Femininity & Film

At our last event, Femininity & Film, we explored true femininity embodied by some of our favorite leading ladies in movies such as Pocahontas, Maria von Trapp, Belle, Katniss, Tiana, Eowyn, and Elizabeth Bennet. 
We put to rest the stereotype and lie that womanhood and femininity is a sign of weakness. Many of the characters we explored were all women who were willing to risk their lives and give up their freedom to save someone they loved. 
We also discussed the feminine genius: the woman's receptivity, sensitivity, generosity, and maternity. In their own way, each of the women from film embodied these qualities in the way they lived their vocation of radical love.
True femininity, as expressed by these women in the movies, is a real and radical way to love.  And the the good news is that it is livable for all of us with God's grace!

Check out these quotes that team chose to describe their favorite leading ladies in film:

• Maria Von Trapp from The Sound of Music: "Perhaps more than men, women acknowledge the person, because they see persons with their hearts.  They see them independently of various ideological or political systems. They see others in their greatness and limitations; they try to go out to them and help them.  In this way the basic plan of the Creator takes flesh in the history of humanity and there is constantly revealed, in the variety of vocations, that beauty –not merely physical, but above all spiritual – which God bestowed from the very beginning on all, and in a particular way on women." - JPII Letter to Women, 12
• Belle from Beauty & the Beast: "In [the] moment of danger, those who love much succeed in overcoming their fear." -John Paul II, Mulieris Dignitatem
• Eowyn from Lord of the Rings: "To be a mother, to feel maternally, means to turn especially to the helpless, to incline lovingly and helpfully toward everything on earth that is small and weak." - Gertrude von le Fort in The Eternal Woman
• Tiana from The Princess & the Frog: "Woman is created in the image of God. Like man, she is created for the purpose of knowing, ultimately knowing God. True feminism, therefore, respects woman's essential identity as an image of God. Where she differs from man, a true feminism understands that these differences are constructive and complementary." -Dr. Pia de Solenni, "Christian Feminism: A Fuller View of Woman"
• Elizabeth Bennet from Pride & Prejudice: "The soul of a woman must therefore be expansive and open to all human beings; it must be quiet so that no small weak flame will be extinguished by stormy winds; warm so as not to benumb fragile buds; clear so that no vermin will settle in dark corners and recesses; self-contained, so that no invasions from without can imperil the inner life; empty of self, in order that extraneous life may have room in it; finally, mistress of itself and also of its body, so that the entire person is readily at the disposal of every call." - St. Edith Stein, Essays on Woman pg 133