The complementarity of men and women

By Tanya Connor and Maria LeDoux
The Catholic Free Press
 
Why did God make us male and female? 
It is a “question of our era,” said Deborah Savage at the Worcester Catholic Women’s Conference. 
“He could have done it differently, you know,” she continued, evoking a laugh from the audience.
Christopher Klofft, a professor at Assumption University and Pope St. John XXIII National Seminary in Weston, retold creation accounts from Genesis, in light of St. John Paul II’s Theology of the Body in his talk. Deborah Savage, a professor at Franciscan University and co-founder and director of the Siena Symposium for Women, Family, and Culture, built upon it in hers.
 
KLOFFT
 
God formed a creature – later called Adam, meaning human being – out of muck, breathed into it and it became a living being, said Professor Klofft, who teaches that unlike God, a loving trinity of persons, the creature was alone and therefore unable to love. So, God brought the creature animals to name.
None are a fit companion for the creature, whom God put into a deep sleep, which in Scripture signifies an encounter with God. From one of the creature’s ribs, God formed the companion. 
“The rib comes from the side,” Professor Klofft noted; God designed the two creatures to walk side by side, different but equal, now differentiated as man and woman. 
The first man and woman were tempted by the snake – the devil – to eat of fruit God said not to eat so they could be like gods. 
“They’re already like God; he’s offering them something they already possess,” Professor Klofft said.
The woman ate the fruit and gave some to her husband, who ate it. They hid, ashamed of their nakedness. The man named his wife, like he had named the animals, defining her and taking dominion over her, in opposition to God’s plan.
The whole human race had disobeyed God.
“We broke the universe,” Professor Klofft said.
But God made a way out. He put hostility between the devil’s offspring (sin and death) and the offspring of the new Eve (Jesus) who defeated sin and death.
Living in a broken universe, human beings tend to seek selfish answers to who they are, Professor Klofft said; today there are multiple kinds of identities. But to be happy, people must find their God-given identity. When they are comfortable in this identity, others will recognize and want that. 
 
 SAVAGE
 
Mrs. Savage said, “A careful analysis of Genesis establishes that man and woman must be equally created. They are both composite creatures - made of body and soul. … equally endowed with intellect and freedom. Women don’t need to act like men and men do not need to act like women in order to be human. Men and women are two complimentary creatures.”
Mrs. Savage uses the Genesis accounts to explain that the order by which God creates is a hierarchy. “There is no creation of man without a concrete creation of woman,” she said. “She is created last and on the way up.” She stated that when woman was created balance in this hierarchy was achieved. Woman is “someone who can sustain [man] and help him to live. … She is a partner, not a slave.” 
Saint John Paul II began to give an account for man and woman in Theology of the Body and explored what he coined the “feminine genius.” Mrs. Savage, through her studies is seeking a more thorough explanation on the “male genius”. 
These phrases take into consideration the complementarity and differences of man and woman. To better explain, Mrs. Savage offered a personal example. 
She was in a room with a group of both men and women … and a bat. Upon the realization of the bat in their company, all the women fled to take cover under a table while all the men retrieved any object they could find to capture the bat. Despite the fear of the women, they still pleaded with the men not to kill the bat. 
“This is the masculine genius,” she said; Men know without anyone having to tell them that their job is to protect.
Mrs. Savage used scientific research and biblical texts to show that men and women are different. “Scripture reveals what science is just now discovering. Without question God is the author of all truth,” she said.
Speaking on the complementarity, she stated, “Without woman, man has no future. Without man, woman has no place. … They need each other and are made for each other.”
According to Mrs. Savage, the task of the feminine genius for women is community. “Your task is to encourage community,” she said to the women in attendance. “Woman is responsible for reminding us that all human activity must be ordered towards authentic human flourishing. You make of yourself a gift to another person.”
For men, the task of the masculine genius is caring for creation, it is the “masculine inclination towards things. The building up of human civilizations and human flourishing. If it weren’t for men, we would still be living in caves afraid to come out,” she said. 
“You can’t understand woman apart from man and you can’t understand man apart from woman. Men and women need to acknowledge their blind spots and work together. The task of the laity is to transform the temporal order. It’s men and women working together to create human families and human history.”