How nuns changed the workforce

How nuns changed the workforce (BBC)

The importance of nuns' labour has been downplayed for centuries, exemplifying the misconception that women's work is less valuable than that of their male counterparts

>1 John5918:

And?

The article is clearly written by someone who doesn't have a clue as to what the importance of particular positions within the RC Church are for.

To quote...

In the period following World War II, nuns accounted for 23.4% of the unmarried female population in Italy, and in 2010 there were more than 700,000 sisters worldwide. Rarely in the limelight, nuns have played an important role across the globe, particularly when it comes to service, education and care work.
This is in relative contrast to their male counterparts in the Catholic Church. There are far fewer monks worldwide, and they are more likely to be focused on contemplation, cutting themselves off from the world. Yet, the number of nuns to be beatified is about 10% of the total – mostly male – saints. Nuns are still excluded from the most venerated (and remunerated) echelons of the Catholic Church, and are classed in the Italian census in a different category to vicars, priests and bishops – all positions currently barred to women in the church hierarchy.

There is an obvious bent here to accuse Monks as being less useful. That is a dead giveaway that the author does not understand that the supernatural is more important than the natural.

There is also no mention of the cloistered nuns who do supernaturally vital work.

It seems in sum, that the author values the natural over the supernatural.

It is an article that is written from a spiritless base.

I think the headline message that I took away from this piece is that nuns were able to do all sorts of tasks which women elsewhere in the world were usually excluded from. In that sense (ironically given the church's patriarchal base) it was a step in the emancipation of women, a step which often goes unrecognised.

>3 John5918: I would agree with that interpretation. When I was studying the changes that the Reformation brought to the lives of women, it struck me how disempowering the loss of the option of the religious life was. The abbess of a great House could be a major power in the land, with immense authority, both moral and political. After the Reformation, a woman's status was determined purely by whose wife or daughter she was.

>4 Guanhumara:

Yes, I always think of Hild of Whitby in that regard. Hildegard of Bingen and Julian of Norwich are also outstanding figures for me.

However even in the more modern era, post-Reformation, well into the 19th century and maybe beyond, while nuns did not have the huge influence of those earlier figures, I would say that being a nun opened up areas of work and responsibility which were not available to most ordinary women.

In the bad old days, nuns were spared the risks of childbearing and lived longer than other women: so many stories back then about men on their second, third, etc. marriages and ubiquitous stepmothers! In addition, probably a lot less TB, etc., in a well-run convent? Nuns thus had more years than contemporary laywomen to think/pray, work, and lead?

>6 margd: Not to mention societal expectations: both my mother and my grandmother were forced by their employers to leave their jobs upon marriage (despite the fact that both were better qualified academically than their husbands!)

I doubt that the TB risk is lower, though. Many orders interpret their vow of poverty as requiring them to live amongst the poor of their community, and the nursing and social work many engage in would increase their risk.

>5 John5918: Again I agree: you have named three women I admire immensely. And yes, even in the 20th century it was still true.

What do you think of Faith and Freedom by Teresa Forcades i Vila? I found it an inspiring call to feminism and social action, rooted in Benedictine spirituality.

Reading The Vaccine Race: Science, Politics, and the Human Costs of Defeating Disease by Meredith Wadman, I was struck that a couple of times at least, it was nun-caretakers who sought to protect orphans and other children of the poor and minorities from being test subjects, whereas bishops were as likely as not to give permission.

(Not a good time to be orphaned, poor, black, imprisoned, etc., that's for sure--a broader societal problem, not just bishops. At least kids were spared the most dangerous infections and experimental vaccines, though not without risk.)

Not about nuns, but the role of Catholic women more generally.

Women played an intriguing role in Catholic revival in Germany, author says (Crux)

In his book, Disruptive Power: Catholic Women, Miracles, and Politics in Modern Germany, 1918-1965, Marist College professor Michael O’Sullivan explores the revival of Catholic faith in Germany from 1920-1960, fueled in large part by Marian devotion.

Yet ironically, this new sense of devotion, primarily from traditionalist Catholics, unintentionally weakened the institutional Church, O’Sullivan argues...