They tried to make the laborers few

A Filipino lawyer recently posted a statement online. What follows is its English translation.

“Nearly 99 percent of men will choose a reserved, respectful, affectionate, and simple woman even if she has no achievements, rather than a boastful career woman. That’s the truth, whether you like it or not. That’s because a man doesn’t want competition at home; he wants peace. A man fights all day out in the world. He doesn’t want to come home to fight with his woman. Affection isn’t weakness. It’s a power that many modern women have forgotten.”

The words incensed thousands of women. I can only repeat what I’ve read, as I have nothing to add that hasn’t already been articulated more concisely, solemnly, and soberly.

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The statement smacks of a man who believes that a woman’s true worth is contingent on whether she is chosen by a man, not by who she truly is, even without a man by her side. Such a man condemns women to only one of two mutually exclusive categories: the woman with few to no accolades whose only role is to collapse her identity into her husband’s, versus the woman with many achievements who is a fiery, toxic, warmongering monster.

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Sadly, the statement repeats ideas shared by many so-called alpha males. They might begin with Bible verses to attack college education for women. Without correction, they can graduate to loud criticism of women in power. And when left to their echo chambers, they can escalate to situations as extreme as the “online rape academies” investigated by CNN, where men are taught how to drug and sexually assault women, including their partners.

The statement is consistent with the online incel culture, where men blame women’s advancing careers for their refusal to settle. What many of these men won’t admit, however, is that women do not want to settle for any kind of man, and certainly not for the one who thinks he’s fighting gigantic battles and is therefore entitled to a hot meal and warm body.

Such a woman would want a man who will share the finances, yes; but she also wants a man who will help with the chores and the children without having to be asked, who will be loyal and choose her every day the way that she chooses him, and who will share the emotional burdens of long relationships.

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They are equal in the effort, so such a woman would seek a man, as well, who respects her equality in the relationship. She doesn’t want someone whose identity depends on how she can shrink. She does not want to burn herself so that he can shine in the flames.

And some men—only the insecure ones, mind you—interpret this as the modern woman.

As though women back then had no such resentment. Perhaps some accepted their assigned roles; but there, too, might have been many who already saw it as a problem, and yet did not have the voice or vocabulary to articulate their anger. They did not have the venue to live out their dreams.

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The statement dismisses the diversity of women’s stories and violates a woman’s free will to actually do something in and for the world.

I remembered this last Sunday, when I served as lector at the Our Lady of Pentecost parish. Our presider, Fr. Robbie Sian, SJ, dismantled the common assumption surrounding the Gospel passage “The harvest is abundant, but the laborers are few.” Most people would conclude that the clergy are the laborers, and everyone else is the wheat, waiting to be harvested.

Father Sian reminded us that all people, clergy and not, are called to be laborers. No one is simply wheat to be harvested, for they could end up as weeds: those who are thought to be fruitful in their uselessness, and that will, in the end, be pulled up and burned.

He recounted the words of the late Pope Francis: the Church is not a babysitter. It doesn’t feed the faithful to put them to sleep, nor does it entertain the noisy into docility. The Church’s teachings are for everyone to actively live their faith, to help each other, and to contribute their part.

That, I think, is why a blanket admonition of the career-focused, high-achieving woman, sans nuance, is grating.

It’s because we are made to sound as though we gather accolades not because we want to help our communities, but for the opportunity to show off or to pick fights randomly. It’s because all women are stripped of their mandate, as human beings, to be fruitful in a world where the needs are abundant, but the laborers are few.

It’s because women are once again being told to be quiet when we need humanity that discerns, acts, and speaks up, rather than a halved humanity where one group holds dominion and the other is helpless.

That is perhaps too much for the lawyer to digest. Perhaps an answer parallel to his claim will work.

I have no baseless statistics to give, but I am glad I don’t attract men who put women into boxes, conflate a career with boastfulness, mistake achievements for competition, confuse submission with affection, and equate enforced silence with peace. We all fight our own battles. We all have our own power. Now go find your own field to ruin.

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