Will the Real Wonder Woman (WW) Please Stand Up?

Wonder Woman is “the most popular female comic-book superhero of all time. Generations of girls have carried their sandwiches to school in Wonder Woman lunch boxes. Like every other superhero, Wonder Woman has a secret identity. Unlike every other superhero, she also has a secret history,”  writes Jill Lepore [Jill Lepore. The Surprising Origin Story of  Wonder Woman. The Smithsonian Magazine. October 2014]. What was her secret identity? Why was it hush-hush?

Wonder Woman’s creator went undiscovered for years. When Dr. William Moulton Marston, an internationally famous psychologist, was named as WW’s comic creator, people were surprised. Why was his identity shrouded in secrecy? Perhaps, DC Comics knew that his left-leaning sympathies, relationships, and collaborations within the women’s suffrage, feminism and birth control movements of the early 1900s — if discovered — would invite large numbers of critics to boycott his creation - Wonder Woman. After all, Marston was a free-thinking guy who lived a “thousand lives and a thousand lies.” [Jill Lepore] Still his underground work within the various feminist movements probably would have doomed his Wonder Woman character.

What standards did Marston defy? His marriage included two women and children with both. He had close personal relationships with Margaret Sanger - now dubbed the Father of Planned Parenthood - in part because his youngest lover was her niece although he introduced her as his widowed sister. She joined his family after Marston issued his wife the ultimate ultimatum — either allow his new college student lover a place in their home or he would divorce her. She consented and the three of them lived together, bore him several children during similar time periods, and kept secrets secret. Even his children did not realize the pseudo widow was a mother to several sons.

Human persons are created in the image and likeness of God - our Creator. Man also creates things in his own image. So it was with Wonder Woman. Like Marston, she also defied social and religious norms of the times — but right under the noses of her natural critics. Who is Wonder Woman? She is Diana, Princess of the Amazons; Merciful Minerva; a demigod who can save today; and is the “man who can.” She fought for the rights of the suffragette and the feminist in a sneaky but inviting way!

What’s wrong with identifying with Wonder Woman? After all, women really are a natural combination of wit, intelligence, compassion, emotions, intuition, inner strength, and gentleness. But there’s something intrinsically off when women link pre-feminism with chains and bondage. There’s something amiss when women strive to be like men while declaring them to be chauvinists.  Women are better served by discovering their true feminine genius, TELOS (purpose), and worth without blaming others. Discovery of the unique opportunities available only to women should include but are not limited to bearing children, achieving pregnancy, feeding babies with mama’s milk, and nurturing others as only women can. Women limit who they are and who they can be by comparing themselves to anyone they are not — male or female!

The following paragraphs taken from my book entitled: Mothers Forever, Fathers Forever: Parenting Against the Tide hopefully prompts women to cast aside any false imagery attached to Wonder Woman. It’s admirable for women to recognize and appreciate the important role they play when giving life to others — literally and figuratively. Women can have it all — but never all at once. The pace of doing and being — excellently — establishes goodness and order! We all benefit when life’s challenges encourage us to embrace the cross of Jesus - lifting up our fallen natures during the embrace. We all lose when embracing notions that bind us to chains of any kind.

Blessed Fulton J. Sheen believed that women should be held in high esteem because of their unique role in society. Only women have the unique ability to be a double benefactress for humanity. Wow - what opportunity! Not only is a woman capable of physically preserving humanity but she is also the principle moral provider of humanity.[Fulton J, Sheen.Three to Get Married. P147] What exactly does Blessed Fulton Sheen mean? Does his old-fashioned mantra keep women chained to the bedroom and the home? I don’t think so. Let’s try to better understand what Bishop Sheen meant.  

Sheen suggested that women have a rare ability to tame (civilize) men because she is the principal moral provider of humanity. This means she is fully capable of knowing what’s right and wrong and teaches it to others. This means she naturally encourages moral living for the sake of others. This means she bears a role similar to that of the Blessed Virgin - to help save others.  Over the course of centuries, the Church has commented on the natural spiritual advantages (superior spirituality and more natural spiritual/religious inclinations) of women over men. That was — in part — what Blessed Sheen was referring to. Is that advantage still evident? Its fair to wonder how many women are interested in morality or envision themselves as a benefactress for humanity today.

Women prove they have this unique ability to tame and civilize men when their men gladly and willingly assume the role of husband and father (and in that order) in lieu of more manly interests and pursuits. When men become fathers before promising to become husbands for the course of their lifetime, they are usually not domesticated enough to do small things with great love. Statistics show time and again that many of these men eventually become absentee fathers who fail to hold the interest of the children at heart because they don’t have the interests of the children’s mothers at heart. They also find their wives to be distractions to real living found in pornography, parties, and wild women. These men remain unsatisfactory life partners prompting their ex-wives to assume the role of Wonder Woman for the sake of her children. 

Male attitudes have changed over the past few decades in part because women no longer depend on them. This shift in attitudes follows decades of charges of sexism and chauvinism from women who insist they can and will do their part by bringing in as much or more income to the household as their men. Psychoanalyst Dr. Erica Komisar, in a recent interview, has found that the promises of women to work forever, and the challenge: “'I’m going to make as much money as you’ is a testosterone-like kind of competition with their partners.” (James Taranto. The Politicization of Motherhood. The Wall Street Journal. Oct 28-29, 2017.)

In the past, women seemed better equipped to distract their males for a lifetime of family living — despite multiple hardships and troubles.  This was good for society and families. The Wonder Woman phenom may encourage men unwittingly to change their focus back to doing for self rather than being present to their families. After all, women can now save the day too. Men who remain unchanged by love become less and less important to women and children because of their self pursuits.

Tragically, Wonder Woman really isn’t interested in raising her own children — or even having any children causing her to miss out on the fact that “mothers have traditionally served as the primary example of unconditional love that protects the child from the external world. This creates a sense of inner contentment that allows the child to feel secure and self-assured.” [Bell Stone. Beyond the First Amendment: The Social and Psychological Implications of Political Correctness. March 25, 2011.]

Sheen’s vision of women is largely eschewed today by many modern day experts because it is sexist, gender biased, and politically incorrect. I am not interested in defending the problems that emerged from past eras wherein women had zero choices; however, when observing today’s examples, it seems we have thrown the bath water out with the baby!  The modern woman wildly objects to the notion that she is a principle preserver of humanity and a tamer of the Casanova brand. “Not I,” says the woman hoping to emerge as Casanova’s double as a way of getting even with bad acting men. Today, men and women remain suspicious of the opposite gender after having used or abused the other. All of us search for love for a lifetime — but it doesn’t just happen unexpectedly. We have to work for it by cooperating with our natural makeup, God’s moral laws, and a natural, healthy  dependence on the opposite sex. 

Women who reject their natural status as a double benefactress of society learn to prefer doing over being — akin to many males. These women long for personal success over marriage and motherhood. They fail to realize that doing small things with great love is far more important than doing great things with little love (Mother Teresa). Sheen delicately reminds us that women’s passions are naturally directed toward the building up of lasting and meaningful relationships — as wife and then mother and we should be proud of that status. Encouraging women to re-direct their natural passions elsewhere — in order to advance their own accomplishments — is counterproductive especially for young children who suddenly feel expendable. Women exchanging sacrificial giving for selfish taking will never be satisfied.  Women convinced that marriage and motherhood are the very stumbling blocks to their personal success look to abortion and contraception for help but won’t find it there. 

Today’s women all too often feel more harried, hassled, and hurried through life rather than feeling contented or happy.  We are easily worn out and worn down by the giving we do; however, this is amplified when focusing on doing more than on being. We all know what that means. Having a prolonged self focus is a poison that renders all of us incapable of taming or civilizing any wildness — including our own. The desire to preserve mankind; to be a double benefactress for humanity; to be a principle moral provider gets lost in the process. 

John Paul II believed that one of the beautiful mysteries regarding pregnancy is that the process naturally attaches child to mother and mother to child —  physically, emotionally, spiritually, socially, and psychologically — if and when mothers allow it! The sharing of one heart and one body for a time is the means by which mother and baby remain close during and after birth. In fact, they remain close for a lifetime. Fathers do not share this one heart one body phenomena when their wife is pregnant so they miss out on this natural bond at first. Fathers also do not have to endure the natural sufferings of pregnancy and childbirth offered up by mother for the child’s sake - another opportunity for self sacrifice. Neither do fathers share the same physiological or chemical makeup that promotes nurturing. Consequently, men have to work harder to secure close, emotional bonds with their children — but for many they never feel that they really get there. Women produce more oxytocin than men — this is the natural love hormone! Men, on the other hand, produce more vasopressin than women. Men are quite capable of teaching their children to just get over it, stop feeling sorry for yourself, put your big boy pants on, stop crying, and stop punching. These lessons are important for learning self sufficiency and controlling aggression. Both hormones are necessary — but the latter doesn’t promote those warm, fuzzy feelings associated with love. (James Taranto. The Politicization of Motherhood. October 28-29, 2017. Opinion Column. The Wall Street Journal) 

The Parable of the Sower and the Seed is an allegory about women — in my opinion. Surprising to me, Blessed Fulton J. Sheen talked about this parable in terms of mothers in the 1950’s. [Fulton J. Sheen. Three to Get Married p. 150. 1951] Let me explain. Using the sequence found in this parable from Mark 4:1-20, the first mother allows “the seed to fall beside the path so the birds can eat them up”. This mother fails to protect her seeds of grain and goes so far as to ensure that her seed will die — be eaten up. Her seeds of grain symbolize fertility. Women procuring an abortion, or resorting to other means (use of abortifacients or other agents) that deliberately destroy her seed are represented in this first example. This mother is either fearful of pregnancy or wary enough to ensure that her seed does not grow. The second mother in the parable allows her “seed to fall on rocky ground where the soil was shallow and as soon as the sun came up the grains shriveled up and died.” Women who use artificial hormones that shrivel up the lining of her womb so that her seed dries up and withers (via the Pill, etc.) allow their seed to fall on rocky ground - figuratively speaking.  The mother who allows her “grain to fall among briers and weeds so that the grain was smothered” fails to nurture the children she already has. The briers and weeds represent competing interests and distractions which diminish a mother’s ability to nurture her offspring. The mother who allows the “grain to fall on good soil where it grew and multiplied a hundredfold”represents mothers who generously bring forth life so the world is made new. God is happy with her generosity. 

In closing, a mother is the “most important person on earth. While she cannot claim the honor for having built Notre Dame Cathedral, she need not. She has built something even more significant than any cathedral — a dwelling place for an immortal soul, the tiny perfection of her baby’s body.  The Angels have not been blessed with such grace. They cannot share in God’s creative miracle to bring new saints to Heaven. Only a human mother can. Mothers are closer to God the Creator than any other Creature. God joins forces with mothers in performing this act of creation. What on God’s good earth is more glorious than this—to be a mother?” [Prayer by Joseph Cardinal Mindszenty] This mother is the real Wonder Woman - not the scantily clad representative who is stronger than men and a demigod herself. The real Wonder Woman always pursues virtue including self sacrifice. Her Imitation of Christ suits her well. Let’s put our real Wonder Woman genius and talents to work today!

Points to Ponder 

What do women do really well because of their gender? 

What is meant by a female genius? (use Theology of the Body arguments) 

What are things really more difficult to do because we are women? 

What ways do you civilize the world you dwell in?