| Pope John Paul
II raises this feminine vocation to truly cosmic proportions, looking to
women for the rehumanization of a world dominated by hedonism and materialism.
In The Gospel of Life he calls upon women to “teach others that human relations
are authentic if they are open to accepting the other person: a person
who is recognized and loved because of the dignity which comes from being
a person and not from other considerations, such as usefulness, strength,
intelligence, beauty or health.” This contribution of women, declares the
Holy Father, is “an indispensable prerequisite for an authentic cultural
change,” for replacing the culture of death with the civilization of love.
In addition to this cultural or spiritual motherhood, Stein sees woman’s calling as including a spousal dimension, the role of companionship. This involves sharing the life of another, entering into it and making that person’s concerns one’s own. One might argue that this is a vocation for both men and women, and it is unlikely that Stein would deny that it is. But it may also be true that women have a special genius for friendship, perhaps because of their orientation to the human and personal, and a greater capacity for exercising empathy. Stein’s dissertation on the subject of empathy was completed some years prior to her lectures on women’s roles, but one can see its influence on that later work. She describes empathy as a clear awareness of another person, not simply of the content of his experience, but of his experience of that content. In empathy, one takes the place of the other without becoming strictly identical to him. It is not just understanding the experiences of the other, but in some sense taking them on as one’s own. |
| Obviously this ability to enter into another’s life is especially helpful within marriage, but it can and should be exercised in other relationships as well. For women who are single, or for those who have consecrated themselves wholly to God, this aspect of their vocation should take on a more universal scope, and will call for a more disinterested (that is to say, a more divine) kind of love. Everyone who knew Edith Stein tells us that she was a living example of this capacity for empathy. Her spiritual director in the late ’20s, Abbot Raphael Walzer, wrote that she possessed “a tender, even maternal, solicitude for others. She was plain and direct with ordinary people, learned with the scholars, a fellow-seeker with those searching for the truth. I could almost say she was a sinner with the sinners.” |
| Women in the Professions | ||
| Women’s role within
society concerned Stein very deeply. She was herself a professional woman,
and she taught younger women at the secondary and later at the university
level, just at the time when they are deciding what path their lives should
take. Should women be confined to the domestic sphere, to “home and hearth”?
Not at all, said Stein. She saw the gains made by the women’s movement
in this respect to be positive, opening up the professions and political
life to women and providing equal opportunity in these areas.
Stein translated Newman’s The Idea of a University into German, and she held that a liberal education can be just as helpful in the formation of women as in the formation of men. If some subjects are more naturally attractive or interesting to women, perhaps because of clear connections with the living and personal, others may be helpful correctives to an excessively personal outlook. Since domestic skills can be learned at home, Stein suggested a curriculum for university women that does not differ significantly from what would be offered for men. Still, she felt it is of utmost importance that teachers of women should know how to connect their subject matter with the particular concerns and sensitivities of women. She thought it very important that girls and women be taught primarily by women. |
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