Contemplating Woman

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Philippine copyright 2007 by Far Eastern Universityby Maybelle Marie Padua

Published in 2012by Far Eastern University PublicationsFar Eastern UniversityNicanor Reyes Street, Sampaloc, Manila, PhilippinesTelefax: (632) 7350038 Email: [email protected]

All rights reserved.No part of this publication may be reproduced,stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted,

in any form or by any means, electronic,mechanical, photocopying, recording,or otherwise, without permissionin writing from the publisher

The National Library of the Philippines CIP Data

Recommended entry:

Padua, Maybelle Marie O.Contemplating woman in the philosophy ofEdith Stein / Maybelle Marie O. Padua.-- Manila:Far Eastern University Pub., c2007.

p. cm.

1. Stein, Edith, Saint, 1891-1942. 2. Woman(Philosophy). 3. Feminist theory. I. Title.

B3332.S67 108.2 2007 P073000254ISBN 978-971-678025-3

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Cover: Pananghalian sa Bukid (Lunch in the Farm) (Jose Blanco, oil on canvas, 1972)with permission from Michael Blanco, Blanco Family Museum, Angono, Philippines.([email protected])

Cover design:Ross Joseph B. Copiaco

Layout:Iren dela Cruz-Briones

fonts used:(cover) Rage Italic, Papyrus(body) Perpetua


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To my parents.

To all women.

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Contents

Acknowledgements ................................................. vii

Foreword by Sarah Borden ...............................................xiiiIntroduction ........................................................... 1

1 The Feminine Genius of Edith Stein ................................ 7

2 Stein and the Battle for Gender Identity ......................... 11

3 What Makes Woman Woman ..................................... 21The Ethos of Woman .......................................... 21Real Feminine Distinctiveness ................................ 26Two Essential Characteristics of Feminine Nature ........ 35

4 Emotion: Womans Strength or Frailty? ........................ 45

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5 Womans Empathetic Understanding of Persons ............... 63

What is Empathy ............................................... 63Edmund Husserl and the Problem of Empathy ............ 68Edith Steins Theory of Empathy ............................. 74

Empathy as Ones Own Experiencing of Persons..... 74Sensations and Feelings ................................... 83Transcending the Limits of Individual Perception .... 87Individuality ................................................ 90Perception and Intuition .................................. 94Value ........................................................ 100The Value of Persons...................................... 104Other Minds ............................................... 110The Necessity for Empathy in Society: Womans Role ....................................... 115

6 The Meaning and Significance of Woman for the World ..... 122

Notes ................................................................131

Citation ..............................................................147

Bibliography ........................................................ 149Index ................................................................. 153

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Contemplating Woman is the fruit of my research for amasters thesis that started in 2003. When my thesis, The Ethosof Woman in the Philosophy of Edith Stein (October 2004) wasconferred an award1by the Center for Womens Studies of theUniversity of the Philippines (March 29, 2006), I felt that to beaccorded this singular honor called for turning the recognitionover back to the subject of my philosophical investigation:

woman. Hence, the decision to convert this work into bookform.

Acknowledgements

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1Every two years since 2000, the UP Center for Womens Studies and the UP Center forWomens Studies Foundation, Inc. hold theAtty. Lourdes Lontok-Cruz Awardsfor Best Thesis and

Dissertation to distinguish significant women and gender-related studies conducted bypostgraduate students from different colleges at the UP System. Padua was among fiveawardees in the masters thesis level, chosen among 17 studies on women and gender issuesin UP covering the period 2004 to 2006. A copy of this citation is included in this book.


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Woman has a distinct value for the world and this book

invites its readers to ponder the meaning of this profound reality,which I explored in the thought of Edith Stein. In womensstudies, Stein is singled out for her emphasis on womans natureas the basis of feminism. If Edith Stein were alive today, I wouldhave handed this book over as a tribute to her. Many scholarspay her that tribute for her invaluable contributions tophilosophy. Among them is Sarah Borden who writes theforeword to Contemplating Woman. Borden who holds a Ph.D.in Philosophy from Fordham University and teaches at theWheaton College, Illinois, U.S.A. has generously providedme with readings for my research and followed through itsdevelopment from beginning to end. I had written to Bordenafter having read her review of literature on Steins work in the

internet, and we have corresponded since then. Borden, whoanswered all my queries -- always warm and encouraging in herresponse -- linked me to other Stein scholars and reviewed mywork. She made incisive comments on the final form of this

book to ensure that it is consistent with Steinian thinking. I amdeeply indebted to her. I do not know how to thank her enough.

I thank my thesis adviser, Ciriaco Sayson, AssociateProfessor at the University of the Philippines (Ph.D. inPhilosophy from the University of Massachusetts, U.S.A.), forsupervising this work in its inception as a masters thesis. Saysonhimself has fostered great interest in women philosophers, havingtaught Simone de Beauvoir and Simone Weil at the Universityof the Philippines. I have never met a professor so patientlydevoted to his students. His passion for teaching is wonderfullyinfectious.

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I am grateful to my good friends who had supported me

through this undertaking: Liza Manalo, for clarifying a numberof philosophical and existential problems with me and for herinstructive insights on woman; Sofia David, for her suggestionto explore the works of Stein, for lending me books, for thephone calls; Sue Sinay, for her skillful editing of my workpayingcareful attention to the minutest details in writing: a footnotehere, a dash and punctuation thereand for giving me insightfulguidance in the synthesis of this work for an oral presentation;Gemma Balein and Cynthia Diaz, friends in the teachingprofession, who were with me when this work was conferredthe Atty. Lourdes Lontok-Cruz Award for Best Thesis at UP; LeaDeriquito, for running my last-minute errands when this bookwas defended as a masters thesis: such assistance is crucial during

most pressured moments; Jane Pulido and Mimi Fabe, forhumoring me in the early stage of this assiduous work; KenLupisan, Claire Alba, Fe Atanacio, Eda Ibasco, Beth Paquing,Lindy Saguinsin, and Marisse Urquico whose insights on womanand whose life experiences provided deep considerations aboutwomans place in the family, in culture and civilization; Corinne

Romabiles and Rouche dela Cruz, for their thoughtful assistancein the choice of an apt painting for my book cover; and to all thefriends who had sustained my energy and remembered me intheir prayers along the way.

My indebtedness goes to my parents for their faith, hope,and trust. They have ingrained in me the meaning of freedomand responsibility. I am the woman I am today because of theirlove.

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I likewise thank my entire family: Tess, who, as the big

sister in the family, is always there for us during critical instancesof much-needed support; Craig and Marivic, for buying my

books; Rico, Jocee, Boyet, Agnes, Ted, George, Nicole, Katrina,Richard, Camille, Erika, and Dominicfor teaching me what awomans place is in the home.

My great appreciation goes to FEU President LydiaEchauz; I am not one to take for granted that the head of theuniversity took time out to read my manuscript and write agenerous commentary about my book; I am edified by herimmediate response to my request for a review of my work. ToFEU Vice-President Elizabeth Melchor, for showing interest inthis work (I well remember that she had asked me to leave acopy of my thesis for her to read through the summer after it

had won an award; that gesture gave me the first inkling topublish my thesis into book form). To my dean, Jaime An Limand to my department chair; Noel Bejo, for recommending thepublication of my book and for their sincere interest to see thiswork through completion; to Lucio Teoxon, my first departmentchair at the Far Eastern University, whose recognition of the

potential of my early writings started me off publishing injournalshe knew how to praise and boost morale; to mycolleague and friend, James Owen Saguinsin art historian fromthe University of the Philippines and Humanities professor atFEU for the kind favor of acquiring the Blanco familyspermission to feature their fathers painting, Pananghalian saBukid (Jose Blanco, oil on canvas, 1972), on my book cover.

James knows the value of this book for men as well.I am grateful to Josefina Constantino, O.C.D., brilliant

thinker, journalist, and UP professor before she joined the

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Carmelites (an avid reader of Edith Stein) for her conscientious

scrutiny of my work; I put the final touches and refinements onthis book following her kind suggestions.

This book will not be what it is without the wonderfullyreliable team of Agnes Malcampo, Iren dela Cruz, and Ross

Joseph Copiaco. Agnes who is always unflustered amidst theconstantly immense workload at the FEU Publications Officewears a constant smile that makes a warm welcome to all whoenter her workplace; to the hardworking Iren and Ross, theircomputer and artistic expertise gave flesh to the ideas in this

book.My greatest gratitude goes to Divine Providence for

supervising this arduous project. When I am able to surpass mylimitations in a difficult accomplishment, I can only affirm the

achievement as a spark of the Divine.

Maybelle Marie PaduaDecember 8, 2006Manila, Philippines

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There is a unity to Edith Steins thought. There are setsof concerns that occupy her throughout her writing and informher reflection, even when engaging in theoretical work that mayinitially seem far removed. The question of womanof what itmeans to be a woman, of whether there is a femininedistinctiveness and, if so, in what it might consistis one ofthose questions. It is tempting to think of Steins work on such

questions as limited to her series of eleven lectures, composedbetween 1928 and 1933, explicitly on the topic, but, asMaybelle Padua well shows here, such a limitation is a mistake.Although it is certainly true that Stein is most explicit in thosetexts, there are important connections between Steins thoughton woman and her phenomenological works, particularly her

accounts of the intentional structure of emotions and thefundamental nature of empathy.

Foreword

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Neither our emotional life nor our empathetic

experiences are dispensable aspects of human experience. Ouremotions, our affective life, are central to our perception ofreality. They are that by means of which we perceive the differingvalues of what we encounterand such value perception is atheme not unimportant to what it means to be a person, anindividual, and a free, choosing agent. And empathyi.e.following along with anothers experience1is the conditionof constituting anything as real, accessible to another in this way,and thus objective. Ifas Stein arguesthe femininedistinctiveness consists in two primary features, orientationtoward persons and to wholeness, and ifas Padua arguesthese two have important connections to emotionalattentiveness and empathetic development, then Steins work

has far-reaching implications.Many centuries ago, Aristotle strikingly described women

as mutilated males.2 He developed a philosophic account ofthe inferiority of women to men. Although by no means theonly theoretical influence creating the situations women stillstruggle with today, it is fitting that a philosophic response be

given to Aristotle. This has been one of the tasks of feministphilosophy. But part of what makes Steins response so criticalis that it is developed in clear connection with an account both

1 See Paduas chapter five as well as Marianne SawickisBody, Text, and Science (Kluwer AcademicPublishers, 1997).

2 See Aristotles On the Generation of Animals II, iii and Paduas discussion of this point in thesecond chapter.

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of our common humanity and each of our unique individualities.

Stein has a strong conception of the distinctiveness and value ofthe feminine, but she cannot be accused of reducing theindividuality of each woman to her femininity or of forgettingour common humanity. She famously says: no woman is onlywoman.3 No one is a generic human being; we are also sexedand gendered. And no woman or man is a generic member of asex; we are also deeply individual. But our individuality neitherdenies nor compromises our gendered being or our commonhuman being. It is here that Steins genius lies: she has providedan account of femininity with real content that is tied deeply toour personhood, individuality, and humanity, and yet she hasdone so without reducing or losing the distinctiveness of eachof these elements. Such a feat is no small theoretical task, and

we are fortunate to have the guidance of Padua in workingthrough Steins account.

Frederick Buechner famously describes our calling aswhen the hearts deep gladness meets the worlds great hunger.He sees our individual calling or vocation as the meeting ofdesire and duty. In more religious language, we might

understand this calling as relational. Someone hasthroughyour desiresput a calling on your life to meet someone elsesdeep needs and hungers.4 Thus, one finds ones vocation, at

3 Edith Stein Essays onWoman(The CollectedWorks of Edith Stein2), trans. Freda Mary Oben (ICSPublications, 1996, revised edition), p. 49.

4 I am grateful to Jorge Garcia for emphasizing the relational aspects of calling during a paperhe gave at Boston College on February 24, 2006.

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least in part, by recognizing both her distinctive skills, abilities,

and interests and the real needs in the world. Ones vocation iswhere the two meet, although figuring this out is rarely an easytask.

Steins work on woman leads us to this vocationalquestion. Is our femininity (or masculinity) in any wayvocationally significant? In our present era, there isat leastcomparativelya great openness to both women and menpursuing a wide range of jobs. This is not to say that all doorsare open to the degree that they rightly might be, but it is simplyto note that, in comparison to previous times, both women andmen, at least in many parts of the world, have a great range ofopportunities. Stein would be in agreement with this move.She says:

Should certain positions be reserved for only men, othersfor only women, and perhaps a few open for both? I

believe that this question also must be answerednegatively. The strong individual differences existingwithin both sexes must be taken into account. Many

women have masculine characteristics just as many menshare feminine ones. Consequently, every so-calledmasculine occupation may be exercised by manywomen as well as many feminine occupations by certainmen. It seems right, therefore, that no legal barriers ofany kind should exist.5

5 Edith Stein Essays onWoman, p. 81.

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But simply affirming that career fields ought to be open

to both women and men does not yet fully answer the questionof whether there might be a gender vocation.6 There are moreways in which we have a calling and vocation than our literal jobtitle. There is another meaning to vocation, and a meaningrelevant to our gender.

It is common in Catholic circles to speak of vocationsolely in terms of religious vocations, and thus priests, monks,and nuns might have a vocation, but the rest of us do not. Butthat is too narrow an understanding of vocation. As Jorge Garciarightly points out, vocation is a relational idea, and it need not

be limited to a specifically religious role. All of us are called tobe someone or some type of thing for someone else. The workfor which one is paid may be part of that vocation, but all of our

work, paid and not, is vocational.Further, it is not simply what one does that is vocational,

but also how one does it, that is, the foci, concerns, emphases,and questions that one brings to the challenges, tasks, andproblems is vocational. It is on the level of how that we mightask about a gender vocation. I do not wholly know whether we

ought to aim for more equitable distribution in actual careersand jobs. There are surely significant situations in which oneought to do so and significant reasons for pursuing greater

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6 The term gender vocation comes from Dr. Mary Lemmons, of University of St. Thomas in St.

Paul, Minnesota, and aptly describes, it seems to me, Steins claim. I am grateful to Dr.Lemmons for the invitation to work through these thoughts and for her comments andreactions. Part of the following was initially given as a talk at University of St. Thomas ongender vocations, April 2006.


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openness. But, independent of the question of numbers, Steins

notion of the feminine makes a strong case for the need to affirmmore explicitly and regularly the traits and qualities consideredcharacteristically feminine. That is, attentive focus on concreteactual human beings, a focus on well-developed, subtle andnuanced emotional attentiveness, a concern for holistic and fulldevelopment, and an orientation toward wholes and relationswithin broader contexts are surely valuable abilities andconcerns that our societies ought to celebrate and encourage.

All of us have more potential than any of us can realize inthe few years that we have. We cannot do everything. It is thegreat temptation of youth to hope that one can be all things,and it is the temptation of age for this hope to turn into despairat what one will not be able to do. We are finite. We have

limited time, energy, material resources, and opportunities.Even in a world of greater opportunity, our opportunities willnecessarily be limited and finite. Given this situation, all of usdecide daily what to attend to and what not to attend toandthus what to become and what not to become. There is a callingon all of our lives to develop our own abilities and not to let a

dissipation of our time and energy end with no development atall. Given this competition, we ought to consider well thosecapacities we have a special aptitude or calling to develop. Thosewill be not only individual talents and skills, but also genderinflected talents and skills. Once again, this need not implyfeminine jobs or careers in contrast to masculine ones, but to aparticular way of engaging all of our lives, careers, andrelationships.

Some might argue that this is a troubling claim. The claimthat womens geniusto use John Paul IIs wordlies in their

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personal and relational capacities, as an orientation toward

concrete, actual persons and their holistic development, isprecisely the view of women that has caused trouble all theseyears. This view is, in fact, the reason the womens movementsand feminism were born. The critics might insist that, althoughStein might claim that she is not limiting women to the nurseryand home, yet that would be precisely the effect. In arguingthat womens genius lies in persons and attention to persons,Stein they would say has in essence put women back in childrenswards and the low-paying jobs and blocked their path to highereducation or positions of leadership. One might argue that nomatter what Stein may say about not limiting roles or jobs, thiswill be the inevitable result of allowing such gender distinctionsinto our discussion. The objectors might further argue that

Steins descriptions also play into the hands of the worststereotypes about womenseeing women as submissive, assecondary, simply the assistants to the more important work,and the ones who clean up all the dirty work when the day isdone. Women care about people, so let them be the martyrsfor all the men.

These fears are real and have a basis. Women have hadand continue to have, in too many cases, limited access toeducation, health resources, legal protection, etc. This fear isindeed something to be taken seriously. But it is not clear thatthe answer is to deny distinctivenesses. Such an approach has itsown dangers and risks of abuse. If there are indeed genderdifferences, then positions denying this will inevitably end up

baptizing one of the genders as the proper way to be human,and quietly denigrating the other. Carol Gilligan makes preciselythis critique in In a Different Voice. Gilligan claims that we have

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researched and focused on moral development, presuming that

there is only one model. The researchers presumed that mensor masculine moral development was simply humandevelopment. Thus, they understood so many of the womensconcerns and approaches as immaturity, lack of development,stunted growth. Gilligan argues that the very attempt to modelall human beings on one approach created inequalities andinappropriate judgments about women. She calls us to lookagain, to notice that there are in fact at least two kinds of andpatterns of moral development.7

Stein provides an account of why not all individual menor women will fall perfectly into their particular genderspatterns but, nonetheless, why we may distinguish such patterns.Thus, a first answer to the objection is: If it is indeed right that

there are feminine and masculine distinctivenesses, then we rungreater risks and damage to women in denying this than inattending carefully to the differences. Certainly the objectorsare right that we ought to work to avoid abuses; we must bediligent in preventing claims to distinctiveness from falling preyto the temptation to denigrate either sex or sharply

circumscribe our roles and jobs. But it is not clear that the onlyway, or even the best way, to do so is to deny gender differences.

Secondly, none of us can do everything. There is a genuineneed for the traits and emphases more characteristicallyfeminine. It is not simply that women tend toward certain

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7 Carol Gilligan In a Different Voice(Harvard University Press, 1993), esp. Introduction andChapter 1.


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emphases and virtues, but that we are in grave need as individuals

and as a society of preciselythose emphases and virtues. We livein an era of specialists. Such specialization has surely been goodand beneficial in many ways. It has encouraged focusedconcentration and detailed attention to specific problems, andour knowledge and information has, because of thisspecialization, multiplied substantially.

But specialization has not been all good. We have alsobeen encouraged to so focus that we are tempted to lose sightof our own and others whole development. In an era whereall of us are good at somethingbut so few of us are capable inall areas of our liveswhat we desperately need now are saints,those who still aim for the development of the whole panoplyof virtues, and not simply impressive accomplishment in some

single area. We know what impressive but one-sideddevelopment looks like. It is all too common in our world.But there are too few people who are truly well developed innearly all areas of their lives. We are in need of people whohave developed the skills and capacities relevant to doingworthwhile and rewarding work, who know all of their

neighbors names, who can offer words of genuine comfort intimes of struggle, who give truly judicious, perceptive, andinsightful advice, who are loyal, generous, kind and hospitable,who have made substantive and permanent commitments, andwho communicate love and celebratory joy to those aroundthem. There are too few such people.

Yet there is also something truly human about such a fullfocus. None of us live simply in some specialized area. All of usare also daughters and sons, mothers, fathers, neighbors, andcolleagues, as well as people with individual specialized pursuits.

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Such relationships and contexts are not insignificant for our

functioning well as human beings. Computers can run througha great deal of data, tallying it together, and spitting out a fewanswers, but they have no vision. Computers do not see a wholepicture; they cannot see the parts in relation to each other, therelative worth and value of each aspect, and make judicial

judgments in light of all of the evidence and issues. This abilityto understand wholes and the relations within broader wholesis critical: we work in contexts, understanding the broadersituation even as we focus on particular elements; we make

judgment calls in light of the broader concerns and issues; andwe focus not simply on one or two thingsor even a millionindividuals thingsbut the relations among the parts and theirunity as a whole. Such a holistic orientation is both importantly

human and critical to our survival as a race. And such anorientation is, Stein claims, one of the human skills more easilydeveloped by women. Women are oriented toward, not simplyspecialized development, but holistic development. Further,they tend to develop the abilities and capacities to encouragesuch development in others (both men and women). Such an

ability, like any skill, requires development. One must cultivateattentive concern for and perceptive understanding of relationswithin a whole as well as a critical focus on the parts.

If Stein is right that such holistic orientation is an abilityin need of development but nonetheless more easily developed

by women, then there would be important reasons to encouragewomens involvement in all areas of societyand theirinvolvement not just on the models and with the emphases ofmen, but on the models and with the emphases morecharacteristic of women. Thus, it seems that Stein makes an

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Women philosophers are rare in the world. It is notfrequent that we come across one so gifted, scholarly, courageous,and so praiseworthy all at the same time that she figures in as aprominent and respected thinker among her intellectual

counterparts who are men. Edith Stein is significant tophilosophers as one of those few feminist scholars who have tackledfundamental truths about woman by making an inquiry intowomans essence. She broke new ground in academic research byintroducing the consideration of woman as a fundamentalcategory for philosophical investigation. She is also recognized as

a notable thinker in the history of philosophy for her work toreconcile Thomism with phenomenology and integratepsychology and philosophy in the study of empathy. The thoughts

Introduction


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2

of Stein on woman give us fresh and original insights that reveal

womans essence. Stein unravels the profound meaning offeminine nature in a manner that makes us fully appreciatewomans distinct value for the world. Edith Steins philosophicalanthropology1holds that women and men are essentially different.In this book, I examine the philosophers claim that womansnature as biological mother affects her whole being. At the sametime, I present a hermeneutical reflection on Steins ontologicalstudy of woman and defend the position that, regardless of whatour subjective judgments may say otherwise, woman has an intrinsicfeminine value. Using Steins philosophical consideration ofwoman, I articulate that womans ontology, significance, anddignity are most appropriately examined, described, andelucidated through the notion of her distinctive feminine nature.

This book aims to answer the questions What is woman?Is woman inferior to man? Philosophers who think that womenand men are intrinsically different hold that for biological,psychological, intellectual, or spiritual reasons, the sexes aremeant to be different. The thought of Edith Stein on woman

brings out the metaphysical notion of the being of woman in a

fuller sense. The fact is that womans reproductive cycle preparesher to nurture a new human being within her very body.Whether as biological mother or single, womans psyche isnaturally designed for an integral perception of others. In herphilosophy on woman, Stein brings to the fore two essentialcharacteristics of woman: attraction to the personal andattraction to wholeness. Whether it is an awareness andsensitivity toward her own personal being or that of others, it isthe central role of womans emotions that is responsible for thisfeminine kind of holistic knowledge and discernment. Through


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3

emotions, woman grasps the relationship of another being to

herself. This leads us to consider womans emotional life as animportant hallmark of feminine nature. Moreover, woman isdistinguished by her empathetic perception of persons, anintuitive grasp of a persons being and value as person. Steinoffers us a rich backdrop of insights against which we can interpretmore traditional readings of woman, challenging claims to thewoman as the weaker sex and claims to the metaphysicalinferiority of feelings.

Edith Stein, a German Jew born in 1891, became aprotagonist in the German feminist movement. Herconsciousness of womanhood reinforced her humanistic valuesamidst Nazi anti-Jewish terror. Although considered to be oneof the few women who belonged to the German philosophical

intelligentsia of her time, Stein, was never given full credit thenfor her contribution to philosophy because of her gender. Steinstudied and trained under Edmund Husserl, the founder andfather of phenomenology. Husserl had considered Stein his beststudent. She obtained her doctorate summa cum laudefrom theUniversity of Freiburg in 1916. Her dissertation is entitled

On the Problem of Empathy.Stein articulated an important position on woman that

may be considered the ideal for an authentic feminism to resolvecontemporary problems and ailments on woman and herexistence. She is distinguished in womens studies for beingamong the pioneers who studied the unique nature of womanspsyche. Challenging the system of girls education in her time,Stein assessed the system to be one that was not concerned aboutthe differences between man and woman. She paved the wayfor educational reform, introducing an educational system that


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4

took into account the specific needs of the feminine and

masculine psyche to replace an educational system that wasdesigned to address more the needs of boys.

Stein died at Auschwitz during the Second World War.John Paul II canonized her in 1998, remarking, I feel the decisionto choose this feminine model of holiness as particularlysignificant within the context of the providential tendency ofthe Church and society of our time to recognize ever moreclearly the dignity and specific gifts of women.2 In the light ofthe subordination and denigration that woman has suffered forcenturies, this tribute paid to a woman by a pope sends the worlda message loud and clear: humankind must reinstate women totheir status of respect and importance.

To understand the reasons for womans inferior position

in society, I traced its historical background in the second sectionof the first chapter of this book. The chapter explains why therewas a need for woman to be emancipated. My research showsthat womens negative position goes back to pre-Socratic timeswherein patriarchy was the dominant form of societal order: themale was simply regarded as superior to the female. In fact

Aristotle held that man was a being in act, woman, a being inpotency. In his book On the Generation of Animals, Aristotle wrote,the female as it were is a mutilated male. For him, thesubordination of woman is presumed to be a given, equated to anatural condition. Surprisingly, this misogynist construction ofAristotle resonated for nearly two thousand years.3 Thus twocenturies after Aristotle, as the founding fathers of the AmericanRepublic recognize the Negros moral status as a person in theConstitution, hardly did anybody deem womens status as an issuefor debate at all. In Germany, at the time of Stein, women were


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5

seen by law as minors and placed in the same class as children and

the mentally retarded. In most parts of the civilized world, uparound the 1960s, women had no right to vote, were deprived ofeducation, and had restricted access to resources, jobs, and self-support. Feminist consciousness emerged when women becameaware that they were considered a subordinate group and thatthey suffered wrongs. Thus, they felt the need to join with otherwomen to remedy these wrongs. Congregating in groups toprovide an alternative vision of societal organization, feministmovements were born. Among the women in these movementsare Simone de Beauvoir, Hannah Arendt, Simone Weil, and EdithStein who came way ahead of these women. With womenclamoring for equal rights, Germany came to recognize womenas equal to men. In 1919, German law officially grants women

full citizenship. It is at this time that Stein tackles the concern forwomans feminine value.

I had embarked on this study to know more about EdithStein, the woman philosopher in whose footsteps I wanted totread as a philosophical investigator. In doing so, I have come tounderstand more my own womanhood. Being the writer of this

work, I am foremost to have benefited from Steins thoughts. Itis my deep hope that others will seek to derive the same wisdomand light from her clear and fertile ideas.


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6

Edith Stein at home in Breslau, 1925.

With permission from Sr. Dr. Antonia Sondermann, O.C.D.,Edith Stein Archiv, Germany


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The Feminine Genius of Edith Stein

Edith Stein who is Jewish by birth, was born in Breslau(now Wroclaw, Poland), Germany in 1891. She was the youngestof eleven children (four of whom had died as infants), anindependent, intelligent, and precocious child, who was known

to be constantly putting in her two cents-worth in adultconversations when she was a child. She was a brilliant girl whowas always at the top of her class. When she graduated fromhigh school, the principal remarked of her, Strike the stone (steinin German means stone) and wisdom will gush forth. Knowinghow exceptionally gifted she was, Stein in her intellectual self-

assurance upon reaching her second year of college, and beingan atheist since age 14, declared that unless she could provesomething by reason, she would not believe. Later, however,


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8 CHAPTER I

steeped in her studies in phenomenology, she would realize that

religion and the Catholic Faith were phenomena she could notignore. While visiting a Catholic cathedral as a tourist, sheobserved how a woman entered the Church on an ordinary daywith her shopping baskets and packages, knelt down to say aprayer, to visit her friend. Stein never forgot that experience.All she had ever witnessed in the Jewish synagogue when shewould accompany her mother for services was a cold gatheringof people who came together on the day of the Sabbath. For therest of the week, the synagogue was closed. One day, in thehouse of a friend, she pulled out a copy of the autobiography ofSaint Teresa of Avila from the bookshelf. She sat up all nightreading it. When she had finished the book the next morning,she exclaimed, This is the truth. Stein acquired a catechism

and soon after studied the Catholic Faith. After attending Massone day, she approached the priest to ask for baptism. Astounded

by her answers to his questions on the Faith, he asked her whotaught her. Stein said no one, but herself. Shortly after, Steinwas baptized. She was 30 years of age. Stein entered Carmel atthe age of 42 to be a contemplative nun. In 1942, she was among

those gassed to death in Auschwitz during Hitlers persecutionof the Jews. She died two months before her 51st birthday.

Edith Stein is an important figure in philosophy for threeinnovations: the reconciliation of Thomism withphenomenology, the integration of psychology and philosophyin the particular study of empathy, and her philosophicalreflection on woman. It was Stein who first translated ThomasAquinas Quaestiones Disputatae de Veritate (Disputed Questionson Truth) into German. She wrote numerous public addresseson woman including topics such as The Function of Woman in


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THE FEMININE GENIUS OF EDITH STEIN 9

National Life, The Ethos of Womens Vocations, and Problems of Womens

Education. Having trained and worked with Edmund Husserl,father of phenomenology, as his assistant, Stein displays her ownmethod to be just as extensively phenomenological. Herwritings and lectures on woman likewise show that Steinsknowledge of phenomenology and Thomism are brought to bearon the question of the differences and similarities of man andwoman. As previously mentioned, Stein graduated summa cumlaude in 1916 from the University of Freiburg. Her dissertationwas On the Problem of Empathy.

Historically, Edith Stein ranks among those humanisticpioneers who were involved with the unique nature of womanspsyche. A lasting importance is attributed to her essays on thehistory of Differential Psychology. In her work as instructor,

Edith Stein found herself in an educational system which wastotally oriented to and coordinated with the intellectual needsof the masculine psyche. The efforts of the educators then werenot concerned with developing a young girls unique nature

but were rather more on forming her as a suitable companionof man. Perceiving the unique character and the intrinsic value

of woman, Stein asserted the fundamental necessity to give agirl an all-round education suited to her feminine uniqueness.This position enabled Stein to challenge the existing system ofgirls education of her time. She writes, One-sided developmentshould be replaced by an emotionally formative education; thedifferent subjects of the curriculum should be so selected andhandled that they advance the girls spontaneous approach toliving reality and to the individual.4 Stein paved the way foreducational reform that would incorporate at least threeconcepts from her pedagogical theory: first, a concern for a


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10 CHAPTER I

proper understanding of our human, feminine or masculine,

and individual natures; second, the need for a harmoniouseducation which develops our emotional, intellectual, andphysical capacities; and finally, the religious foundation of allformation.


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Stein and the Battle for Gender Identity

While in her student days, Edith Stein was an activemember of the Prussian Association for Womens Suffrage inGermany, a feminist movement. Then concerned primarily withemancipation, Stein, together with the feminists, was working

for the removal of the fetters which prevented woman fromentering into the same educational and professional activities asmen.5Women were seen by the law as minors and placed in thesame class as children and the mentally retarded. The prevailingopinion then was that women were unqualified to work incertain masculine professions. As Simone de Beauvoir would

later describe society: women were defined and treated as asecond-class sex by a male-oriented society whose structurewould totally collapse if that orientation were genuinelydestroyed.6


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That woman has had a negative position and status in

society can be traced back to pre-Socratic as well as Biblicaltimes. Long before Steins time, patriarchy was the dominantform of societal order. History shows that civilization graduallyinstitutionalized assumptions about gender that have powerfullyaffected the development of history and human thought. Onesuch assumption is that:

Men are naturally superior, stronger and more rational,therefore designed to be dominant. From this followsthat men are political citizens and responsible for andrepresenting the polity. Women are naturally weaker,inferior in intellect and rational capacities, unstableemotionally and therefore incapable of political

participation. They stand outside of the polity.7

Metaphors of gender emerged constructing the male asthe norm and the female as deviant; the male as whole andpowerful; the female as unfinished, physically mutilated andemotionally dependent. Out of this thinking arose a functioning

system of patriarchal hegemony resulting in complex hierarchicalrelationships with the womans place and condition as lowerthan man in social, economic, political relations, and in systemsof ideas. Gerda Lerner writes,

Not only have women been excluded through educationaldeprivation from the process of making mentalconstructs, it has also been the case that the mentalconstructs explaining the world have been androcentric,partial and distorted. Women have been defined out and


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STEIN AND THE BATTLE FOR GENDER IDENTITY 13

marginalized in every philosophical system and have

therefore had to struggle not only against exclusion butagainst a content which defines them as subhuman anddeviant.8

Gender became the dominant metaphor by whichAristotle defended and justified the system of slavery. At thetime of Aristotles writing of Politics the question of the moraluprightness of slavery was still problematical. It was certainlyquestionable in the light of the very system of ethics and moralsAristotle was constructing. Why should one man rule overanother? Why should one man be master and another slave?Aristotle reasoned that some men are born to rule, others to

be ruled. He illustrated this principle by drawing an analogy

between soul and body the soul is superior to the body andtherefore must rule it. And the male is by nature superior, andthe female inferior; and the one rules and the other is ruled;this principle, of necessity extends to all mankind.9The analogyextends also to mens rule over animals which Aristotleexpressed as follows:

And indeed the use made of slaves and of tame animals isequally not very different; for both with their bodiesminister to the needs of life. It is clear, then, that somemen are by nature free, and others slaves, and that forthese latter slavery is both expedient and right.10

It is notable in this explanation that there is a need forjustification about the difference in opinion regarding therightness of enslaving captive peoples in the event of an unjust


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14 CHAPTER 2

war. But as regards the inferiority of women, there is no

difference in opinion. The subordination of woman is presumedto be a given, equated to a natural condition, which makes thephilosopher use the marital relationship as an explanatorymetaphor to justify slavery.

By rejecting and disregarding the need to explain thesubordination of women, and by the kind of biologicalexplanation that he had offered elsewhere, Aristotle had in factfixed women to a status of being less-than-human. For him,ontologically, man was a being in act, and woman, a being in

potency.11 The female is, in his words, as it were, a mutilatedmale12 and his misogynist construction is reiterated for abouttwo thousand years.13 The Old Testament, for instance, containsa number of disparaging declarations about women. Sirach

writes, I would rather dwell with a lion and a dragon than dwellwith an evil wife.14 With reference to the story of original sinwhich tells of how woman disobeyed God and invited man toeat of the forbidden fruit, Sirach comments later in his book,From a woman, sin had its beginning and because of her we alldie.15 The Old Testament further records restrictions on

women and their exclusion from the covenant community. SomeFathers of the Church followed suit. The great Saint JohnChrysostom is recorded to have said, Among all wild beasts,there is none to be found which is more harmful than thewoman.16 The Christian era is one that charges Eve, and withher, all women, with moral guilt for the Fall of humankind.17

More than two thousand years after Aristotle, thefounding fathers of the American republic are debating on theConstitution. The issue at hand is the existence of slavery intheir republic. While the Declaration of Independence states,


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We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created

equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienableRights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit ofHappiness, implying that by nature all human beings wereendowed with the same rights, ironically their decision was thata slave was to be counted three-fifths of a man for purposes ofvoting apportionment.18 Implicit in both language and debatewas the acknowledgment that the Negro was indeed human.Debates continued, however, on laws regulating the slave trade,assigning responsibility for the return of fugitive slaves andapportioning voting rights. Ironically, what was at issue werenot moral principles or considerations that defined the Negrosmoral status as a person, but his status as property, determined

by political and economic interest.19

As a result, the slavery issue not only presaged the CivilWar but set in motion the ideas and expectations that wouldfuel the struggle for the slaves eventual emancipation and theiradmission to full citizenship.20But as for women, it was different.There was no controversy or debate on the definition of a voteras male. The American Constitution embodied the patriarchal

assumption, shared by the entire society, that women were notmembers of the polity. There was no felt need even to mention,much less to explain or justify, that while women were to becounted among the whole number of free persons in each statefor purposes of representation, they had no right to vote andto be elected to public office (U.S. Constitution, Article I, 3).The issue of the civil and political status of women never enteredthe debate, just as it had not entered the discussion in Aristotlesphilosophy.21


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What followed were private discussions among several

influential female members of elite families on womens rightsas citizens. Yet despite their thrust into public debate, the womenwent unheard and unrecognized. Emboldened by therevolutionary rhetoric and the language of democracy, women

began to reinterpret their own status. As did slaves, womentook the preamble of the Declaration of Independence literally.But unlike slaves, they were not defined as being evenproblematic in the debate.22

In 1776, Abigail Adams, wife of then U.S. President JohnAdams urged her husband in a letter to remember the ladiesin his work on the legal code for the new republic, remindinghim that wives needed protection against the naturallytyrannical tendencies of their husbands. Gerda Lerner

recounts,

Abigails language was appropriate to womenssubordinate status in marriage and society she askedfor mens chivalrous protection from the excesses ofother men. Johns reply was As to your extraordinary

code of laws, I cannot but laugh. He expressed hisastonishment that like children and disobedient servants,restless Indians and insolent Negroes, another tribe morenumerous and powerful than all the rest [had] growndiscontented. Chiding his wife for being saucy, hetrivialized her argument by claiming that men were, inpractice the subjects. We have only the name of masters.And yet, for an instant, John Adams allowed himself tothink seriously on the subjecther code of laws, ifenacted, would lead to a social disorder: Depend upon


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it, we know better than to repeal our masculine

systems.23

Within this background of the historical development ofpatriarchy emerging as the dominant form of societal order, wesee how the rights of men to control became graduallyinstitutionalized. From this form of dominance came others suchas slavery. Becoming a functioning system of complexhierarchical relationships, patriarchy transformed sexual, social,economic relations and dominated all systems of ideas. In thecourse of its establishment as a societal order, and constantlyreinforced, the major idea systems which explain and orderWestern civilization incorporated a set of unstated assumptionsabout gender, which powerfully affected the development of

history and human thought.24

From the time of the establishment of patriarchy to thepresent, not only have women been excluded througheducational deprivation from the process of making mentalconstructs, it has also been the case that the mental constructsexplaining the world have been androcentric, partial, and

distorted. Womens access to resources and self support wasrestricted. They were deprived of education. Women weredefined out and marginalized in every philosophical system andhave therefore had to struggle not only against exclusion butagainst a content which defines them as subhuman and deviant.25

This system repressed women over the centuries, in such a wayas to make concerned women join together to recreating thesystem which oppressed them. Educational disadvantaging wasa major force in restoring womens individual and collectiveconsciousness. Forced to prove to themselves and to others their


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capacity for full humanity and their capacity for abstract thought,

women sought for ways to counteract the pervasive patriarchalassumptions of their inferiority and incompleteness as human

beings till it became their major intellectual endeavor. Feministconsciousness developed: Women became aware that they wereconsidered a subordinate group; that they have suffered wrongsas a group; that their condition of subordination is not natural,

but is societally determined; that they must join with otherwomen to remedy these wrongs; and finally, that they mustand can provide an alternative vision of societal organization inwhich women as well as men will enjoy autonomy and self-determination.26

What followed was the birth in different parts of theworld of womens movements organized by feminists to free

women of the conditions and constraints patriarchy imposedupon them. Shut out of institutions of higher learning forcenturies and treated with condescension or derision, educatedwomen began to develop their own social networks in orderfor their thoughts, ideas, and work to find audiences andresonance.

In Germany, the feminist movement Stein found herselfin was one that clamored for equal and fair treatment of women.Insisting that a womans place is in the home, critics of theemancipation and the womens movement, however, becameconcerned that such emancipation would imperil womensvocation as mothers. The feminist movement often respondedto its critics by denying any female nature or singularity, that asfar as they were concerned, women were indistinguishable frommen. Because of this, Stein describes the situation as onewherein, one could not speak of an intrinsicfeminine value.27


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The early battles of the feminist movement created two factions:

those in support of the emancipation of women, but who deniedan essential female nature, and those against femaleemancipation, who affirmed such nature. There was no ground,however, for the support of both emancipation and genderdifferences. Stein articulates this controversy on the topic ofwoman in a lecture before an organization of women as follows:

A discerning young girl asked me recently, Why is thatat this time, so much is being said, even by men, aboutthe nature and vocation of women? It is astonishing howthis topic is constantly being taken up by various parties,and how differently it is being treated. Leadingintellectuals are painting a shining ideal of feminine

nature, and they are hoping that realization of this idealwill be the cure for all contemporary ailments and needs.At the same time, in the literature of the present andlast decades, we see woman presented again and again asthe demon of the abyss. A great responsibility is beinglaid upon us by both sides. We are being obliged to

consider the significance of woman and her existence as aproblem. We cannot evade the question as to what weare and what we should be. And it is not only thereflective intellect which faces us with these questions;life itself has made our existence problematic.28

In 1919, with changes introduced to the WeimarConstitution by the German government, the feminists saw theend of an initial feminist battle in Germany. The law upheldgenuine equality between the sexes; women, who came to be


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recognized as having equal standing before the law as men, then

became full citizens. With this triumph for those fighting foremancipation, the country was now ready,Stein claims, to tacklethese long-standing concerns about feminine value. In thesecircumstances, some issues could now be resolved. Do womenhave a distinctive feminine value? If they did, is this value basedon a distinguishing nature? To both questions, Steins answerwas a yes. She clearly affirms real equality and emancipation,yet she also claims there are real differences between the twosexes and that for biological, psychological, intellectual, andspiritual reasons, the sexes are meant to be different. Thus, inher lectures compiled in a book entitled Essays on Woman,29 sheargues for the claim that there is a real feminine distinctiveness.

Steins position may be examined against the Thomistic

view of all human beings sharing a common nature: a humannature. Along with Aquinas and Aristotle, Stein acknowledgedthat there are traits exclusive to the human soul, abilities (or atleast dispositional traits) that are shared by every member ofthe species. If these traits are common, how then can womanhave a distinctive nature or value of her own? To answer this

question I would like, first, to present Steins ontologicalexamination of woman. Second, I will discuss Steins view ofwomans emotional life as an important hallmark of the femalespecies. Third, I will examine Steins phenomenological notionof empathy, which was the topic of her doctoral dissertation, asa philosophical theory that can be employed to understand theprofound sense of womans ethos and feminine value.


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What Makes Woman Woman

The Ethos of Woman

The inquiry into the essence of woman has its logical placein a philosophical anthropology. For so long a time, the difference

between man and woman has been both overrated orunderrated. In a monumental work by Prudence Allen entitledThe Concept of Woman,30 a fruit of 32 years of research, Allenexamines philosophers thoughts on gender and identity

between 750 B.C. to 1250, in a first volume, and 1250 to 1500or the early humanist reformation, in a second volume. Allen

articulates three basic theories of womens identity in theseencyclopedic volumes. The first theory is the unisex view ofPlato which claims that there are not significant differences


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between man and woman and that the soul is sexless. The second

theory is Aristotles polarity view, which argues the male issuperior to the female, while the third theory, thecomplementarity view, holds that men and women havesignificant differences, but are equal in dignity.

Allens first volume explores the way in which the polarityview came to dominate Western thought by the end of the 13thcentury. In the second volume, Allen shows the fresh base forcomplementarity in renaissance humanism, withcomplementarity emerging in the Benedictine monastictradition with philosophers like Hildegard of Bingen. Theneducation shifts from monasteries to universities. The Universityof Paris, where Aristotle is a required reading, becomes theparadigm. The Aristotelian argument becomes dominant and

the Aristotelian thinking about gender is what cascades downthrough the centuries. With the assumption of womensinferiority and incompleteness as human beings, women areexcluded from universities for centuries. Since women aretraditionally considered inferior to men, Sigmund Freuddeclared that such is the dictate of nature: Anatomy is destiny.31

With the long-standing discrimination against women,the task of specifying the distinctiveness of what is feminine ishighly controversial. It is no wonder that feminists have early onsought to defend the dignity of womanhood and have clamored,angrily at times, for their basic social, economic, and politicalrights. Women felt forced to prove to themselves and to otherstheir capacity for full humanity and for abstract thought. Theymanifestly desired to counteract the pervasive patriarchalassumptions of their inadequacy for educational, political, andeconomic life. Thus a problematic issue in womens intellectual


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WHAT MAKES WOMAN WOMAN 23

history was that for women, far longer than for men, education

was a class privilege.32

With the long journey that womansliberation has taken, the study of woman is imperative, evencrucial. The query What is woman? acquires a fundamentaland lasting theme in the long history of humanity and intellectualinquiry. To answer the question requires a profound and in-depth reflection on womans nature and existence. That she isdifferent from man is a reality to be studied seriously, and toachieve full respect for women and their identity, it is vital tounderstand her feminine ontology.

In giving this section the title, The Ethos of Woman, I employSteins use of the term ethos to refer to womans nature. Adictionary definition of the term ethos yields the followingmeanings: habit, habitation, custom, character, characteristic

attitudes, philosophy.33 Understood within its scholasticdefinition, the term ethosin Stein refers to an inner form. Ethosencompasses a persons constant spiritual attitude or habitus asthe scholastics would call it34 The term inborn habitus is used torefer to a natural basic disposition of the soul such as cheerfulnessand melancholy. Along with ethos, this general concept of habitus

is made specific by focusing on values. To speak of ethos is todesignate habitus, one or several, which possesses positivevalue.35 Thus, this study examines the value of woman asexplicated through the idea of a distinctive nature36 of thefeminine species which encompasses a natural basic dispositionof a feminine soul that cannot be modified by environmental,economic, cultural, or professional factors.37

From her reading of Genesis, Edith Stein deduces thathumanity is divided into the double creations of man and woman.To be a member of the human race means to be so, as either


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male or female. Between the two sexes, Steins claim is that

there is a difference not only in body structure and in particularphysiological functions, but also in the entire corporeal life ofman and woman. Stein used the creation narratives of Genesisto draw out what she considered to be the natural vocation ofwoman. Recording the creation of Eve out of the rib of Adam,Stein reasons that as Eve was designed as a helpmate, everywoman is meant to be both a companion (her spousal vocation)and a mother. Her close connection with human birth and withthe development of a new human being is what leads woman toseek and easily bond with whatever is living, personal, andwhole. According to the intended natural order, her place is bymans side to master the earth and to care for offspring. But her

body and soul are fashioned less to fight and to conquer than to

cherish, guard, and preserve.38 Woman is naturally inclined towhat is human, and tends to give relationships a higherimportance than work, success, reputation, etc.

Stein upholds the claim of Thomas Aquinas that thehuman person is a subsistent unity of body and soul (unlike theradical dualism of Descartes representing soul and body as two

different and distinct entities). Since each natural substance is acomposite of form and matter and since matter is whatdistinguishes one human being from another, the body istherefore essential to the person, and is not simply a machineor a shell for the soul that could be discarded without seriousloss to the real self.39 Rationality, she explains, and along withit, free choice, belong to every human being and so to everywoman as a human person. But if the soul is the formativeprinciple of the body (anima forma corporis), as Stein infers froma formulated truth of St. Thomas, and the form of humanity is


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individuated and united with this body or that one, Stein argues

that the feminine body must correspond to a feminine soul justas the masculine body must correspond to a masculine soul.40

The womans soul then will have a spiritual quality distinct fromthe mans soul. The physical distinctions therefore profoundlymark their personalities. The womans body stamps her soul withparticular qualities that are common to all women but differentfrom distinctively masculine traits. Stein saw these differencesas complementary and not hierarchical in value, and so theyshould be recognized and celebrated rather than minimized ordeplored.41 Stein asserts, there are then two ways of beinghuman, as man or as woman. It is this view of Stein that the 20th

century has seen as akin to that of re-emerging personalists. Infact, it is this same view that personalist John Paul II had used to

build a new foundation for complementarity in a man-womanrelationship,42 while Prudence Allen, commenting on EdithSteins view, believes that this same view will likewise be theprevailing one in the near future on womens identity becauseher [Steins] view is based on the truth about the human person.43

The principle of complementarity here means simply that

explanations of the respective identities of woman and of manare both needed to explain the identity of the human being.44

Allen elucidates the principle by reversing the traditionalphilosophical approach, switching the concept of woman intofront position for more attention and putting man in the

background.It could be said that traditional western thinkers have

used primarily one eye when they focused entirely on theconcept of man and neglected the concept of woman. Byrepeated use this one eye became extremely strong. The other


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eye, which focuses on the concept of woman, is much weaker

because of its historical lack of use. Therefore, by strengtheningthe weaker eye, we hope to offer a more accurate perspectiveon the intertwined conceptual histories of men and women.45

In other words, the focus on woman is really aimed atachieving the full development of all men and women. All thismakes Steins view worth examining closely.

Real Feminine Distinctiveness

While Stein affirms the equality of the sexes and hercommitment to a common human nature and the uniquenessof each individual, Stein argues that there is a real feminine

distinctiveness. The task of explicating the distinctiveness of thatspecies is difficult. She says, no woman is only woman46. Eachwoman, just like each man, has her own individual talents andcapacities, be they artistic, scientific, technical, intellectual, orotherwise. No one has merely or purely, a feminine ormasculine nature. In this regard, Stein is strongly critical of

any essentialism that attempts to deny the uniqueness of anyperson. Rather, each of us is human, and within human nature,there is a division between the feminine and the masculine.47

Steins contention is based on her phenomenological study ofman and woman enriched by her interpretation of the OldTestament. She writes,

The first passage of the Bible which concerns humanityassigns a common vocation to both man and woman. Letus make man in our image, after our likeness, and let


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specific feminine or masculine features of the personality. Many

feminists try to deny or at least minimize the existence of sex-based personal characteristics, much as many modern womenare eager to efface this difference in adapting their demeanor tothat of men, the difference in personality structure of man andwoman remains an undeniable reality.

Stein explains that individual persons, however, do notfall simply into one category or the other. In general, morefemales have feminine traits, and they tend toward the feminine,while males tend toward the masculine, but all of us have ourdistinctive individual nature and may realize the feminine ormasculine nature in different degrees and in differing ways. Aman, take for instance, a male teacher, manifests the femininetraits of gentleness and compassion with his schoolchildren when

he is mild, tender, and affectionate in his manner of teaching. Awoman, on the other hand, possesses the masculine traits offirmness and fortitude when she staunchly fights for equal rightsto professional advancement in a male-dominated workenvironment.

In its operation, in its behavior, there is, nevertheless, an

inescapable relationship between the person acting and the natureof the one acting. In a couple of very brief passages, Stein makesthe provocative suggestion that the relation of soul and bodymay differ in men and women, suggesting that in women theunion may be more intimate. She says, [w]omans soul is presentand lives more intensely in all parts of the body, and it is inwardlyaffected by that which happens to the body; whereas, with men,the body has more pronouncedly the character of an instrumentwhich serves them in their work and which is accompanied by acertain detachment.49She argues here that women are present


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to and affected by their bodily lives in a way that men are not. In

her lecture on The Separate Vocations of Man and Woman According toNature and Grace50, Stein asserts that the relation of body andsoul differs for men and women, and this difference is connectedto their psychic lives. While woman is ordained to the roles ofmother and companion, man is designed to be a provider, guide,and protector of his wife and children. In her lecture, Steinexamines the second passage of Genesis, which deals moreextensively with the creation of man, to elucidate this idea.

It (Genesis 2:7ff) relates the creation of Adam, hisplacement in the paradise of bliss to cultivate andpreserve it, and the manner in which the animals were

brought to him and received their names from him. But

no helpmate corresponding to him was found for Adam(Genesis 2:20) The Hebrew expression used in thispassage is barely translatableEser kenegdowhichliterally means a helper as is vis--vis to him. One canthink here of a mirror in which man is able to look uponhis own nature. The translators who speak of a helpmate

suitable to him perceive it in this way. But one can alsothink of a counterpart, apendant, so that indeed, they doresemble each other as one hand does the other. Andthe Lord God said, It is not good that man should bealone. I will make him a helpmate who will suit him.And the Lord made Adam fall into slumber and tookfrom him one of his ribs and formed a woman from itand He led her to Adam. Then Adam declared, This isnow bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. She is to becalled woman, for she was taken from man. That is why


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man leaves his father and mother and adheres to his wife

and they both become one body. (Genesis 2:24)51

Stein explains that this passage from Scripture is not tobe interpreted as man having sovereignty over woman. It tellsus that Scripture has named woman companion and helpmateandsince man will cling to her and that in marriage, both are to

become oneflesh signifies their equality as a single human pair,to be considered the most intimate community of love, thattheir faculties were in perfect harmony as within a single

being.52. They exist for each others mutual benefit. Beingone flesh captures the notion of communion of man and womanin marriage and their complementarity as human beings. Pope

John Paul II affirms this with Stein as he writes in Mulieris

Dignitatem, his encyclical on the dignity and vocation of women,Both man and woman are human beings to an equal degree,

both are created in Gods image Man is a person, man andwoman equally so.53 Scripture tells us that man cannot existalone. He can only exist as a unity of two, and therefore inrelation to another human person. It is a question here of mutual

relationship: man to woman and woman to man. Being a personin the image and likeness of God thus involves existing in arelationship, in relation to the other I.54 Stein maintains thatthe complementary relationship of man and woman appearsclearly in the original order of nature: mans primary vocationappears to be that of ruler and the paternal vocation secondary(not subordinate to his vocation as ruler but an integral part ofit); womans primary vocation is maternal; her role as ruler issecondary and included in a certain way in her maternalvocation.55Shifting to the New Testament, Stein draws support


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for the notion of complementarity from the letters of St. Paul

to the Corinthians.

However, what I want you to understand is that Christ isthe head of every man, but man is the head of woman,and God is the head of Christ. Any man who prays orprophesizes with his head covered renders disrespect tohis head. But any woman who prays or prophesizes withhead uncovered shames her head; then it is as if her headwere shaved off. A man should not cover his head, forit is the image and glory of God, but woman is mansglory. For man does not come from woman, but womanfrom man. For man was not created for the sake ofwoman but woman for the sake of man. Yet in the Lord,

man is neither independent of woman nor womanindependent of man. (1 Corinthians 11: 3-4)56

Stein clarifies that the term Paul used, man is head ofwoman, corresponds to the Thomistic concept of man as the

principle and end of woman. She explains that if a principle is that

from which something else follows, then the scriptural textcited above signifies that woman was made from man and signifiesfurther the principle as primary and that which follows assubordinate. The end as Aquinas uses it means, first of all, thatto which another strives, that wherein it finds peace andfulfillment; hence this signifies that the meaning of feminine

being is fulfilled in union with man. End signifies further thatfor whose sake another exists. Thus, it means that because manneeds woman to fulfill the meaning of his being, she was createdfor his sake. Steins reading of St. Paul, however, is that he could


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be misunderstood to mean woman was created only for mans

sake, to serve mans selfish ends, for that matter, or to satisfy hissexual needs. The meaning of feminine being is rather to beunderstood in the light of her role as eser kenegdo, as manshelpmate,in that she enables man to be the person he is intendedto be. We can glean from the clear word of Scripture thatwoman, from the beginning of the world, is destined to be wifeand mother. Both physically and spiritually she is endowed forthis purpose, as seen clearly from practical experience. Thisnatural endowment enables woman to guard and teach her ownchildren. But this basic attitude is not intended just for them;she should behave in this way also to her husband and to all thosein contact with her.57Thus, even if a woman does not become a

biological mother (because she is single or a consecrated

celibate), her psyche is naturally designed for connectednesswith other persons. Since womans maternal gift is joined tothat of companion, writes Stein, it is her gift and happiness toshare the life of another human being and to take part in allthings which come his way, in the greatest and smallest things, in

joy as well as in suffering, in work and in problems.58 Man, on

the other hand, is consumed by his enterprise, and he expectsothers will be interested and helpful; generally it is difficult forhim to become involved in other beings and their concerns,59

because he has the specific capacity to emancipate himself fromthe affective sphere.60On the contrary, it is natural for woman,and she has the faculty to interest herself empathetically in areasof knowledge far from her own concerns and to which she wouldnot pay heed if it were not that a personal interest drew herinto contact with them. This endowment is bound closely toher maternal gift. An active sympathy for those who fall within


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extent then that man may imitate woman in certain feminine

qualities and roles and may even alter his body for a feminineone (todays advanced scientific and medical technology makesthis possible), how do we argue for the claim that woman isunique or distinct from man? The answer lies in Steins positionthat woman as biological mother distinguishes her whole being:only woman can engender another human being in her womb.Man may play on or take on the role of mother together withhis fatherly role (for instance, in the absence or loss of a mother),he can strive to strengthen his right-brain thinking, he may displaygreater emotion at times, but he will never be able to carryanother human being in his body. It is in this aspect that womanis clearly unique and distinct from man.

A consequence of womans maternal nature is that in

certain areas the feminine psyche is better disposed forspirituality not in its essence but in its operational aspect than the male.63We find in woman a unity of personality by thefact that heart, intellect, and temperament are much moreinterwoven, whereas in man there is a specific capacity to detachoneself from the feelings through the intellect. This unity of

the feminine type of human person displays itself also in a greaterunity of inner and exterior life, in a unity of style embracing thesoul as well as the exterior demeanor. In a woman, thepersonality itself is more in the foreground than objectiveaccomplishments; whereas man, who has a specific creativity, ismore called than she to objective accomplishments.

In the course of her study on woman, it is to be notedthat Stein arrived at her position through philosophical andphenomenological study and through an interpretation of the


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Old and New Testaments. It must not be discounted, however,

that Steins own studies in psychology, years of teachingexperience,64and observations have added strength to her claim.Nevertheless, Stein, as in all her phenomenological work,expects us to check her claims against our own experience and

judgment. Stein has parallel arguments for her claims that drawfrom revelation, and she repeatedly appeals to Scripture inexplicating her position. While her basic claims do not dependon revelation, one can sense her deeply religious worldview inher development of insights. Her attempt to develop a fullyChristian anthropology is also apparent.

Two Essential Characteristics of Feminine Nature

Without undermining the equality of the sexes, Steinbrings to the fore two distinctive characteristics of femininenature. First, she claims that women have an orientation towardthe personal, whereas men are more objective, and secondly,she claims that women are directed toward the whole, whereas

men tend to compartmentalize.65

She says of man, it is naturalfor him to dedicate his faculties to a discipline (be it mathematicsor technology, a trade or business management) and thereby tosubject himself to the precepts of this discipline.66 In contrast,woman is oriented toward people and the personal; her concernis for living things, especially her own personal life and that of

others. She focuses on the living, concrete person, and involvesher total being in her work, not dividing the various aspects ofher life. In Essays on Woman, Stein writes,


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According to the intended original order, her (womans)

place is by mans side to master the earth and care foroffspring. But her body and soul are fashioned less tofight and to conquer than to cherish, guard and preserve.Of the threefold attitude towards the world to knowit, to enjoy it, to form it creatively it is the second whichconcerns her most directly: she seems more capable thanman of feeling a more reverent joy in creatures;moreover, such a joy requires a particular kind ofperception of the good, different from rationalperception in being an inherent spiritual function and asingularly feminine one. Evidently, this quality is relatedto womans mission as a mother which involves anunderstanding of the total being and of specific values.

It enables her to understand and foster organicdevelopment, the special, individual destiny of everyliving being.67

Whereas men tend to have a one-sided developmentbecause of their submission to some discipline, women have a

drive toward totality and full development, both of themselvesand others.68Her theoretical and her practical views correspond;her natural line of thought is not so much conceptual andanalytical as it is directed intuitively and emotionally to theconcrete.69 Nurturing comes naturally to her; she more easilyresponds to the neediness of all men. It is important to notethat this thinking is corroborated by psychoanalysts who explainthat a woman has facility for inner communication with otherpersons by virtue of her capacity for motherhood. In maternity,there exists an infantile preconceptual communication with the


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mother.70 This flux, according to feminine psychology, is by no

means a one-way affair. The mother herself participates similarlyin the communication with the child. Long after the umbilicalcord is severed, there persists an invisible cord. What exists is adeeply knowingrelationship between child and mother a modeof knowledge whichprecedesthe advent of reason and, in a sense,transcendsit.71This notion has led experts in psychology to thinkthe male component of intelligence does not participate inthis. The father does not have the same inner relationship to thenewborn child as the mother. The kind of inner communicationthat the mother has is not shared by the father until the childhimself communicates by signals.72 Experts hold that the man

even with all his sharing in parenthood always remainsoutside the process of pregnancy and the babys birth. In fact,

in many ways he has to learnhis own fatherhood from the mother.73

We see that psychology can substantiate Steins claim about thewomans greater capacity (than man) for awareness of, sensitivityto, and empathy for persons. To be feminine is to manifest suchqualities as warmth, tenderness, care, empathy, sweetness,responsiveness, and intuitive wisdom. In consequence, her

awareness of the needs of the living being benefits not only herposterity, but all creatures as well. It particularly benefits aman in making her a companion and helpmate appreciative ofhis aspirations.74 Because of her intuitive wisdom, woman ismore easily able to ponder over the realities of life. Steinelucidates this as follows:

This is closely related to the vocation of motherhood.The task of assimilating in oneself a living being which isevolving and growing, of containing and nourishing it,


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signifies a definite end in itself. Moreover, the mysterious

process of formation of a new creature in the maternalorganics represents such an intimate unity of the physicaland spiritual that one is well able to understand that theintimate unity imposes itself on the entire nature ofwoman.75

Because of this natural inclination to wholeness and self-containment, Stein suggests that women tend to aim moretoward a holistic expression of personality, while men tend toaim toward the perfecting of individual abilities. She argues thatwomen have a natural tendency toward empathy in that theyseek to grasp the other person as a whole being. This characteristicmanifests itself in a womans desire for her own wholeness and

in her desire also to help others to become complete persons.Woman, Stein writes, is psychically directed to the concrete,the individual, and the personal: she has the ability to grasp theconcrete in its individuality and to adapt herself to it, and shehas the longing to help this peculiarity to its development.76 Atone point, Stein defines a womans self-containment as an

integrity of her inner life which no extraneous intrusions canimperil. The woman yearns for optimal perfection in herself emotionally, volitionally, and intellectually she also desiresthat same psychosomatic wholeness in others with equal intensity.Part of her natural feminine concern for the right developmentof the beings surrounding her involves the creation of anambience, or order and beauty conducive to theirdevelopment.77

Woman more easily focuses on the individual, and on aconcrete, particular person with all of his or her own needs and


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potential. Further, this maternal concern aims at the total

development of the other person as a unity of body, soul, andspirit. Stein sees the maternal aspect of woman as a universalcalling for women and not simply a task to be exercised by

biological mothers with their children. She claims that all womenare naturally inclined to the good of persons with whom theycome in contact in some way.

Stein also explains that the woman is more interested inwholes than in parts, thus womens minds do not dissect anobject; they grasp it in totality. Without denigrating the analyticpower of mens minds, Stein shows that the female nature isstructurally geared to what is metaphysically higher. She writes,

God has given each human being a threefold destiny: to

grow into the likeness of God through the developmentof his faculties, to procreate descendants, and to holddominion over the earth. In addition, it is promised thata life of faith and personal union with the Redeemer will

be rewarded by eternal contemplation of God. Thesedestinies, natural and supernatural, are identical for both

man and woman. But in the realm of duties, differencesdetermined by sex exist. Lordship over the earth is theprimary occupation of man: for this, the woman is placedat his side as a helpmate. The primary calling of womanis the procreation and raising of children; for this, man isgiven to her as protector. Thus it is suitable that the samegifts occur in both, but in different proportions andrelation. In the case of man, gifts for struggle, conquest,dominion are especially necessary: bodily force for takingpossession of that exterior to him, intellect for a cognitive


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type of penetration of the world, the powers of will and

action for works of creative nature. With the woman,there are capabilities of caring, protecting, andpromoting that which is becoming and growing. She hasthe gift thereby to live in an intimately bound physicalcompass and to collect her forces in silence; on the otherhand, she is created to endure pain, to adapt and abnegateherself.78

From all this, it is more understandable why womanimbues us with a sense of the mysterious. Hence, a womanslove is perhaps the only thing which is not achieved by reasoning,Karl Stern writes.79 He adds, The elusive and trans-rational inthe core of womanhood, the fact that in the creativeness of

feminine love and of maternity exists an element of hiddenness,anonymity, something that resists geometrical definition.80

Evidently the quality can be attributed to womans psychologicaldesign arising from her nature as mother. In Edith Steins ownwords, An especially strong natural desire for spirituallynourishing values lives within the soul of the woman. She is

predisposed to love the beautiful, inspired by the morallyexalted; but above all, she is open to the highest earthly values,the inexpressible ones which remain in the essence of the soulsthemselves.81This she achieves using mind and heart (her mindworks best when animated by her heart), thus her holistic graspof persons and objects. She is disinclined to fall into the trapswhich threaten specialists, who no longer see the forest becauseof the trees. Many great minds specialize so much in one facetof reality that they lose sight of the whole picture.82 But forwoman, her mission as mother makes her more adept at


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Contemplating Woman