What Is the Feminine and the Masculine “Genius”?
S
t. John Paul II wrote extensively about the so-called
“feminine genius,” introducing a new element into the
Church’s teaching on the nature of the gift that woman is
to the world. He argues that this “genius” arises from every
woman possessing the potential for motherhood, whether
that is fulfilled in the physical or spiritual sense, and points to
this capacity as the origin of woman’s greater sensitivity to
the “other,” to persons. But another look at Genesis 2 reveals
a prior point of departure for an account, not only of the
feminine genius but of the masculine genius, as well.
Though man encounters God first and is alone with him in
the Garden for some time, man’s first contact with reality is of
a horizon that otherwise contains only lower creatures, what
we might call “things”; this is what leads God to conclude that
the man is incomplete and ultimately leads to the building
of woman. But man is tasked with naming all the things God
brings him; it is in naming them that he takes dominion over
them. It is man who, at Genesis 2:15, is put in the garden to
“till it,” well before the fall puts him at odds with creation. This
is his work. And his genius is found here.
But when the woman is brought to him, he knows
immediately that she is not an object; she is a person. For,
upon encountering her, he says “This at last is bone of my
bones, flesh of my flesh.” Through his encounter with the
already contains a greater actualization
than dust or clay. Man is made from the
earth; but woman is made from man.
It is certainly plausible to suggest
that she is made of “finer stuff.” At a
minimum we can say that because of the
order suggested by reading the accounts
together, woman can be seen as the
pinnacle of creation, not as a creature
whose place in that order is subservient or
somehow less in stature than that of man.
This proposition is reinforced when
we consider that the Hebrew word usually
translated as “helper” is “ezer” and actually
does not mean servant or slave. When
this word is used elsewhere in Scripture,
it has the connotation of Divine aid. Used
here to express helper or partner, it is a
word that indicates someone who is most
definitely not a slave or even remotely
woman, God reveals to him the nature of the reciprocal
relationship of the gift of self. His own gift—that of caring for
and using the goods of creation—is to be exercised in service
to her authentic good and their mission to have dominion
over the earth.
In fact, it is this “genius” that has led to the building up of
civilizations and to the flourishing of human families.
But woman’s first contact with reality is of a horizon that,
from the beginning, includes man, that is, it includes persons.
Upon seeing man, woman recognizes another like her, an
equal, while the other creatures and things around her appear
only on the periphery of her gaze. Thus, in addition to her
capacity to conceive and nurture human life, indeed prior to it,
woman’s place in the order of creation reveals that—from the
beginning—the horizon of all womankind includes the other.
The genius of woman is found here. While man’s first
experience of his own existence is of loneliness, woman’s
initial horizon is different. From the first moment of her own
reality, woman sees herself in relation to persons. Woman’s
genius is to keep constantly before us the fact that the
existence of living persons, whether in the womb or outside of
it, cannot be forgotten while we engage in the tasks of living.
Woman’s gift is to remind us t