LADY POVERTY: My review of Catholic and Feminist is available to everyone now, not just First Things subscribers.

All of these questions are just side effects of two main questions: If there really is a conflict between one’s Catholicism and one’s feminism, should Catholicism ever win? And, perhaps most central of all, can there be a feminist theology of submission--or does the feminist focus on equality and power relations necessarily crowd out any hope of understanding why a woman might find joy in kneeling, grace in bowing her head?

For the record, that wasn't my title; esprit d'escalier suggests "The Missionaries of Parity," though I don't think that's quite right.

IN MY HEAD, I'M ON MY KNEES: I review Catholic and Feminist: The Surprising History of the American Catholic Feminist Movement in the latest First Things. Subscribers-only for now.

Keep in mind that when I make a statement, I'm standing behind that statement; but when I suggest, or question, it's because I think my questions are a better way to approach the complex truth than any partial or provincial comment I could make.

DON'T READ A PUNCHLINE AS A TREATISE, would be my immediate reply to BDFAR's dismissal of the mixed-sex-dorms question. It's really not the point I was making; in fact I purposely chose a ridiculously trivial situation to link because the situation in the previous link (torture) was so obviously untrivial.

My less-immediate reply would be, read the article. And then tell me that it wasn't a shopworn paste-up of reasons no one should care about sex difference. "I live in a house ruled by pure reason!"

I get why undergraduates would say that stuff; but what's the adults' excuse?

...fwiw, I can think of benefits to this situation, which should also suggest that I don't view it as a huge horrific problem. Guys should have some sense of girls' use of "feminine protection" (LOL, I want a pink Derringer) and that having a uterus is not some kind of bizarre sci-fi complication sprung upon them by gods unknown. On the other hand, come on, I challenge anyone above the age of 22 to deny that the Boston Globe article normalizes naivete. Not because it defends chicks rooming with guys, but because of the way in which it does so.