Mary Daly: Summary of The Church and the Second Sex

For Mary Daly, the Catholic Church has played an active role in the oppression of women for most of its existence. She argues that the Church is both part of generating and maintaining the sexism of society as well as a product of the sexist society in which it thrives. The Catholic Church perpetuates the oppression of women by at the same time “idealiz[ing] and humiliate[ing]” her. It is through deception, dogmatic argument, and exclusion from the Church’s patriarchal hierarchy that women are limited to a substandard role in not only the institution of the Church but in the entirety of society. These methods propagate the traditional view of women and the requirement of submissive behavior for women which allow the male hierarchy to remain firmly in power without challenge from perhaps just as qualified and knowledgeable women and allow males the luxury of a work-force of women who because it is their “natural” role, will take care of their needs and run their households. 
   
Daly argues that the Catholic Church has maintained a pseudo-glorification of women which deceives her into acceptance of this inferior role. The Church creates the illusion of equality by suggesting that women attain the same salvation as men; when in fact, it is through submissive obedience to men on earth that women achieve salvation in the eyes of the Church. Daly suggests that the glorification of woman is for man, a glorification of himself. “‘By complete possession and control woman would be abased to the rank of a thing; but man aspires to clothe in his own dignity whatever he conquers and possesses.’ Her ‘exaltation’ is therefore ultimately the glorification of man. In short, the pseudo-equality conferred upon woman by Christian ideology is not a genuine acceptance of her as person and partner” (Daly 60). 
   
Man is able to justify this pseudo-equality through the use dogma created through mis-reasoned theory and misinterpreted scripture. The idea of fixed nature and natural inferiority contribute to these faulty validations. Woman’s “minor” role in procreation, as merely providing the matter while man provides the form, insinuates that woman are innately “minor” in their humanity. Many of the writings of famous Church fathers and theologians support this secondary nature of women, suggesting that the oppression of women has been present in Catholicism since the foundation of the Church. Jerome said that the nature of childbirth relinquishes woman to substandard status, but if she desires to “serve Christ” she must turn away from her womanhood. The very name “woman” comes to mean sinful and Godless as Ambrose equates being called “woman” to being called “non-believer”. The challenge that the Church faces in resigning woman to such a secondary status is in that of the mother role. Woman as mother is the sole form in which woman trumps man. However, the Church is able to demolish this complication through the veneration of the Virgin Mother, Mary. The Church removes the power of the mother role as the Virgin Mother, the mother of God himself in human form, bows at the feet of her Son accepting inferiority. It is through this removal of the last superiority of women that the Catholic Church is able to completely subjugate the feminine to a submissive role in society. 
   
By reducing the role of women in society, the Catholic Church is then able to submit them to the roles in which they deem proper for femininity. By excluding women from religious hierarchy, women can make no adjustments to the dogma through which they have received such an inferior status and become subjugated to the petition of men to achieve transcendence. Daly argues that the Church creates confusion among young Catholic girls which provokes “a sense of specific inferiority,” as they view “‘God’s representatives on earth: the pope, the bishop, the priest who says Mass, he who preaches, he before whom one kneels in the secrecy of the confessional—all these are men” (Daly 65). Even the representation of divinity as male; through God the Father, Christ the Son, and the masculine angels; provides for the projection of inferiority in Catholic girls. These all allow the maleness of the Church to remain as superior in humanity and spirituality. 
   
The Catholic Church is able to relinquish women to an inferior existence by establishing theological grounding which women cannot contradict with out chancing denunciation of God’s own Word. Women are thus confined to second-rate roles so that the male hierarchy of the Catholic institution can remain authoritative and sturdy. Mary Daly hopes for the eradication of these systems so that the liberated woman can finally aspire to her full humanity.

Young Catholic girl praying.

Credit: Missionary Projects of the Diocese of Ogdenburg

Copyright: www.dioogdensburg.org/ missionoffice/MPDO.htm