Digital Continent Summer 2017 | Page 52

43 Conclusion and Final Thoughts: In his recent autobiography God or Nothing, Cardinal Sarah condemns gender theory for denying an ontological difference between man and woman. He condemns what he calls a “deconstructive philosophy of gender,” 146 a philosophy implicitly denying the concrete and vital importance of human nature as embodied. The Cardinal’s description is telling of a deep-seated problem: [Gender theory] claims that masculine and feminine identities are not inscribed in nature but are only the result of a social construct, a role played by individuals through social tasks and functions. For these gender theorists, gender is performative, and the differences between man and woman are nothing but oppressive norms, cultural stereotypes, and social constructs that have to be undone so as to arrive at parity between man and woman. [This] idea of a constructed identity actually denies in an unrealistic way 147 the importance of the sexed body. The problem is obvious. Contrary to gender theorists who deny the objectivity of human nature – as the Cardinal points out – the actual contours of the physical body matter greatly to the life and love of the human person. Gender cannot be divorced from one’s sex. Mind and body are not meant to coexist in radical discontinuity. Critiquing the popular understanding of gender in this way, I believe, provides a foundation for defining gender in a positive manner. However, the purpose of this thesis was not to provide a positive definition of gender, because the primary purpose was to establish a sound philosophical foundation upon which to define and understand gender. At best, this thesis gave an implicit definition of gender in the negative sense of what it could not be – the popular notion of a body schema. Whatever it means to be gendered (a topic left open by this thesis) remains intimately caught up in human nature. Human nature comes in one of two discrete and different forms: man or woman (mentally/psychologically), respectively male or female (biologically). This is a brute fact supported by 146 Robert Cardinal Sarah, God or Nothing: A Conversation on Faith with Nicolas Diat, trans. Michael J. Miller (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2015), 164. 147 Ibid, 163-64.