoring my parents and if
27:14
I'm married, honoring my husband.
27:15
And they're focused on love. Love is about wanting the good
27:20
for other people as long as you want the good for yourself to be
27:23
loved. And that feminine woman has that
27:27
in spades. She just exudes love.
27:29
And she's about, I use that word, interdependence.
27:33
She recognizes that, yeah, she's responsible for her actions, but
27:35
she needs other people and other people need her.
27:38
And that's a beautiful thing. Another thing about true
27:41
femininity is it celebrates true beauty and, and our femininity.
27:46
I mean, that's why I think Barbie is so popular right now,
27:49
Is it sort of taps into this desire to celebrate the
27:52
feminine. And yeah, I'll have some
27:54
criticisms of sort of the ideology of the film, too.
27:57
But the thing that's clearly, you know, attractive about it is
28:00
that it's celebrating this very feminine presentation.
28:04
And I think people are hungry for that.
28:06
And that's a beautiful thing. Like you look at past female
28:09
role models or women in history, especially like recent history
28:13
that people admire. And you think about like Grace
28:15
Kelly of Monaco, you know, the Prince.
28:18
Princess Grace, she was so exquisitely classy, like her
28:22
wedding dress with the lace sleeves and the way she carried
28:25
herself. It exuded a confident, gentle
28:27
femininity. Or people admire Princess Diana.
28:32
What are some of the qualities we admire in Princess Diana?
28:34
Her fashion, her vivaciousness. Also, she seemed very
28:38
intentional about caring for the vulnerable and the poor.
28:42
She seemed very much caring for her family.
28:45
Now, you could also have criticisms of Diana and her
28:48
behavior, of course, but generally, generally speaking,
28:51
she's beloved for this presentation of the feminine and
28:55
for this winsomeness that she had.
28:57
Another example of a universal role model for many people is
29:02
Mother Teresa. Now, Mother Teresa isn't known
29:04
as like the fashion icon. She wore one dress her whole
29:08
life. She wore the blue and white
29:10
sari. But Mother Teresa not being a
29:13
cover model for a fashion magazine was more influential
29:17
than arguably any model in human history because of her acts of
29:21
love. And she lived out her femininity
29:24
in service of the poorest of the poor in Calcutta, India.
29:27
And she was just lovely and beautiful.
29:29
And being a mother, even though she wasn't a biological mother,
29:33
she was effectively an adoptive or a spiritual mother of so many
29:37
souls. So she lived femininity in a
29:40
clearly beautiful way, even though it wasn't that overtly,
29:46
you know, overt representation of beautiful femininity and
29:49
one's appearance as a girl. I actually put a picture on my
29:54
wall of Mother Teresa's feet. So her feet were just very sort
29:59
of tangled, tangled and weathered by walking basically
30:03
barefoot on the streets of Calcutta.
30:05
Her toes were bent in and she had calluses.
30:07
And, you know, this was not like the feet of a woman who gets
30:10
pedicures. I'll be honest.
30:11
I get pedicures. Mother Teresa did not OK
30:13
pedicures, but I put that on my wall as an example of true
30:17
beauty. I mean, she had the feet of a
30:19
servant of others, of a loving mother who sacrificed her entire
30:24
life out of love for others. Now, she didn't sacrifice to the
30:27
point of self harm. I think that's important to
30:29
note. Mother Teresa was actually
30:31
really intentional about getting her sleep.
30:33
She was super intentional about prayer.
30:35
She required all of her sisters to actually and the Missionaries
30:39
of Charity to actually take tea time every day and take time to
30:42
have tea together and, like, commune together.
30:44
So part of her femininity wasn't just like, work and toil and,
30:48
you know, having damaged feet, but it was about caring for,
30:52
caring for her body and caring for the other women entrusted to
30:55
her leadership. All right, a few other things
30:58
about true femininity. What is it that we so admire,
31:02
let's say, Jackie Kennedy? She's another icon for many
31:04
women today. She was very classy.
31:06
She was very feminine. Well, I think it was that Jackie
31:10
Kennedy was the, yeah, you could argue, long-suffering wife of
31:14
her husband, a president, and she was always by his side.
31:17
And upon his death, she fought for his legacy.
31:19
Legacy and yeah, there were many accusations about his infidelity
31:22
and all these things, but she, her representation was of that
31:26
faithful, loyal wife who was classy, who was kind, who stood
31:31
by his side even at his death. And I think she's remembered in
31:34
part as an icon because of her loyalty and her beautiful
31:38
loyalty. Again, I'm not making a
31:40
judgement here, but like you should be loyal to a cheating
31:42
man or anything like that. I'm just saying what we admire
31:45
about her largely is that commitment that she had, her
31:51
classiness, but also what was an apparent of commitment.
31:54
People saw it as a commitment to her marriage and to her nation,
31:57
quite frankly, to our nation and to her marriage.
31:59
So I know this is controversial, but recently Michelle Obama,
32:03
first former first lady of the United States of America, made
32:06
some really beautiful comments about marriage.
32:08
Now, I do not support Michelle Obama's politics.
32:11
She is very pro abortion, although she's not particularly
32:14
vocal about it. She has been in the past.
32:16
She's not now, which is good. I hope she softens and becomes
32:18
pro-life. But she did say some very
32:20
beautiful and true things about marriage, and I do want to
32:22
listen to that. We've been married for 30 years.
32:25
I know, you know, if I fell out with him for 10 and we had great
32:29
20 years, I'd take those odds anytime, But I don't.
32:33
We glamorize marriage, and then this day and age, marriage is
32:38
more about the dress and the dresses and the proposal and the
32:42
honeymoon and all the stuff around it, and young people
32:45
aren't ready for the real of marriage.
32:48
I mean, I think there's a lot of wisdom to that.
32:51
And she's talking about the importance of marriage as a
32:54
partnership and commitment, fidelity to your spouse.
32:57
So, yeah, kudos to Michelle Obama for making that
33:00
distinction. And I think more of that is
33:02
good. That is a representation of true
33:05
femininity and that, yes, it's about fidelity, it's about
33:09
commitment. It's not just about what is
33:11
typically seen as the feminine aspects of a marriage, you know,
33:13
getting married and the ring and the dress and the proposal and
33:16
the honeymoon and the Instagram pictures.
33:18
But it's about lifelong commitment and raising children.
33:21
So I'm not saying she went all the way to say all the good
33:23
things it was about, but she definitely had a good point that
33:26
we get it wrong. If marriage becomes about what
33:28
is ultimately superficial, which again, can be the tendency I
33:30
think of some women today, It's all about the Instagram shot,
33:33
right? As opposed to marriage is about
33:36
love and commitment and sacrifice.
33:38
All right, a few other things. I think a beautiful woman and
33:41
true femininity is about celebrating other women.
33:45
You know, we don't need to be competitive with each other as
33:48
women. Every single woman is made
33:51
uniquely herself. There is only one of you.
33:54
And to compare yourself to another woman physically or your
33:57
skill set or your experiences or relationships, there is only one
34:01
of you. And part of I think our beauty
34:04
as the feminine, as women is to discover our self worth and our
34:08
value as we are now can be hard to do this if we didn't have
34:13
unconditional love growing up, especially from a male figure
34:16
like our fathers. I mean, there can be wounds with
34:18
this, but it's in discovering and healing our sense of
34:21
feminine identity and valuing just the way you look with every
34:25
bit of your facial features, every bit of your personality.
34:29
Love the way that you are. And yes, you want to be better.
34:31
You want to be healthier, stronger, wiser, of course.
34:34
But accepting yourself and valuing the gifts and the
34:37
attributes that you have been given helps you not compete with
34:40
other women, helps you not be jealous or envious or other to
34:43
be strife or disharmony. And I think a true femininity
34:47
has a confidence and a uprising of 1's own beauty.
34:52
However, that is each person's different and that doesn't put
34:56
them in competition with other women.
34:59
So celebrate your femininity. Celebrate the unique woman that
35:02
you are and that nobody else is. Couple more things.
35:06
The feminine women and the true feminine women is really a
35:09
celebration of the ability to be a mother.
35:13
Our femininity is very much tied to our ability to mother and
35:18
children. I do think if we are not excited
35:22
about children, not that we would have them ourselves
35:25
because we're not all called to that, but if we are not, if we
35:28
don't understand how beautiful a child is, I think that has to do
35:32
with something at war with ourselves actually, that we need
35:35
to tap into. Part of the feminine is
35:37
celebrating the child and the beauty of that little child and
35:41
the dependence of that child on us and the need for feminine
35:44
nurture and love as well as masculine nurture and love.
35:47
So if you as a woman are living at your true femininity, you'll
35:51
be celebration celebrating your fertility.
35:54
You'll be celebrating the ability of a woman to be a
35:58
mother and prizing that, prizing children.
36:01
I think the fiercest offender of a child should be his or her
36:06
mother and father. But the mother should be
36:08
fiercely protective of her baby, of any baby that she comes
36:12
across. And that's what the pro-life
36:14
movement is built on, is a fierce protectiveness.
36:18
That's why I'm pro-life, because I've been able to tap into that
36:21
femininity inside me of fierce protectiveness for the child.
36:24
And I'll do anything to fight for the child.
36:26
And that's why the project movement is populated with so
36:28
many women. I mean, men should be protective
36:31
too. But you're a woman.
36:32
You can bring life into the world.
36:33
You want to nourish and protect that life.
36:35
And so true femininity is about celebrating our superpower as
36:40
women, which is to bring life into the world.
36:43
One last thing is that women and true femininity is about honor
36:48
and character. It is about keeping commitments.
36:50
It is about, yeah, rising above maybe even our own emotions to
36:55
choose what is right, even when it's hard.
36:57
And I think that when we look at, like, Saint Francis Cabrini,
37:01
you know, there's a movie being made about her that's fantastic
37:03
right now. And she is this woman who
37:06
courageously left everything she knew in Italy to come with no
37:11
money to the United States. She was rejected because she was
37:13
an Italian immigrant, and she was seen as less than.
37:17
And she came to serve the poorest of the poor in New York
37:19
City. And she gave it all to protect
37:22
the vulnerable and to care for them.
37:23
And she overcame some of the toughest circumstances to do
37:27
that. And so her honor, her integrity,
37:30
her character, her service, her virtues are what are so
37:34
admirable and will be remembered for centuries to come.
37:36
So to wrap up here, Taylor Swift's concerts are sold out.
37:40
Barbie is being sold out. Femininity is more than the
37:42
color pink. What is a woman?
37:44
Yes, it's about adult biological female, but it's so much more.
37:49
So much more than that. A woman is someone who fully
37:53
embraces virtue and love and service of others.
37:57
I hope this episode encouraged you to live out your unique
38:01
femininity or if you're a man listening, encourage you to
38:04
celebrate femininity. I think it's one of the most
38:07
beautiful forces in the world, the power of a woman to be who
38:10
she's called to be and to love. It's what I aspire to.
38:15
Let me know in the comments what you think of this episode, your
38:17
take on femininity, female role models that you might have, why
38:21
they are role models to you. Don't forget to like this page
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38:55
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