Erika Kirk: Charges One, Two, and Feminism. Part II

This is part II of a III part series on Kirk and her critics. To understand the premise of this article, please return to yesterday's post, found here: https://www.catholic365.com/article/58159/erika-kirk-white-martyr-of-the-century-or-hypocrite-part-i.html 

You can also find the article in its entirety (including tomorrow's conclusion!) on my Substack: https://rememberingtomorrow.substack.com/p/erika-kirk 

These three public attacks - the jeering of the left, the suspicion of the right, and the subjugation from the manosphere - leave a grieving widow under fire from nearly every corner of the public world. All this, because her husband was killed for speaking openly and she dared to continue his view. Erika Kirk is well on her way to being the model of white martyrdom of our own day - if all of these attacks are unwarranted. If they are not, she stands the risk of being the hypocrite of the decade, seeking to profit off of her husband’s demise at worst, or common feminist ideologue at best. Let us look at each charge and discern.

The jeering of the left triumphant at Kirk’s death who would wish the same fate on Erika and her children is not worth the time it would take to write a condemnation. It is a horrific mindset that would cheer for the slaughter of those who would extend a hand to converse; how more so to wish an extension of that slaughter to a widow and children! These attacks are not surprising, even if they are a hardship. So much for the first attack.

 
The “just asking questioners,” the Groypers, and those others on the right who attack Erika are not so easily dismissed, just as they cut deeper than the slices of the known enemies. First came Nick Fuentes - known enemy of Kirk. Not so surprising that he would use Kirk’s assassination to further distance himself from his fellow political ideologues; a bit surprising that he has been given such a microphone from many as if to replace Kirk. And not surprising that he would use that microphone to further attack TPUSA and everything Kirk stood for. Further on Fuentes is unnecessary here; although the attention he has gotten (especially incel/volcel/femenine views) definitely warrants further comment in a later article.

But then came Owens and her following. At first it could be understandable: Owens was a friend of Kirk, hurting as many were, and angry. She began what she is typically good at - investigative journalism - and said that she would stop if Erika asked her to. When she got no audience, no time of day, and no attention from TPUSA and Erika, Owens continued to escalate her accusations, even going so far as to boldly proclaim that Erika had mishandled funds and that TPUSA was completely corrupt and no one ought to donate to them. Then flatly refused to stop - like she said she would - when Erika asked her to. In a closed-door meeting, Owens demanded to be privy to court-room evidence and arguments, and promised she would tell her following that TPUSA was still liable for Kirk’s death if her demands were not met. Owens has even gone so far as to claim that she was Charlie’s confidant when it came to women (thus undercutting whatever supposed relationship Charlie had with his wife)! 

Now, as a note of fairness to Owens’ starting point: absolutely, there are and were questioned that needed and must be asked about this horrific crime. And some investigative means by the jury of public opinion is warranted, as it is in every public occurrence. However: the truth gained by inappropriate means, or at an inappropriate time, or by an inappropriate party is not virtuous knowledge. Simply because something is true does not mean that anyone and everyone must or has a right to that knowledge, especially when it is uncovered by violent means, by emotional extortion, or shed in a twisted light. Knowledge gained in such a manner typically (as it has in this case) becomes the truth in the nugget of a complete falsehood, of increasingly outlandish suppositions, and does nothing but eclipse the truth for the sophistic tapestry of the weaver’s egotistic cries for relevance. Any good that then might have come from an open line of reasoning becomes tainted with the spirit of Leo XIII’s coined heresy Americanism: it doesn’t make sense to me, therefore I am at liberty to escalate my insults and public accusations until I am pacified. So, point of order: some of the questions Owens purports to be asking definitely need to be asked; at this point, they cannot fruitfully be asked by her. When she speaks, she does nothing but further attack Erika and everything her husband stood for. So much for attack number two.

The third attack against Erika is perhaps the most nefarious of all, for it pretends to be rooted in a tradition and Faith which it simply does not align with. Moving beyond the Erika wears too much makeup and therefore she is party to her husband’s murder absurdities, beyond the Erika found too much solace in the greeting of her friend and therefore must be in an affair nonsense, we find ourselves confronted with the religious charge: Erika is a mother of children and a grieving widow. But most damnably: she is a woman. Let her return to her kitchen to grieve with her children while the men pick up the pieces of her life. This final charge dives briefly into the realm of the Traditional Gender Roles, but also questions the role of a wife to her husband. Ought women to participate in the public sphere freely? And, more profoundly, ought a wife to be free to help her husband’s legacy and image if he is unable to continue? Let us tackle both of these, a briefly as we can.

The first question regards the nature of work, which is of its essence a culture-building activity. I wrote about culture elsewhere on this site. What I said then pertains now: we must remember that work is an activity of humans, and not primarily man or woman. And, as both men and women are fully human, every work properly speaking is the realm of both man and woman, as long as that work is appropriate and fulfilling to the dignity of human persons. 

This does not mean that anyone of any gender is free to do anything they so please, necessarily. It is not always a tragedy or assault on freedom for individuals to face societal pressure because they pursue one career or another: the inclinations of the individual are fallen, and left unchecked are almost certainly selfish and thereby unfulfilling. Culture and society should absolutely attempt to restrict the arbitrary and often selfish choices humans make aimed at a false freedom of autonomy. This includes trying to maintain a balance and healthy distinction between the genders’ respective familial roles and their participation in the public sphere. 

However: to unilaterally legislate or culturally uphold discrimination against woman as woman on the false premise that her nature is somehow incompatible with public culture building is missing the forest for the trees. Women cannot be barred from intrinsically human activities: “There is no doubt that the equal dignity and responsibility of men and women fully justifies women's access to public functions (Familiaris Consortio, para. 23).” The balance between legitimate cultural discouragement of profession based on gender vs. upholding the freedom and responsibility of the individual is a walk upon a razor’s edge. This is especially true when appealing to a tradition which supposedly concludes a woman’s place is exclusively in the kitchen.

When speaking of women and their influence on culture through history, the narrative tendency is almost never understanding of the whole picture. Looking backwards through history almost always results in imposing today’s values and perspectives on cultures and societies whose values are so foreign to our own we can scarce compare the two. Women were in a bygone age ineligible to take out a line of credit on their own - but only because the husband assumed all of her debt as everything occurred within the context of family. Married women were hired less frequently and for less money than married men - but only because it was the man who provided for his family and the women were earning “pin money.” In many specific laws or customs considered a “traditional gender role,” we can detect some tradendum aimed at the family unit - not dismissive of women as such.

Now, has every age been altruistic in their tradendum of preservation? Absolutely not. Many of the laws and customs have simply not been good-faith attempts at supporting the family as the unit of society. The fact is, there have been plenty of times, laws, and customs aimed not so much as preserving family as much as excluding women from the public sphere. There is no denying this. History shows the “reasonable” framework which suggests society benefits from male-only governance and creativity. From philosophies to erroneous theologies to cultural practices, women have often (though not always) been restricted to the home and/or servile arenas of the community from the premise that they were less capable of human activity than men. 

Exclusion is the portion of the historical narrative modernity - and those influenced by it such as the manosphere - chooses to focus on. And with little effort we can see clearly how modernity views its predecessors. Our own age looks backwards at history (a worthwhile activity), and recognizes that culture is a product of human praxis (although we only see the seemingly arbitrary construction of it through the lens of a Social Contract). Oppression and the restricting of women from the public sphere is a prevalent occurrence in history, and our society notes that culture is inherited from past societies - societies formed by those actors who built them. And finally, today looks at yesterday and sees centuries of culture and society built by humans, and assumes that women have been successfully excluded from cultural influence at nearly every step of the way. There you have it: the patriarchy so railed against today.

Modern arguments would paint all of history - and therefore tradition - as devoid of the feminine influence. Supposedly restricted to the home, excluded from public functions, and oppressed in domestic slavery, women have not contributed at all to the culture and society we inherit today we are told. From this standpoint, there would be almost nothing redeemable about our current patriarchal society. It is as bad and inhuman as can be, and we only know this because of the individuality proposed by the Enlightenment.

Such a society would absolutely be inhuman, and bad. But both history and Faith inform us that this is in no way the truth of years past. Nothing about the human experience - culture, family, or species - is complete or even coherent without equal influence from men and women. Every age requires both the masculine and the feminine in order to be truly human. And we know from Faith that the deposit of Faith is true and full: the Church has been equipped to bring the fullness of Christ’s teaching and make His kingdom present in every culture and to all peoples. As such, the ages since Christ and the cultures built in His wake must have miraculously been influenced by both the masculine and the feminine. Put simply: if we assert the patriarchy is the only thing we have inherited, we must also declare that the Holy Spirit abandoned Christ’s Church almost immediately, leaving humans to build anti-human societies. 

Modernity might paint society as an inherited structure completely devoid of feminine influence, but nothing could be further from the truth. The fact is, women have been involved in leadership roles and active participants in the public sphere for centuries - most consistently within the Christian tradition. From the courageous leadership influencing those in power like Catherine of Siena to the formal political leadership such as Queen Jadwiga of Poland or Elizabeth of Portugal, women have always been present and contributing to that human work of building culture. No age in the Christian world has been without its abbesses and founders such as Clare and Mary Angelica; no time has been without learned women like Hildegard of Bingen, or Margaret More Roper. And no time has been without the witness of the martyrs, from Agnes in the first century to Leonella Sgorbati martyred by ISIS on September 17, 2006.

Now, we must be fair to reality: women have not historically been exactly welcome to contribute to human culture. The lie modernity tells has some kernel of truth: women have often been subject to legislation and cultural bias aimed at limiting their agency. But the falsity is that these biases were successful. But the Holy Spirit guides the Church and her members in conquering the world. He does this in spite of the world, and often subtly undermining the fallen inclinations of Man as a whole.

In the modern world, the excesses of historical sexism are supposedly “overcome” by the new sexism which seeks to erase women. The feminine genius, the receptivity of the feminine nature, and her role within the family are constantly undermined. Instead, women are told to operate as if they were men (or at least how the world thinks men are): autonomy free from family or communio. 

The Holy Spirit, on the other hand, ensures that the feminine and her influence on the world is never lacking. Where the world has tried at every turn to erase her, the Church has always treasured and cultivated her femininity through her theology. And this treasuring is testified by the various divine apparitions in the post-Pentecostal Church. Patricia Snow, in her Forward to Women of the Church, suggests that it is precisely her feminine genius which points Heaven, “when divine messages have been delivered to the human race, [to] so often [entrust these messages] to women, and even to young girls. It is as if, when the survival of such messages has been at stake, the good soil of the female heart has outweighed woman’s disadvantaged social status, including her often compromised credibility.”

When we read further in this Forward, we see some familiar language in Snow’s comments. She continues to list the nature of women’s cultural influence:

Shouldering the responsibilities of [true love which also corrects and admonishes], many Catholic women, in times of ecclesial crisis, have emerged as the galvanizing conscience of the larger Church, speaking truth to the power of imperial Rome, in the case of the virgin martyrs, or urging the diffident, ultimately treacherous Charles VII to his coronation, in the case of Joan of Arc. Not only in the consequential public ministeries of a Catherine of Siena or a Dorothy Day, but also in the most ordinary Catholic families, we so often see the same dynamic in place: the mother upholding the higher standard; the woman as the moral center and conscience of the family.

Note the tone of Snow’s language. Here, she specifically refers to women’s influence as “conscience,” a conscience which overcomes the fallen image of himself in which Man tries to build culture. Even in the face of oppression, even when her credibility and agency is questioned, the Holy Spirit preserves her as integral contributor to the building of culture. Her influence on culture is none other than that same influence she brings to the family unit: the conscience of the feminine genius, reminding Man (homo) of the integral personal orientation of creation. Nothing reasonable is complete without the profound gift of Intellectus following Ratio.

This, then, has been the tragic and oppressive historical position at various points in world history: women have more or less been arbitrarily barred, discouraged, or criticized for their participation in the public sphere and the building of culture. And yet, it would not be true that the culture and society today is completely devoid of feminine influence. On the contrary: the world in the aftermath of the Christian Faith has been influenced and formed by men and women alike. 

We will conclude this series tomorrow by commenting on Women as participant's in the workforce, and Kirk's supposed "feminism" in becoming TPUSA's CEO. Check back tomorrow, or, head on over to Substack to read the article in its entirety! https://rememberingtomorrow.substack.com/p/erika-kirk