Rediscovering the Feminine Genius
Written by Jody C. Benson
About three years ago, while studying Edith Stein, a friend expressed her skepticism about the concept of the “feminine genius.” She asked us very directly, “Do you really think there is a feminine genius?” She has a true God-given gift of leading others to see from another angle, and her comment made me realize that perhaps we do take for granted how we express our nature through our relationships and ways of being with others. Often, our gift of speech and sensitivity to others can be tainted by gossip, which undermines our potential to be bearers of communion and to help relationships flourish.
Yet her question gives us much to ponder: Is the feminine genius hidden or obvious? Is it only found in a few rare souls, or is the feminine genius more pervasive than we thought? Do we journey into this redeemed vision of our womanhood through our grace-filled acts? Or has our fallen state made this realized version of our womanhood more of a Platonic ideal, a castle in the air? John Paul II had a unique capacity to see what others couldn’t see, even in themselves. So I suspect that for him, this idea of the feminine genius was his gift to us. He didn’t need to give us a precise definition because he reverenced our capacity to realize its meaning in our very act of thinking about it together.
When Well-Read Mom brought up the idea of the “feminine genius” in the Year of the Woman, I immediately thought of the closing of the Second Vatican Council. Pope Paul VI specifically addressed women in these words: “But the hour is coming, in fact has come, when the vocation of woman is being achieved in its fullness.” He goes on, “That is why, at this moment when the human race is undergoing so deep a transformation, women impregnated with the spirit of the Gospel can do so much to aid mankind in not falling.” Clearly, we are living in an age when the “feminine genius” must mean something more than just a catchphrase. It must hold a truth about our being that is worthy of our contemplation and dialogue.
One of the key gifts of the feminine genius is prophetic wisdom—the grace not just to know truth through experience but to speak it through our words and even embody it through our receptivity to others. We encounter this in our first novel of the year, So Big. Selina speaks prophetically when she sees that the beauty she wants her son to have comes in the form of a true relationship—the beauty of encountering others just as they are, rather than trying to possess or get something from the relationship. After Dirk comments that Mattie doesn’t quite belong to his crowd and won’t get him anywhere in terms of social status, Selina admonishes, “She’s what I call part of a university education. Just talking to her is learning something valuable… But this Mattie—why, she’s life.” Selina recognizes the temptation to see friendship in terms of pleasure and use, rather than for why friendship exists for us at all—to direct all our relationships toward communion in the Trinity.
My goal this year is to treat these literary friendships with a keener spiritual awareness rather than a critical understanding. The truly feminine woman, after all, is emboldened by her love of God to speak truth to the heart of every woman with the sweet tenderness of Christ. My prayerful hope is that my continued practice of reading will help me slow down and notice the gifts of each woman God puts in my life this year so that we may all rediscover who we were called to be for another.
Jody C. Benson
Jody C. Benson is a writer and editor in Wisconsin. She received her master’s degree in bioethics and humanities from the Medical College of Wisconsin. Her writing has appeared in Comment, Public Discourse, Humanum: Issues in Family, Culture & Science, The Better Part Journal, and others. She writes a Substack letter called A Holy Wonder, a place to find the good life in the creative life. Learn more at jodycbenson.com.
About Well-Read Mom
In Well-Read Mom, women read more and read well. Our hope is to deepen the awareness of meaning hidden in each woman’s daily life, elevate the cultural conversation, and revitalize reading literature from books. If you would like to have us help you select worthy reading material, we invite you to join and read along with us. We are better together! For information on how to start or join a Well-Read Mom group visit our website wellreadmom.com
