This article on human gender dynamics is Sequel 8 to From Homo economicus to Homo ecologicus ~ Cultural Evolution During the 21st Century. It follows
Sequel 1 on conscious evolution,
Sequel 2 on human supremacy,
Sequel 3 on human personhood,
Sequel 4 on human relations,
Sequel 5 on human agency,
Sequel 6 on historical dynamics, and
Sequel 7 on personal dynamics.
"Human development, if not engendered, is endangered." The patriarchal phase of human history is passing away. Gender equality is a sign of the times. This month we explore how human agency, and all kinds of human behavior, are shaped by human sexuality in families and communities. Next month we will explore how gender dynamics drive social dynamics at the macroscopic levels of nations as well as the international community of nations embedded in the ecosphere.
Gender Dynamics for the Communion of Persons
Definition: "Gender dynamics include the relationships and interactions between and among boys, girls, women, and men. Gender dynamics are informed by socio-cultural ideas about gender and the power relationships that define them. Depending upon how they are manifested, gender dynamics can reinforce or challenge existing norms." EIGE
What are boys and girls, women and men, seeking when they act as gendered persons? Is it just sex? Is it just breeding? Surely, sexual acts have both unitive and procreative purposes which are undeniably natural. But are they also inseparable? A rape may be procreative but is not unitive except at the most superficial (strictly corporal) levels of personal subjects. Consensual heterosexual intimacy is unitive at a deeper level, albeit something even deeper may be a bit off when it is not open to bestow new life. But homosexual relations are perfectly natural in many animal species (including some humans) and can be unitive even though they are not procreative.
So it seems that, in the fascinating diversity of gender dynamics that is evidenced in the natural world, the unitive goal prevails over the procreative goal in the sense that the unitive goal is universal and normally accessible to all, while the ability to breed new life is circumscribed to heterosexual relations where both male gender agency and female gender agency can be fully (biophysically) exercised and yields new life. Another name for this unitive purpose of gender dynamics is communion; or, more properly, interpersonal communion (communio personarum) between gendered persons. And communion transcends the sexual act because the language of the body is always gendered.
Patriarchal Deformation of Natural Communion
The gender dynamics of purely natural, pristine communion between man and woman are lost in human prehistory. There is some evidence that natural gender dynamics were originally egalitarian. The creation of patriarchy, apparently in conjunction with the agricultural revolution (10,000 years ago or so) corrupted both the unitive and the procreative dimensions of gender dynamics. In the mythical language of the Book of Genesis (written ca. 1000 BCE), the innocence of "Adam and Eve" became shame, and their interpersonal communion became domination of male over female (Genesis 3:16), yet procreation remained imperative for the survival of the species (Genesis 4:1) to the point that it was considered inseparable from intimacy until rather recently. Now it seems that cultural evolution is moving toward recovering egalitarian gender dynamics in human civilization, even though "old habits die hard." The patriarchal resistance is ferocious, but nature is nature, and nature bats last. Slowly, but surely, the age of patriarchy is coming to an end. What's next? A triune culture reshaped by the integration of "father, mother, and child" in persons, families, and communities?
Consubstantial Complementarity of Man and Woman
A comprehensive exegesis of biblical texts on man and woman, and their unity in one and the same human nature, was developed by Pope John Paul II in his Theology of the Body (TOB). It is not insignificant that the original unity of man and woman is explained as a prerequisite for gender agency pursuant to interpersonal communion as the full image of God. The gender complementarity of man and woman is consubstantial (one somatically homogeneous human nature), so unitive intimacy (Genesis 2:23-24) takes precedence over procreative intimacy.
The TOB provides a solid basis for solving the most pressing issues of human sexuality, both in families and in the Church as the family of God, including the ordination of women to the priesthood in the Catholic and Orthodox churches. The TOB endorses neither rigid ideological patriarchy nor rigid ideological feminism, and provides a vision of marriage, and gender relations in general, that can be summarized as unity in diversity (the "original unity of man and woman"), individuality in community (the "communion of persons") and equality in mutuality ("spousal meaning of the body"). The complementarity of man and woman is for reciprocity and mutual enrichment, not mutual exclusion.
It is noteworthy that, in the TOB, the "male or female" descriptor is always used in reference to the human being as a body, while "male and female" is always used in reference to the human being as a person. The human person is a body, but is more than a body (Genesis 2:7). The body is a sacrament of the entire person, but is not the entire person. Furthermore, being a body is more fundamental to the structure of the personal subject than being somatically male or female (TOB 3:2, 8:1, 21:6). In other words, bodiliness and sexuality are not simply identical:
|
Human Corporality & Sexual Differentiation
"Corporality and sexuality are not completely identified. Although the human body in its normal constitution, bears within it the signs of sex and is by its nature male or female, the fact, however, that man is a "body" belongs to the structure of the personal subject more deeply than the fact that in his somatic constitution he is also male or female. Therefore, the meaning of "original solitude," which can be referred simply to "man," is substantially prior to the meaning of original unity. The latter is based on masculinity and femininity, as if on two different "incarnations," that is, on two ways of "being a body" of the same human being created "in the image of God" (Gn 1:27)."
Consubstantial Homogeneity
"The woman is made "with the rib" that God-Yahweh had taken from the man. Considering the archaic, metaphorical and figurative way of expressing the thought, we can establish that it is a question here of homogeneity of the whole being of both. This homogeneity concerns above all the body, the somatic structure. It is also confirmed by the man's first words to the woman who has been created: "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh" (Gn 2:23).(15) Yet the words quoted refer also to the humanity of the male. They must be read in the context of the affirmations made before the creation of the woman, in which, although the "incarnation" of the man does not yet exist, she is defined as "a helper fit for him" (cf. Gn 2:18 and 2:20). In this way, therefore, the woman is created, in a sense, on the basis of the same humanity."
Source: Original Unity of Man and Woman, Pope John Paul II, General Audience, 7 November 1979. The Theology of the Body: Human Love in the Divine Plan, Pauline Books, 1997, pages 43-44; and Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body, Pauline Books, 2006, pages 157 (section 8:1) and 160 (section 8:4).
|
According to this translation, there was a human being in "original solitude" before sexual differentiation. This is the first human being created from the dust (Genesis 2:7) before sexual differentiation provides a "helper" of the other sex (Genesis 2:18-23). This key text is translated a bit differently in the 2006 edition, but includes the original emphasis in italics for a key phrase, and the same key point is made that embodied human nature (in complete body-soul integrity) precedes humans embodied as male or female:
|
Bodiliness & Sexuality
"Bodiliness and sexuality are not simply identical. Although in its normal constitution, the human body carries within itself the signs of sex and is by its nature male or female, the fact that man is a "body" belongs more deeply to the structure of the personal subject than the fact that in his somatic constitution he is also male or female. For this reason, the meaning of "original solitude," which can be referred simply to "man," is substantially prior to the meaning of original unity; the latter is based on masculinity and femininity, which are, as it were, two different "incarnations," that is, two ways in which the same human being, created "in the image of God" (Gen 1:27), "is a body."" The Meaning of Original Unity, Pope John Paul II, 7 November 1979. Source: Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body, Pauline Books, 2006, page 157. See also note 12 in page 158.
|
Furthermore, the somatic homogeneity of man and woman (TOB 8:4) shows that sexual differentiation, while undoubtedly being a gift, is also a limitation of embodied human nature. A man is bodily a man, and a woman is bodily a woman, but they are both equal in human personhood because they are both "body-persons" (i.e., "body-souls"). The entire TOB is a deconstruction of the patriarchal binary:
- Having a body is more fundamental than being male or female (TOB 8:1)
- Man and Woman are fully homogeneous in their "whole being" (TOB 8:4)
- Corporality, not sexuality, is the primordial sacrament (TOB 19:4, 96:6)
- Imbalance of male domination/female submission must be corrected (TOB 31:2)
- The spousal meaning of the body is not limited to patriarchal analogies (TOB 33:3)
- The spousal bond of Christ-Head and Church-Body transcends patriarchy (TOB 91:1)
- The language of the body, male and female, is the language of the liturgy (TOB 117:5)
The yuxtaposition of Genesis 1 and 2 confirms that man and woman in interpersonal communion are the fullness of the divine image:
|
Communion of Persons
"In the first chapter [Genesis1], the narrative of the creation of man affirms directly, right from the beginning, that man was created in the image of God as male and female. The narrative of the second chapter, on the other hand, does not speak of the "image of God." But in its own way it reveals that the complete and definitive creation of "man" (subjected first to the experience of original solitude) is expressed in giving life to that communio personarum that man and woman form. In this way, the Yahwist [Genesis 2] narrative agrees with the content of the first narrative. If, vice versa, we wish to draw also from the narrative of the Yahwist text the concept of "image of God," we can then deduce that man became the "image and likeness" of God not only through his own humanity, but also through the communion of persons which man and woman form right from the beginning. The function of the image is to reflect the one who is the model, to reproduce its own prototype. Man becomes the image of God not so much in the moment of solitude as in the moment of communion. Right "from the beginning," he is not only an image in which the solitude of a person who rules the world is reflected, but also, and essentially, an image of an inscrutable divine communion of persons." By the Communion of Persons Man Becomes the Image of God, Pope John Paul II, 14 November 1979. See also Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body, Pauline Books, 2006, page 163.
|
From the beginning, the human person, man and woman, was created as a "body-soul" reality that subsumes the "body-gender" reality, which in turn subsumes the "biophysical body" reality, which in turn subsumes many other realities such as biological sex, the five senses, the color of the skin, etc. All men and women are made of the same created dust, the same created flesh, animated by the same kind of created soul. All men and women are naturally consubstantial, with unity in diversity in the image of the Trinity. That the second person of the Trinity became incarnate as a male means that God assumed all the limitations of the human condition ("like us in all things but sin") without in any way ceasing to be a divine person. Consider the following Venn diagram:
This diagram, like all models, is a simplification of reality, but attempts to deconstruct the over simplistic sex/gender binary of the patriarchal culture. Basically, it means that each human being is a body animated by a soul (gray circle). All men and women are fully homogeneous, made of the same dust, of the same substance, of the same flesh; and share one and the same human nature (brown circle). The body of each person is sexually differentiated, and is male *or* female *or* intersex (pink, blue, and purple circles). So, again, the body is a visible sacrament of the entire person, but is not the entire person. The physical body makes visible the invisible metaphysical person, but is not the entire person.
Sex is biophysical. Gender (gradient pink-blue circle) is psychosomatic, a personal synthesis of somatic constitution and cultural conditioning. Sex and gender are constitutive of the human person more deeply that other, more superficial attributes such as skin color, height, and weight; but all men and women are homogeneously constituted of the same flesh in one and the same human nature. The sexual complementarity of man and woman does not limit them to mutually exclusive roles except when they come together to share the gift of love and the gift of life. Modern science (biology, psychology, neurology) has shown ancient cultural stereotypes to be unnatural. In contrast to the patriarchal mindset of male domination and female subordination, a healthy complementarity of man and woman actually requires their joint participation in most human activities and the reconstruction of their interpersonal communion as fully equal partners in the nuclear family, and in the Church as the family of God, including apostolic succession.
Other than genitally, the complementarity of man and woman does not mean mutually exclusive roles. Such mutual exclusion of gender roles is a heritage from radical patriarchy, not divine revelation. All humans are consubstantial in one and the same human nature. Jesus Christ is consubstantial with all humans in his humanity. The Eucharist is the flesh and blood of Christ. Metaphysical "transubstantiation" happens when the priest consecrates the bread and wine, but is really consummated in the flesh when the person who receives the Eucharist becomes "eucharist" in sacrificial service to others.
Remedies for the Tragedy of Secular Patriarchy
There is no magic bullet. However, the see-judge-act method can be helpful in the collective process of finding and applying remedies:
See ~ Since the inception of the patriarchal culture (ca. 10000 BCE) we have become conditioned to assume that human supremacy over nature is "natural law." But there is nothing natural about human supremacy and derivatives such as male supremacy, white supremacy, and other such ideologies of domination. Just look around. Humans are part of nature and are embedded in the natural biosphere, not the other way around.
Judge ~ Ideologies of dominion are bad for human development. Modern neuroscience confirms that a culture of partnership is more conducive to nurture our humanity than a culture of dominion, especially as it pertains to parent-child and gender relations. Patriarchal gender ideology, and other ideologies of dominion, are also detrimental for human ecology, because the mindset of dominion brings about
population overshoot,
ecological footprint,
toxic pollution,
biodiversity decimation,
resource depletion,
climate change, etc., and humans cannot flourish in a planet devoid of clean air, potable water, and healthy food.
Act ~ Therefore, it is imperative to evolve our global culture from a mindset of domination to a mindset of partnership. All human institutions must cooperate in fostering this cultural evolution. Humans may be at the center of the living world, but certainly not at the top. Human body-persons, male and female, are unique in self-consciousness and, therefore, uniquely responsible for the entire community of creation.
The transition from Homo economicus to Homo ecologicus must include transcending Homo industrialis and Homo narcissus. Planetary tipping points are now visible in the horizon, and there is no time to waste. It is time to see, judge, and act.
Remedies for the Tragedy of Religious Patriarchy
All human institutions must cooperate in fostering this cultural evolution away from patriarchal ideology. Religious institutions are not exempt, because religious patriarchy derives from, and in turn exacerbates, the very mindset of domination that is now becoming ecocidal. Religious traditions are not immune to cultural bias, and we have reached the point where a patriarchal ecology stinks.
It is time for religious institutions like the Catholic Church to dismantle patriarchal scaffoldings that no longer serve the spiritual needs of people and serve instead to perpetuate "traditional" ideologies of domination in families and entire communities. In terms of the Christian faith, the mindset whereby only human males have a "natural" resemblance to the historical Jesus is now being reconsidered, for many good reasons that are intrinsic to a theology of the body consistent with integral human nature, male and female:
1. Jesus Christ is the Redeemer, God made flesh, not a patriarch.
2. God the Father is a person, but not a male.
3. God the Son is a person, but was not a male before the incarnation.
4. God the Holy Spirit is a person, but not a male.
5. The Trinity is a communion of persons, not a patriarchate.
6. The "Son of Man" is God made flesh, not a patriarch.
7. All men and women are fully consubstantial in one and the same human nature.
8. Bodiliness and sexuality are not simply identical.
9. Being a body-soul is more fundamental for human nature than sexuality.
10. The body is a sacrament of the entire person, but is not the entire person.
11. The priest acts in the person of Christ, not in the masculinity of Christ.
12. All men and women are ontologically homogeneous in their whole being.
13. All men and women are of the same flesh in their somatic structure.
14. The complementarity of man and woman is enabled by their consubstantiality.
15. All men and women are fully consubstantial with Jesus Christ as to his humanity.
16. For the redemption, the masculinity of Jesus is as incidental as the color of his eyes.
17. Jesus Christ is the Bread of Life, not the male of life.
18. The substance of the Eucharist is BODY, not XX or XY chromosomes.
19. The substance of the Eucharist is FLESH, not testosterone.
20. The Church is "one, holy, catholic, and apostolic," but not necessarily patriarchal.
21. Patriarchy is a disordered attachment to the supremacy of masculinity.
22. The Church is a communion of persons, not a patriarchate.
23. The Church is the body of Christ, not a woman with a male head.
24. The Virgin Mary is the "type" of the Church, not a woman with a male head.
25. The Virgin Mary precedes the sacramental economy as Mother of the Eucharist.
26. The Marian dimension of the Church precedes the apostolic dimension.
27. Apostolic succession is contingent on redeemed flesh, not on masculinity.
28. The nuptial mystery of Christ and the Church is not a patriarchal marriage.
29. Canon 1024 is an artificial contraceptive and abortifacient of female priestly vocations.
30. Catechism 1577 reduces the priesthood of the New Law to priesthood of the Old Law.
31. Catechism 1598 declares that ordaining only males is a choice, not a dogma.
32. The exclusively male priesthood makes invisible the "feminine genius" in Christ.
33. The Christian/Catholic/Orthodox faith is not intrinsically (dogmatically) patriarchal.
34. The conflation of patriarchal gender ideology and Christian doctrines is a disgrace.
35. Institutionalized ecclesiastical patriarchy is an abuse against Christ and the Church.
36. It is time to discard the patriarchal scaffolding that obscures the Catholic faith.
37. Male headship is an ancient but entirely artificial cultural custom, not natural law.
38. After the resurrection, nothing requires that apostolic succession be exclusively male.
39. The first "transubstantiation" in history happened in the Blessed Virgin Mary's body.
40. Transubstantiation can happen via women ordained to act in persona Christi.
|
"What is not assumed is not redeemed." Humanity is male and female, not male or female. For the redemption, and the sacramental economy, what really matters is the body-soul humanity of Jesus, not simply his masculinity; for the New Law, what matters is that the Word became flesh, not that Jesus is male. The Church should stop defending culturally biased doctrines and allow the Risen Christ to call women to the priesthood and the episcopate. Two thousand years doing something wrong is no justification to keep doing it.
Natural Gender Relations for a Healthy Human Ecology
Homo patriarchalis has evolved to become Homo economicus and Homo narcissus. Therefore, further evolution to become
Homo ecologicus necessarily entails outgrowing Homo patriarchalis, which is the ultimate root cause of our current social and ecological predicament on a global scale. This means letting go of patriarchal gender ideology and restoring natural gender relations as the "new" norm for human civilization. Nature should be the norm, not artificial laws (no matter how ancient) and not artificial technologies (no matter how modern, or how appealing, or how convenient). For a healthy human ecology, the fundamental question before embracing any initiative is simply this: Is it natural? Next month, this page will focus on social dynamics, the crucial role that gender relations play in human agency, and the consequences for social and ecological justice. Not surprisingly, Mother Nature has much to teach us, as we shall see.
Guidance of Laudato si' and Fratelli tutti
Some good guidance, based on natural realities, is already available. Pope Francis' encyclicals Laudato Si' on sustainability, and Fratelli Tutti on solidarity, are good guidance for human agency by all men and women of good will. There is an intrinsic connection between the two encyclicals, because ecological sustainability is practically impossible to attain without human solidarity. The Laudato Si' Action Platform and the Laudato Si' Movement are recommended as an effective way, especially for 1.3 billion Catholics, to play a part in conscious cultural evolution for the renewal of humanity and human civilization:
Study the encyclicals Laudato Si' and Fratelli Tutti.
Explore the Laudato Si' official website.
Another good resource is the Laudato Si' Research Institute.
Click the image for more information about the Laudato Si' Action Platform.
Consider becoming active in the Laudato Si' Movement.
Goals of the Laudato Si' Action Platform:
(1) Hearing the Cry of the Earth
(2) Hearing the Cry of the Poor
(3) Ecological Economics
(4) Adoption of Sustainable Lifestyles
(5) Ecological Education
(6) Ecological Spirituality
(7) Community Resilience and Empowerment
![[groups_small]](groups_small.gif)
