Mary Eberstadt is a Catholic author and social commentator who has written a number of great books including Home Alone America, How the West Lost God and her latest book, Primal Screams. If you have never read any of her work before, I’d highly recommend you grab a book of hers from the library.

Primal Screams has the subtitle, “How the sexual revolution created identity politics”. It’s well worth a read. She makes a number of interesting points throughout, but her comments on a section looking at the new androgyny were particularly interesting.

“The bedrock fact is that today’s women are continually given the message that they must perform like men – that men are the standard by which women should be measured.” Obviously, this disadvantages most women, because. unsurprisingly, women are not as good at being men as men! Most women, she rightly points out, cannot compete with men on male terms – ‘sexually, athletically, professionally or otherwise’. She suggests that our view of a successful woman has become the kind of woman how behaves most like a man, and a ‘beta woman’ is one who does not. Women who act like men are rewarded, and those who persist in traditional female roles – ‘marrying, raising a family of size, devoting time and talent to what used to be called domestic arts‘ are viewed with disdain.

As Christians, we ought to celebrate the distinctive designs of men and women and a woman’s special role as nurturer. We ought to challenge the secular paradigm that only one sex is needed and that success for a woman ought to look like success for a man. This is patently untrue and is a denial of creation design. God created Eve because he wanted women in his world. As male and female mankind images God. It is good and right for a woman to attend to the domestic arts and create a haven for her family as a wife and mother. We should celebrate this, and present the superiority of God’s design for families in our joyous, fruitful and serene family life.