The day after President Trump's inauguration, an unprecedented gathering of women assembled in Washington, D.C.,

and in other cities around the country, as a show of sisterly solidarity, the so-called Women's March, so I'm sure you're all aware.

And this gathering demonstrated how fraught the nature of contemporary feminism is.

Much could be gleaned from the list of the issues included.

The platform was very diverse. The self-stated principles for which women purportedly marched

included an end to violence broadly construed, universal access to birth control and abortion,

LGB-QIA rights, which in their own words included the power to control our bodies and be free from gender norms, expectations, and stereotypes,

workers' rights for citizens and immigrants, including pay equity for women, access to child care and family leave, and a living wage.

Also included on the platform, civil rights, disability rights, immigrant rights, and environmental justice.

Apparently only leftists can be feminist.

Now, also instructive is a consideration of those women who are intentionally excluded from the event, namely pro-life feminists.

Consider this for a moment.

The platform of this march was so broad that it made room for every social issue of the day.

But pro-life feminists were viewed to be a threat.

Hmm.

This raises many questions, but for this evening, our question is, can there even be a Catholic

feminism?

But before we take up this question, let us turn our attention to feminism in its secular form.

As you may know, some sociologists, philosophers, and cultural commentators

have divided the history of feminism into three or four so-called waves.

First wave feminism describes the American suffragists who labored for the full flourishing of women in the social

sphere and whose primary goal was to obtain the vote for women. Second wave feminism took a

...