13. Sister Helena Burns: From Radical Feminist to Catholic Feminine Genius

I strive to tell stories that inspire , illuminate and enrich the lives of Catholic women , to help them in living out our vocation of raising the next generation of leaders and saints .

Let's hear Sister Helena guide us on her journey from Radical Feminism to the Catholic Feminine Genius . This is a little different this week in that the interview is an hour long . If you need to hit pause and come back for the next 30 minutes , please do . I know how busy it gets with motherhood .

It is well worth it and was a remarkable conversation with an amazing New Media Evangelist . Sister Helena , Welcome to the Veil and Armour podcast . This week we have as our guest Sister Helena Raphael Burns . Welcome , Sister Helena . Thank you , glad to be here . Thank you , and I'm sure many of our listeners know who you are through your media ministry .

I'll expand a little bit on that , but I was wondering if you could please lead us in a prayer .

We thank you for making us women , Lord . We thank you , our most wonderful Creator , who gave us this design , the desires that we have and the destiny that we have as women . Please help us to embrace this and not to rebel against it . We thank you for being human , which means body and soul , and we thank you for how you created us , differently from men .

We thank you for your beautiful divine order in creation , in the world , in the family , in the church , in society . We ask you to give us this biblical worldview . Open up your word to us so we will see our incredible but unique dignity as women .

We want to follow your ways , Lord , which are hard , but they're also the ways of truth , beauty and goodness and fulfilling our purposes . We ask all of this through our Blessed Virgin Mother , through your Son Jesus Christ and His most precious blood , in this month of July dedicated to the most precious blood .

Amen , In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit , Amen .

Sister Helena Burns has a Master of Arts in Media Literacy Education and a Bachelor of Arts in Theology and Philosophy from St John's University in New York City . She studied screenwriting at UCLA and Act I Hollywood writing at UCLA and Act One Hollywood .

Sister Helena holds a certificate in pastoral youth ministry and she wrote and directed a documentary on the life of the church's new media saint Blessed Father James Alberione , called MediaApostlecom and is a co-producer on The40Filmcom .

Sister Helena has written a Theology of the Body curriculum used in her online Theology of the Body certificate course through Sacred Heart College in Peterborough , ontario , canada . And Sister Helena gives media literacy and Theology of the Body workshops and courses to youth and adults all over Canada and the United States .

She believes that media can be a primary tool for sharing God's love and salvation . She is a dual citizen of Canada and the United States and an international woman of mystery . Happy Canada Day and happy 4th of July , sister Helena . Oh same to you ?

Yes , and I am very fascinated about this topic of the Feminine Genius and Feminism in general , which is the topic of our podcast , and can you please tell me what is radical feminism ?

We thought it was the way to go , we thought that was the right thinking about women to embrace , and I don't know about you , but I feel like very damaged from it and it took me a very long time to get out of it .

So just to define our terms , because a lot of times people just talk about feminism and they never exactly say what they mean by it , and there's many different kinds of feminism today .

So what I like to say , Feminism in its most simple form , is the protection and promotion of women , and to me that's a good thing that we'll always need some form of protection and promotion of women .

Now , what you believe a woman is that's where that's going to go in all different directions what you think her good protection and her good promotion is and by promotion I don't mean some sort of false myth of progress or progressivism and change , change , change .

Promotion could be something as simple as finding a way for moms who don't have a lot of money to be able to stay at home and raise their own kids , you know , without working , maybe three jobs or something , and having others raise her kids for her . So Radical Feminism is the denial that there are significant differences between men and women .

There's just a few different reproductive body parts . That's really only . What makes us different is the way that we reproduce , and that has no impact on our mind , our soul , how we do things , how we experience life , etc . Etc .

Which is patently false , because we are body and soul and our souls are also gendered , because the body is an expression of the soul . The body reveals the soul . Human beings are not angels , we're not pure spirits and we're not animals who have material souls , or rather mortal souls that die when the organism dies .

Plants have plant souls , animals have animal souls . We have immortal souls , and that is all part of our personhood . You know , animals are not persons . Angels are persons , but they're persons with no bodies , you know .

So we have to understand that our body has so much to tell us about who we are , and not just in the reproduction sense , but in so many other ways , even though that's key . The sexuality is key , but not everyone's going to get married , not everyone's going to have children , et cetera , but it still matters .

We're still spiritual mothers or spiritual fathers or brides and bridegrooms in relation to God .

Even so , Radical Feminism is biologically incorrect and scientifically incorrect , because now we have so much more science that we didn't even have in the 70s , when this all kind of the 60s and 70s , when this came to the fore , which was called second wave feminism , which was what I was most impacted by and we know that there's the feminine brain , the masculine

brain . We know that baby boys , they have a testosterone wash in the womb and even when they're little toddlers testosterone wash in the womb , and even when there's little toddlers , the testosterone is forming them in a different way than girls . So then this , of course , led right into eventually , transgenderism .

Well , if there's no , you know , if we're all the same , then we're interchangeable , which , of course , is not true either , because if we're going to celebrate diversity , there's got to be some diversity , right ?

Okay , now I am no longer a radical feminist and for a while I called myself a theology of the body feminist , but I don't even say that anymore because the word feminism comes with so much baggage and again , even if we stop and define our terms , it's almost like it's going to take a whole conversation to really explain what feminism is and how both men and

women have felt hurt by Feminism . Some women know they still obviously buy into it and I feel like it's so embedded in the culture now that even our young women , they may not have even heard some of the slogans of the second wave or third wave feminists , but it's just being lived out in the culture and so they sort of jump onto it .

You know , and it's this , "ou go , girl , I'm all about . You know , self-esteem , a proper self-esteem . But you know , if you're a Christian , we believe in humility . You know , and it's like you go , girl , I can do whatever a man can do . I'm better than men . Men are so stupid and women are so amazing .

And I'm a 10 , all these women , they think they're 10s and they deserve a high value man and like what the heck ? And yet they're like selling their bodies on OnlyFans and like it's all messed up , right , and a lot of this stuff . It yeah , it did come right out of feminism . The one thing about Radical Feminism is women .

These women , as I did , they really don't like being women . They resent having been born a woman and again , I'm not talking about anything trans or they feel like they want to transition or anything . They just resent that they have to give birth , that women are the ones who have to nurture small children .

They don't want that and maybe they do actually want it , but they've pressed that down because society has told them you're not going to go to your full potential if you have children , or if you have too many children , or if you stay home with your kids . And so there's just so many lies . Women have been sold a pack of lies through Radical Feminism .

And you know the women's movement was not the same thing as women's lib . There's a wonderful book called Subverted how I Helped the Sexual Revolution Hijack the Women's Movement . The women's movement was about equal pay , equal opportunities , some things like that .

It was not about these women did not want to go fight in war , they did not want to be drafted , they did not want to be in combat , they just wanted . They wanted sexual harassment laws in place , you know , in the workplace and things like that . They just wanted to be treated fairly and justly . But this women's lib crazy stuff .

I can have sex like a man , which means promiscuity . Did God intend for men to have sex that way ? No , and it's crazy . It's like no , you can't , because you're probably going to get pregnant at some point , even if you're on your birth control or whatever , and , of course , abortion is a horror of taking the life of your child . So they're really lies .

I can have sex like a man no , that's a lie . I can be as good as a man no , you can't . You're not a man . And why would you want to be ? That is a false admission of inferiority to say I can be as good as a man . Why are you looking towards men and what men are doing ? Do your own thing .

Women have their own power , authority , gifts , influence and mission . Now , I think getting out of Radical Feminism can help if you're a believer .

I think it can still be done , if you believe in nature , if you truly believe in science and biology , and if you get some good sociology that can show you what's really for human flourishing and what's really good for women and not good for women , but if you know that this is all coming from a loving creator , the way he made you .

And , yes , gender roles we have gender roles . Men have roles . Women have roles . We have our place in society , too , right . So like , oh , what's women's place ? Is it barefoot and pregnant and staying at home ? No , not necessarily there . But everyone has their place in creation , in the divine order .

Rocks have their place , trees have their place , giraffes have their place , women have their place , men have their place , children have their place . Giraffes have their place . Women have their place , men have their place , children have their place . Old people have their place .

Right , we all take on and these are not fake roles , they're rather what we're good at . They're rather what we're designed for and what we do best , just naturally , as women , because of the gifts that we have , gifts of body and soul .

I just want to say that how can we know if there are certain cultural norms or cultural expectations for men and for women ? How do we know if they're healthy ? Well , theology of the body which , by the way , if I didn't say this , this is what got me out of radical feminism was theology of the body . Bit by bit , piece by piece . It took me decades .

It was like a building blocks . I'd get one little piece of the puzzle the theology of the body . Bit by bit , piece by piece . It took me decades . It was like a building blocks . I'd get one little piece of the puzzle the theology of the body puzzle , another piece of the Theology of the Body puzzle .

So if a gender role is based on the design of the body and the soul because they go together , souls are gendered of a man , then that's a healthy gender role for him . If it's based on the way the design of the body is which reflects the soul , then that's a healthy gender role for a woman . We serve many roles , right , I don't mean just professions .

But if you're an artist , that's a role that you don't just do nine to five . You are an artist , you have the soul of an artist , right , that's beautiful and you don't mind having that role because you love art and you're good at artist .

Right , that's beautiful and you don't mind having that role because you love art and you're good at it , right , well , we should love being a woman and what all that encompasses , right . And again , we'll talk a little later about like , we're not talking stereotypes , we do not talk class ceilings , stereotypes . Those are very harmful , not helpful .

I was set , you know , but it started much younger than that . I went to public schools and things weren't as crazy as they are today , but I read a lot .

We were taught how to read before we went to kindergarten and we were little geeks , my brother and I , and we loved to read and I would just devour anything and I wanted to understand the beautiful , modern world , I was living in , you know , and it made sense , though . There was an internal cohesion to what the Radical Feminists were saying and I believed .

All women were oppressed . Yes , we've been oppressed all these years and every man is basically out to oppress women . They don't really value and honor women . They want to find a way to keep us down so that we can't go ahead and they don't really value us . They laugh at us in the locker rooms and make fun of us and they only want us for our bodies .

And now , some of that is true , but this is not every man all day long . You know what I'm saying . It almost negated the fact that there are good men . And one thing I couldn't understand I was also watching my friend's mothers .

My mother never went that route , but I was watching my friend's mothers telling their husbands off and refusing to make supper , even though they were stay-at-home moms , and they were like putting their like . It was just , it was . It was crazy and some of it was kind of ugly too .

And I remember thinking , well , I don't want that , cause I was more of like a hippie . I was very bohemian and like love and peace . I couldn't hate men because that would negate my love and peace principles , you know . But I was almost there . I was almost a man hater .

And one thing I remember thinking like all these women are married who are telling their husbands off and saying that men are terrible , and they really had those consciousness raising groups where women were told you're oppressed . They were told you should all have careers , you should not be staying at home , even if you want to , with your kids .

They don't need you . You need to be . You know , focus on you , you , you , me , me , me . And these women started to feel inferior because of that right . They were at peace . In a sense . It's almost like the devil got in and made these women so unhappy and told them no , you have to have a degree to be happy .

No , you have to have two degrees to be happy . No , you have to have a career , not just a career , but a high paying career where you're social , climbing and gaining notoriety . And there's never enough of that right . And now there's social media .

So that can just really wreak havoc on a woman , even a young girl or a single woman , because we like to communicate , right , ladies , like to communicate and say what you will , but women are still all about their appearance most women and they're going on Instagram all the time and looking for perfection and Photoshopping . And this is a false world .

It's just so fake , right ? And what happens is we empty out our souls when we do this , when we're focused on externals and competition and keeping up with everyone and with the world the new hairstyles and the new it's okay to look , okay , it's okay to follow that a little bit , but is that going to be the core content of your life ?

And I understand you can make follow that a little bit , but is that going to be the core content ? of your life and I understand you can make money through these things too . But you've got to be grounded , You've got to be based in all of these things .

So that's how I got into radical feminism reading news , magazines , reading newspapers I started reading a newspaper at 12 years old , like from a daily newspaper and just watching the women around me watching the TV shows that were always putting men down . They started the 70s to put men down . Men were the buffoon and it's still nothing has changed .

The father of the family is an idiot . He's a buffoon . He's so stupid he can't do anything . The wife can do anything and everything and she just tolerates his presence because they like him . And this is a terrible message also being sent to our boys and our young men that men are basically idiots . And I think a lot of young men reject this .

But what can they do ? Go protest Hollywood . It's nasty , it's not right . Nobody should be treated that way . It's almost like a reverse psychology . If any of this was happening to women now . It's like open season on men to turn around and put men down that way .

So my Radical Feminism was my deepest held belief and my mother used to call me her little banner waver . It's like I always had to have a cause . I was always fighting for a cause . I did environmentalism , Greenpeace , Save the Whales . They used to bring all the little birds that got hurt and the little animals in my neighborhood .

I was going to work with animals my whole life . Everybody knew that about me . So I always had to have a cause and my cause was animals and also then women . It became a woman thing like I am never going to have anybody make fun of me or put me down or keep me down .

I'm going to be who I want to be and I can be anything which you know yes and no , Like if you don't have the talent to do something , you can't do it right , you can't do it well , you can't make that your profession , make your living from it .

So I think there's like a fine line between building women up and having a healthy self-esteem and not low self-esteem . But there's also this pride and this sort of like way over estimating one's gifts and talents and looks and everything .

It's like no , we need to be humble , we need to be modest , All of those good qualities Christian qualities right that are in the Bible , and I really didn't have much input from my Catholic faith going to public schools . The media , such as it was back in my day , wasn't terribly developed no internet .

It was enough , though , to send me all these messages that I was set upon by men and by the society that men created , and that also included religion . Like I saw religion as a man-made men . It was men who wrote the Bible , and they did it to keep women down and control women .

I bought into every last bit of it , and so what that does to a woman is it makes her very angry inside . Now she may not be angry on the outside . I wasn't angry on the outside . I had my friends , I had a great life , I did a lot of hobbies and extracurricular activities after school and sports and everything .

But down deep inside there's this simmering anger because you're rejecting you don't realize it but you're rejecting also what a woman actually is and saying that's unfair .

It's unfair that God made us this way If you believe in a creator or the universe they like to say the universe today right , the universe did this to me , or whatever , and so that's kind of sad . You know you're angry . You're not resolving your issues because you can't . You can't resolve a lie unless you realize it's a lie .

Now , men have not been sold this pack of lies and that's why men , even today , are reporting very comfortable levels of contentment and happiness . Women's levels of depression and feeling unfulfilled are like plummeting year after year . They're going down , down , down , down , down , down down . And these are the same women reporting this who have everything .

They quote unquote , have it all , but they're exhausted . Right , there's the Helen Reddy song I am woman . There's a t-shirt says I am woman , I am strong , I can do anything , I am tired .

So that's another story too , like this we're not going to get into , but the superwoman that's being held up to women , that they can be it all and do it all and have it all . No one can have it all . Men don't have it all . Fathers of families don't have it all . They might hate their job , but they do it because the money's good , right .

They may want to take a promotion and move somewhere else , but they're not going to resettle the family . The kids like the school , and the wife has got her stuff going on . So you can't wake up . Till you wake up , you don't know you're being lied to , until you hear the truth . And it contrasts so much .

And again I was given a false truth , a red herring , that the Church , again the Church wants you , barefoot and pregnant , to sit down and shut up . The Church doesn't value women , doesn't want to hear from women . The Bible is old hat . It's like it needs to be rewritten . Women are oppressed in the Bible .

Just look at all these Bible passages and that's not it at all . The Bible is the word of God . It was written by the Holy Spirit through the male authors , yes , but if you look at the women in the Bible , oh my gosh , they are so amazing , every last one of them . And there was bad women . We got our Jezebels right .

And these horrible women of the Bible . And there's horrible men in the Bible . The Bible is so honest . That's what I love about the Bible . The Apostles did not make themselves look good . I'll tell you that . They look very cowardly , you know , and all of that . So that's a whole nother topic .

I do a little retreat on women of the Bible and how to read the Bible , not as a radical feminist , because all of us read it through this radical feminist lens . And then you don't want to have a biblical worldview , and if you don't have a biblical worldview , you don't understand your creator , you don't understand what's good for you .

You don't understand reality and truth . So the ancient philosophers and I have a background in philosophy which I loved , but it couldn't help me with theology of the body . But the ancient philosophers used to say happiness is living in accord with your nature . Happiness is living in accord with your nature .

And radical feminists are fighting their very nature , even though they don't realize it . So when I found theology of the body , I found peace . I started to find peace and this joy , this very deep joy , not just acceptance of being a woman , but joy in being a woman . And my full story is on my blog . There's a video testimony there . It's the first thing .

On my blog , hellburnscom just like it sounds , h-e-l-l-b-u-r-n-scom I have a rather lengthy blog post that says how to Read your Way Out of Radical Feminism . And the very first thing is my video testimony , a long interview with Father Walter Hsu , of how this all fit together . And how did I become a nun in the midst of all this in a traditional community ?

You know , like how does that make sense ? Well , I'll tell you , I hid my radical feminism because when I met Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament that's a whole other story I realized this is his church and I was so distraught .

I didn't want to have to be Catholic , but he was talking to me from the Blessed Sacrament and I promised him that I would stop fighting the Catholic Church on all these women's issues and try to understand the church's teaching . And I thought it was going to be easy , especially after I entered the convent understand the church's teaching .

And I thought it was going to be easy , especially after I entered the convent . I thought , oh , I'm going to take scripture and theology and good anthropology and whatnot and I'm going to understand what it means to be a woman . I'm going to understand the church's teaching on women , et cetera , et cetera in the Bible . And I did not .

Nothing I found was helpful . In a sense it was even worse , it was like very unhelpful , helpful . In a sense it was even worse , it was like very unhelpful , and so it wasn't for many . So again , I hid my radical feminism , but it was all I had to go on . It was my inner framework , it's all I knew , and so I'll talk a little bit more about that .

When we talk about how do you get out of radical feminism , one of the first things you have to do is replay those lies that you heard in your head , those assumptions , those slogans that you clung onto because you thought they were true and they gave you something to hang on to and something to sort of prop yourself up , and it was a way to think about

yourself . But was it accurate ?

We tend to think of it as being like super smart and having a high IQ . But if you look up what the word genius really means , it's having a quality of being really good at something . It may have nothing to do with the intellect , but you're just like almost a savant about something , and so a genius could be anything really .

And so what John Paul II is talking , the feminine genius , is factory set right , and I think all women intuited that too . Like , when he says the feminine genius , he means we're all feminine geniuses just by virtue of being feminine . Right , being a woman . And that's what feminine means . It just means being a woman .

It doesn't mean being more frou-frou than another woman and wearing high heels as opposed to not wearing high heels . That's not what feminine and femininity means . It just means what pertains to a woman , what pertains to all women . So I think it's important to understand that . So that's what the feminine genius is , and he outlines it in .

You have to read the whole encyclical to really get the full picture . But I'm going to go over a few of the attributes or characteristics of the feminine genius , which is something we might say is also women's gifts . But first , before we do that , I want to just talk about masculinity and femininity in general , because we cannot talk about women in a vacuum .

This was the problem with the radical feminists as well , and really all the waves of feminism . They just act like women are our own species . The waves of feminism , they just act like women are our own species . And we're doing this not vis-a-vis men , who complete the species , but we're going to figure this all out by ourselves .

And again , even if you're married like I'm going to do my own thing and then I'm going to tell my spouse about it , I'm going to tell my husband what I'm going to be doing it's like that's not a partnership , that's not a marriage , you know . So there's a beautiful quote that I just really have to quote from Mulieris Dignitatem .

This is Chapter Seven on the dignity and vocation of woman by John Paul II . He said man cannot exist alone and he he uses he because he , in English , can mean the totality of men and women . Man cannot exist alone , mean the totality of men and women . Man cannot exist alone .

He , male and female can exist only as the unity of the two and therefore in relationship with another human person . Does this mean everyone has to be married ? No , but when I'm in society , when I'm in my family , I'm relating differently to the men in my family than I am to the women . So we're always in relationship with other human persons .

And there's two different types of human persons . There's two different ways to be a body . We don't have bodies , we are bodies . There's two different ways to be a body male and female , two different ways to be in the image of God .

And we're going to talk about that too , because it's so easy to understand men in the image of God , and we're going to talk about that too , because it's so easy to understand men in the image of God . But what about women ? How do women image God ? Is it the same way ? No , it's different .

John Paul II says it is a question here of a mutual relationship man to woman , woman to man . Being a person in the image and likeness of God thus also involves existing in relationship in relation to the other . Now , in philosophy we know John Paul II is a big philosopher the other is very important .

The other is the one who is not like me , the other who is not me and is not like me . And we have to reach out of ourselves to the other , always right . So , for example , even parents to their children .

Your children are others , they're not just an extension of you , they are their own distinct little persons and personalities , and I'm sure you all have figured that out by now . So we never want to treat anyone our spouse , our friends or anyone as extensions or mirrors of ourselves .

Everyone is the other , and males to females are even more other because we don't understand them . They are not quite like us , the men you know Now we have . I have to make this clear there is one human nature . This is what makes us equal , one human nature .

This is what makes us equal and this is why a male savior , Jesus Christ , true God and true man , could die for both sexes . Right , the radical feminist ? There's a whole theological radical feminism too that says crazy things like well , we need a female savior then , because if it's so important that Jesus is male , then he only died for men .

No , we have one human nature . That's what makes us equal in dignity . Is this one human nature that he assumed , that God assumed in Jesus Christ ? Okay , now I'm really going into teaching mode here , but that's okay .

So men and women are equal , but different , and we are called to help each other , support each other , appreciate each other , supply for what the other does not have or cannot do , to put our strengths and weaknesses together , to work together . And there's a wonderful . If you don't like John Paul II's writing some people don't .

They find it very intense and circular and meandering , and he uses a lot of big words sometimes and they prefer to read Ratzinger , Joseph Ratzinger , Pope Benedict XVI , get this encyclical online the Collaboration of Men and Women in Church and in Society , and it is so beautiful . It's like it's as though Ratzinger is now doing theology of the body .

It's as though Ratzinger is now doing theology of the body . So does masculinity mean being rugged , tough and macho ? No , it means everything that goes with being a man or a male , which naturally occurs in the body or soul of a man . It's going to look different on different men , because every man is unique in body and soul , but he's still male .

He's still a man . He still possesses masculinity . Does femininity mean being sweet and delicate and frou-frou ?

It doesn't make them more masculine and frou-frou ladies . More feminine , because femininity and masculinity is not something we have to prove or acquire or attain . It is a given , it's God's gift to you . At the moment of your conception , you were either male or female . We were gendered at the moment of conception .

That's science , that's biology , and so different women are going to look different . There's never going to be another you as a woman . There's never going to be another you as a woman . There's never going to be another you as a man . So just be yourself , embrace your incarnation of being a man or being a woman , and it's not a spectrum .

Sexuality is not a spectrum . It's a binary male and female , and there's no ideal masculine or ideal feminine beyond Jesus and Mary that we are looking to for exemplars . We have to be ourselves . Yeah , there's a wonderful philosophical tenet . It is what it is . Now we say that casually in society . It is what it is meaning .

But it means kind of the same thing in philosophy too . You can't change it . It is what it is , and but it means kind of the same thing in philosophy too . You can't change it . It is what it is and you need to just deal with it . Deal with it as it is . It is what it is . A rock can't suddenly become a tree . A tree can't suddenly become a car .

It is what it is . A chair isn't a table . It's not designed to be a table . You could use it as a table . It's not designed to be a table . You could use it as a table . It's not going to be a very good table because it's not designed for that . So you are a unique man , a unique woman . There's not just one way to be a man or a woman .

Everything you will do in life will be as the man you are . Now we're back to philosophy again , as what we do . We do as the thing , the creature , the person we are . We're so far away from the body we have moved so far away from concrete , physical reality , which is science and biology and creation .

It's all of a piece and we live in our heads , we fantasize and we think we are a furry , I think I'm a dog , I think I'm a cat , I think I'm a non-neither . I'm a neither . I'm not a man nor a woman . I'm an alien . I'm a ghost . People are identifying as ghosts . Now I don't mean just LARPing , you know , like just play acting .

I mean they really say that's my identity , this is who I am . Or they're making up their own fantastical creatures or beings . And what Ratzinger's also said , you know ? He said we're living in a time of rebellion against the creator .

People are saying I don't like the way you made me , I'm going to make myself , I'm going to remake myself , I'm going to create myself from the bottom up . And it's like no , that's so sad , Like that's you're not going to do it . Well , first of all , and that's such a slap across the face of our loving creator . You know he envisioned us from all eternity .

We were in the mind of God as the person that we are . So it's only going to bring sorrow at the end of this path . Maybe it's going to give you some instant gratification or something , but it's only going to lead to sorrow . Because , again , what is happiness ?

It is living in accord with our nature , and that includes our personality , the personality God gave you . Now we want to acquire virtue too . So it's not like every wart and bump in our personality is good . We have to be acquiring virtue . We have to be becoming holy and sanctified through the grace of God and the sacraments .

But let's remember this I love what the French say vive la différence , long live the difference between men and women . Stereotypes , especially today , can be very , very harmful .

To say a man has to be like this , a woman has to be like that , and some of our young people are thinking that they have to transition , which can't be done male to female , female to male or even adults . Because I'm not a good man , I don't measure up , I'm not the way they use feminine .

You know like I'm not like the other girls , I don't like to have long hair , I don't wear perfume , I don't wear makeup . That's fine . Who cares ? That doesn't make you a woman .

So yeah , so masculinity and femininity will look different according to each individual , but there are certain characteristics and traits that are of a male person or a female person , again , kind of factory set . I'm going to talk about the Feminine Genius , what that looks like according to John Paul II .

And you might say to yourself well , I'm a woman and I don't have all of these things , that's okay . You might have them and not know it , they might be dormant , they might be underdeveloped . I'm not saying you have to necessarily work on them , but they're there and you might have some others more strongly . That I'm going to mention .

And here's the thing You're still a woman . You will do all these things as the woman that you are . So he said that women express the feminine genius through interpersonal communication . And I'm going to stop here , too and say that again , science backs all this stuff up .

You say , well , I'm an introvert , I'm a woman , I'm an introvert , I don't talk that much , that's okay . Introversion has nothing to do with being a man or a woman . That's a personality trait . But we know that women in general use 13,000 more words a day than men . Also , in the womb , with this testosterone wash I was talking about , you know what it does ?

It goes to the communication center of the baby boy's brain and it kills half of that . So this is why men are usually not big talkers or they're not like fast talkers or multitasking talkers . Some men are , but that's not biologically who they are . Do you know what I'm saying ?

So , yes , we're speaking in generalities about these characteristics , but there's science to back this up Biology and sociology . Women are receptive . Women are receptive . Now , that again is factory set . Our bodies are receptive to men , to new life and hey , our cycles go by the moon .

We are very in tune with nature , very , very fine tuned , very receptive to nature around us . Empathy part of the feminine genius is empathy . Now , we don't want to either feminize things like empathy and say , well , men don't have empathy , oh , they most certainly do . You know like a woman would nurture a child ?

But that man might protect the child right , or he might say good job , son . Or you can come on , honey , you can get up back on that bike again . You'll be , you'll be fine , you'll be okay . There's different ways to express them and we don't want to .

Some people say , some feminists say , why are you dwelling on the differences and why don't we just focus on what's the same ? Well , we can do both , let's do both . But you keep saying that there is no difference between men and women . And so that's why we want to point out there are some differences Tenderness , attention to detail .

We even I'm going to keep interrupting with the science . So women have what are called . We both have C cells and P cells in our eyes , and women have more of the C cell which we can track things in our vicinity , our close proximity , our close vicinity , much better than men have , because we have more of the C cells .

Men have a lot more of the P cells which tracks things at a distance with their eyes . So even our eyes . You say well , eyes are eyes are eyes . Eyeballs are eyeballs . No , they're not . Women's eyes are different than men's eyes . Men's eyes are wired directly to their brain so that they get sexually stimulated more by their eyes than women do .

These are facts . These are not and they're not excuses . These are just biological facts and because we have to practice virtue , we have to control our biology and form our biology and keep it in check , et cetera . We don't just go with the flow , men . Why could possibly men have all of these P cells in their eyes to track things at a distance ?

Predators , right . Men protect . Hunting Men were always traditionally the hunters , right . Women were the gatherers and farmers Danger , always traditionally the hunters right . Women were the gatherers and farmers Danger . And hockey pucks , right . Okay , so we're still working on these characteristics of the feminine genius Caregiving Intuition . That's a fact .

Women have intuition . It's real . Women's intuition is real . Men have insight into how things work and women have intuition into people , how people work , humanizing and personalizing problems and situations . They've done so many studies on how women problem solve as to how men problem solve , women always personalize . How is this decision going to affect people ?

That's kind of important , huh . How is it going to affect the vulnerable ? How is it going to affect people ? That's kind of important , huh . How is it going to affect the vulnerable ? How is it going to affect families ? Men might just be focusing on the bottom line when they problem solve , or what's practical or utilitarian .

We need women's gifts of problem solving , multitasking . Women's brains are again science . Both sides of our brain fire constantly back and forth , just rapidly back and forth . That makes us good at multitasking .

And women the roles that women have to play because of our biology , that we need to play , that we do play and most women want to play involve multitasking , lots of multi-tasking . We are doing 10 things at once at all moments . Right , we can follow several conversations going on at the same time .

We can't even go to bed at night because our mind is just firing constantly . It's hard to fall asleep . Right , men's brains they use one side of the brain and then they shut it off and use the other side of the brain . They do not do the switching very quickly . Does that make them dumb and stupid ?

No , it means that they have to be monomaniacally focused on the tasks that they are cut out for . That they are designed for , that they play and do in society and usually like to do and play , naturally , in society , because if they don't focus on just one thing at a time , they're going to get hurt . People are going to get hurt , okay .

So you might say I don't possess any of these gifts . Well , I have a hard time believing that . You don't have any empathy or you don't have any attention to detail or whatever it is , and maybe , like me , you suffocated those voices . I pushed down .

I would feel my own feminine reactions bubbling up to situations and all those voices in my head that came , unfortunately , yes , from men , but also from radical feminists . It was like they were just like parroting what the men said . They would say , oh , oh , that's emotional . You know , you're just being emotional , as though emotions are bad , right .

They would say , oh , that's weak , that's you have to be . Think rationally and logically . Now , I tend to do that anyway . I think that's really a part of me and that's fine . It's just who I am . Doesn't make me less a woman , less feminine , because that's a factory set .

I do my logical , philosophical thinking , objective thinking , thinking in generalities and not particulars . As a woman , I do it as a woman , but I have a lot of these other gifts of women , a lot of the other feminine genius . It's okay , it's all right . You are a woman . You're not more a woman or less a woman .

And I have some other fun things that I usually talk about , some of the female stuff that I do have and some of the things that I don't have . And it's kind of funny , right . So how many sitcoms are based on the male-female difference ? The good ones don't put men down , the truly funny and good ones don't put men down .

But so many plays and shows and movies are based on these differences that we know exist . And I think married couples , they get it right away oh boy , are we different , okay , so , in general , men civilize the world to make it habitable for everyone . Women civilize people to make them habitable for everyone .

There's an old saying the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world . See , and the feminists would come back and say , oh , that's just because you want us to stay at home . No , think about it . That's really true .

Whoever raises a child from their youngest years , if you have a child in your care for three to five years , you have formed their most basic experiences of the world right .

And if you're talking to this kid and forming their personality , I mean letting them be who they are , but got with guidance , right and help , and they're going to ask you questions and you're going to help them think about things . You're going to give them critical thinking skills .

This is a really beautiful phrase that I just heard more recently the glory of woman is to form the minds of men . How about that ? So we forget ? It's not just about soccer and the orthodontist and doing this , that Chinese lessons and violin lessons .

It's about forming their character , helping them form their own character , teaching them right from wrong , teaching them to care about other people , having them really develop , say , one hobby that they're really good at . It's not just about what's going to make them a lot of money in the future , but what do they love to do ?

What has God put in your child and in your child's personality that is so unique that you can foster ?

So I'm going to just go back over one aspect of how , or the main aspect of how , men image God and how women image God , and I think this is key and this was one of my big pieces of the puzzle , one of my big stepping stones to getting out of radical feminism and into theology of the body .

We can tell what something is and what it does based on its design . If you look at a man's body , it's more angular , even if he's short and he's a slight build . His bones are different , his muscles are different . This is why it's unfair to have biological males competing against women . They take all the prizes right . They take first , second and third place .

They take the scholarships because they're faster , they can endure more , they can lift more All of that stuff . Their bodies are made differently in every aspect . Almost every cell in our bodies is also gendered . We used to think that , oh , men and women have hearts , like I was talking about the eyeballs . Oh , they both have hearts .

So they did all the studies on men's hearts and then they found out oops , women have heart attacks different from men . Their hearts are different . Women recover from strokes different from men . Women recover from concussions differently from men . We are so different even in the body parts that are similar . Why do these forensic shows ?

They go find a tibia or a femur out in the woods . They can tell you exactly if that is a male or female bone and how old it was and everything Okay . So women's bodies are softer and more rounded , which tells you what she is designed for .

I don't want to go to the whole background of where I discovered this , but when this happened it was at a conference and so many light bulbs went on in my head and I was saying wait a minute . I who love nature , I who love animals , I accept that there's male and female in the animal world .

Why am I not accepting male and female differences in the human world ? Why am I putting myself outside of nature , outside of even science ? Why am I doing that ? That doesn't make sense . And it was actually a priest who was an artist , a Byzantine priest , a Father .

Thomas Loya , who was one of my theology , turned out to be one of my theology , the body mentors . After that , he was showing us how the bodies are designed differently and he wasn't referring even to fertility at this point . And I so appreciated that because again , here's a radical feminist complaint . All they do is talk about women's fertility .

They never talk about men and fertility at the same time , in the same breath . It's almost like men's fertility is floating out there and we don't look at a man and say , oh , he could be a father someday . It's like they get to be free and we're not free . We're tied down because everybody looks at us and looks at our bodies and thinks fertility , babies .

Now , it is true , women have the lion's share of fertility . We do . We have the monthly cycles , we have the pain and peril of childbirth , we are pregnant for nine months , we nurse all of that . That's the lion's share of sexuality . Is that a burden and a curse , or it is a privilege ? Or is it a privilege ?

Okay , so what we call the design of men , we call the design of men , body and soul , is transcendence . This is how men image God . Women image God through imminence I-M-M-A-N-E-N-C-E imminence . What are these two things ? What do they mean ? And you know it's a no brainer , the way that men image God , why ? Well , god is the masculine principle .

He revealed himself as the masculine principle . God is beyond gender . Gender is a human thing , not a human construct . It's a real thing . Sex and gender are the same thing , they're not different . So sex God is beyond sex , but he revealed himself as father , right With male terminology . And Jesus is truly male .

He became a real male in every way , shape and form and his resurrected body is still male for all eternity in heaven . So that's kind of a no-brainer right . We got the father . We have the son . Jesus came as a male Even before the incarnation . He was Son . Second person of the Trinity is the Son of the Father . So how do women image God ?

That was a big question for me , like why do we speak about God in male terminology ? Well , he self-revealed that way and again . I could go on for hours about this and I would love to , but you can check it out in the Catechism of the Catholic Church , number 239 and 2779 . It talks more about this . 239 and 2779 , imminence and transcendence .

So what is transcendence ? Transcendence is going out of oneself , going beyond oneself . Transcendence is going out of one's self , going beyond oneself , encountering and bettering the world by going out and working on it . Now you could say , well , women do that too to a degree . But who really ? Come on ? Come on , let's be honest .

Who are the construction workers who build the cities , who do that physical work , laying water pipes down ? Dirty jobs . You know Mike Rowe and his show Dirty Jobs . You see women emptying septic tanks . I don't why ? Because they're being discriminated against and they're not allowed . No , most women don't even want to , and not just because they're dirty jobs .

I don't want to confuse the issue here . Women are not . They don't have the strength in their bodies to lift some of the things that construction workers have to lift . Right , they're not interested in this stuff . It just doesn't appeal to them . They're not maybe good at it , whatever .

But there are women architects , there are women engineers , but some of the physical work women just don't have the capability to do that . Right , if she can go for it , if you can do the job but we are not going to change the standards of the job just so you can live your dream , honey , okay , go for it .

But if you can't and most women can't you should not be putting that heavy stuff on and trying to do that fireman's job , that firefighter's job , all right , it's okay , it's all right to let the men do what they're good at and women do what they're good at .

I'll tell you when I lived in Chicago , we lived downtown and we had a 42-story building going up directly behind us and it was surrounded by buildings . So they had to do this . They had to tear down , implode the building that was there without hurting anything else .

And they had to rise up that building right , just straight up in the air , out of the ground , and there were no men , excuse me , no women that we could see . Maybe behind the scenes there were plenty of women , but the men that were out there , it was all men constructing that building , but there was one woman . You know what she did ?

She was the crane operator and that doesn't require a lot of physical strength , but boy , is that an important job , right ? She was lifting up those steel girders and stuff Fascinating , fascinating . So trying to push women into STEM ? You know science , technology , math . Well , yeah , there might be some good jobs there and everything .

But why are you saying there has to be 50% women in a certain field ? It doesn't make sense . Let the women who want to go there and are good at it go there . Make sure they have opportunities , make sure women and girls understand that this is a great field to get into if they have the aptitude . But this idea , everything has to be 50-50 .

It's okay to have a division of labor . It's okay to let women do what they're good at and men do what they're good at , okay . So back to transcendence . What does transcendence mean ? Like I said , going out of oneself , going beyond oneself , encountering and bettering the world by working on it . Men's sexuality is external to their bodies .

That's part of transcendence . This means something , because the body has meaning . The body already has meaning . We don't assign the body meaning . The body already has meaning . What are some ways that men express transcendence ? Sports , throwing things . Everything is a projectile with guys . Have you ever noticed that ? Spitting disgusting , we could spit .

Women can spit . We never do . It's disgusting and gross . But men are always spitting Construction , building , going out into nature , things like camping , fishing , hunting , video games to a degree , although it's just virtual , always wanting to fix the problem , get her done , being singularly focused on tasks , zoning out in man caves that is a part of transcendence .

What if the man doesn't ? He's not interested in these particular activities ? It's okay , he has them in some degree . He's still a man . He will do everything as he does as a man . He will express his transcendence as a man in his study , home life , family life , work , business , arts , media , technology , travel , hobbies , friendships , et cetera .

Now , women image God's imminence means here and now , in the moment , totally present , not out there . You know , men are the explorers . And you know all this going out , out , out , women make the world a better place by drawing it to themselves and working on it . That way , we women , we can dominate in our own way .

I ask men , my audiences , I'll say guys , have you ever been dominated by a woman ? Do you find you know women dominating ? Oh yeah , we have our own ways by pervading all things . I always say we're like the sunshine , we're like the air and the water . Women are so resilient and resourceful , we kind of permeate everything .

The way I like to think of it is men are the brick and we are the mortar . You know , we keep everything together . We connect everyone and everything . Men are the stalwart bricks that support everything and do their job , and bricks just pile on top of each other , are going to fall down and mortar by itself is just a big heaping mass of cement .

Right , we need each other . Another aspect of imminence is again designed based on the design of a woman's body . Our sexuality is internal to our bodies and that means something , because the body means something . The body already has a meaning of its own . We don't have to assign it a new meaning or try to take away the meaning that it has .

We're a mystery even to ourselves , because we can't see inside our bodies even right . The Bible talks about . You formed me , o Lord , you know , in the darkness and the mystery of my mother's womb . I don't know how you did it . The mother of the Maccabees , the seven Maccabee sons , she said I don't know how you were formed in my womb .

Please don't apostatize against our faith , because God is the one who made you . I didn't even make you . I don't know how you were made . Women are not physically stronger than men . We are stronger in our ability to endure pain and we are emotionally stronger than men because we process our emotions better .

We talk about it , we get it out , we go to our friends . Now , part of that is cultural too . Men are told not to cry , to keep it bottled up , and some of the other things that I also mentioned about women in those characteristics , with the science to back it up , about what is the feminine genius . Does this make women superior to men ?

No , are men superior to women ? No , we're just different . We are the way God made us to be . I would highly recommend that you go online and check out a woman named Vicki Thorne , V-i-c-k-i Thorne without an E . She founded Project Rachel , which is for post-abortion healing . She died rather young . She was a good friend of mine .

She had a stroke and died but she moved on from like cause . The post-abortion healing really took off and in the US the bishops really supported this project and got it into the parishes and the dioceses and it really took off post-abortion healing for both women and men . And she moved on to do the biology of the theology of the body .

So some of the science facts I got from her . That's all she does and she goes into . She used to go onto secular campuses and just they would beg to have her come because people don't know this stuff .

We should know about our bodies , how amazing they are , and I think that would make us love our bodies more , both as men and women , if we started to understand how amazing we are and how different we are , the beauty in that difference . So check out Vicki Thorne , her biology of the theology of the body . She has some YouTube videos on that .

Join us for part two , where we pick up the conversation , where she guides us on how to read our way out of radical feminism , which is the false belief that women are oppressed in the home and their vocation as a wife and mother . How do we achieve true freedom ? Sister Helena will chat with us next time . Please join us . Thank you and God bless .

Thank you for listening to the Veil and Armour podcast .