The better question is WHY do women need to be educated? Why do they want to be? Is it because they have a family to support, and they must work? Ok, that's a good reason. Is it to become respected by the world and prove women are oh so much greater then men? Then obviously pride motivates it, and pride is a sin.
There are legitimate reasons why some women need to be educated beyond high school. The world is such today that you need to work (even two jobs perhaps) just to live by yourself, let alone have a family. So there are cases in which it's a matter of survival, and there's nothing wrong with that. But the Catholic has to remember humility, whether they're a man or woman, and some people pursue careers for reasons of pride.
Then there's another question outside of the whole man-woman issue that nobody virtually ever looks at. The question of VOCATION. Now by that I'm not talking about habits and cassocks. I'm talking about the reason which God, from eternity, had in mind to create YOU. The talents that he gave YOU, not everybody, but you among a select portion of people whom He meant to have those particular talents, and nobody else. Everybody can hold a crayon. Not everybody can draw above stick figure simplicity. There are far, far fewer Thomas Kinkades. This is what I'm talking about. And a lot of people never think about this because they are never told that it is, and should be a factor in choosing their career.
Everybody wants the "good paying job" but... did God create us for the office? Or did He give us particular gifts, and intend that we use them for His purposes? The crisis in art (with this garbage being touted as art, such as the graffitied (sp?) urinal on display at a museum recently... is chiefly perpetuated precisely because so few people are willing to give up a high paying office job to perfect and give themselves over to a perhaps impoverished life nevertheless doing what God intended them to do with those talents. Art does not pay well in this sick world. You cannot have a nice house and a nice car on a writer or artist budget. And the effect has been, everybody abandons the arts for the office jobs, and the arts go to hell because we've happily handed them over to a godless lot in lieu of an easy chair and a big screen TV. Well, if the Catholics don't do their jobs by the talents God gave them, the atheists will do the job... just a little differently. And so we get the big bad media everybody laments now.
The same is true in just about any other field. A person might have a vocation as a teacher... but if they can't handle the barbarian hordes they have to try to reach at great personal sacrifice, then what teachers take their places? Or in science? If no Catholic scientists have the guts to stand up and get pounded by the whole atheist scientific world, and be absolutely ridiculed for telling the truth, then the atheists will have little resistance in teaching their errors there. In psychology, people don't even pretend to challenge the errors. The whole "science" disregards many fundamental truths about human life, not the least of which is the existence of God, sin and the human soul. But unless Catholics are out there doing what they were MADE for, rather than just what they want or what's easy or what pays better, the godless masses are going to have free reign in every field, because the Catholics they meet there are probably largely not qualified to be there, and subsequently are easily overcome. The Catholic who tries to be an artist and isn't, will hardly strike a blow for art of Catholic quality.
Vocation does not mean simply nun, monk, priest or married. What our vocation is, is the optimal road upon which to achieve our own salvation, and be the most in line with God's will that we can be. God gives us talents, and as the Bible suggests, He expects us to increase and multiply them accordingly... not to take an easy out, as they say, and get ourselves an office with a view. Work of that sort isn't even natural or healthy for the soul, let alone divinely ordained.
The woman, AND the man, of today, would do well to step back and think about what it is they have in terms of talents and intellectual equipment... and dare I say... pray for God to make HIS will manifest? ... before running out and saying "I want to be THIS!" Well, the question with eternal implications is... does God want you to be it? Is this what God equipped you for, in your talents, personality, circuмstances, etc? Is this the handwriting of God you see scrawled across your whole life thus far?
Most of us Catholics never, ever hear something like this... that there is a vocation from God for each of us, to some particular work, and that our duty is to discover it, and submit ourselves to it. Most of us are tossed out into life without any such sensible advice, because most of our parents were never fortunate enough to hear it either. Here's hoping a few more people will now be lucky enough to read this (as I was extremely lucky to hear it myself, albeit late), and will try to live by it.
The greatest question in any problem, is pretty much always either that of God's will or of truth. Sometimes both. And that, I think, is a much bigger issue than trousers or skirts (even if that's part of the issue, since God's will has a say in everything).
Topic: Women in University (Read 8396 times)