The Concept of Woman, Sister Prudence Allen, RSM, edited by Sister Mary Cora Uryase, RSM, foreword by John C. Cavadini. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (ISBN: 9780802883889) 2024.

Summary: Surveys philosophers and theologians from ancient Greece to today tracing the concept of woman.

What does the word “woman” signify? I suspect the question might elicit some snide quips, most likely from men. However, this volume surveys the ways philosophers and theologians from ancient Greece, the early church, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and down to the present have answered this question. This work constitutes a synthesis into one volume of a three volume work by Sister Prudence Allen, RSM. In all, she summarizes, if my count is correct, the thought of 163 people!

A key element of this work is Allen’s use of John Henry Newman’s Development of Doctrine. Newman proposes a process of development of Christian doctrines from their first appearance in scripture through the history of the church. His proposal is that while while the truth of a doctrine is fully present in its origins, it also has the capacity to develop as Christians address different contexts. Yet all these developments may be anticipated in the earliest form, which enjoys a “chronic vigour” through time.

Allen’s aim is to demonstrate that Pope John Paul II’s enunciation of “integral gender equality” reflects a true development of the concept of woman through the history of the church, surviving corruptions, along the way to coming to its fullest (so far) exposition in the works of recent Catholic theologians, culminating in Karol Wojtyla’s (Pope John Paul II) work.

She traces the development of four key ideas, beginning with scripture:

1. The equal dignity of men and women (Genesis 1:26).
2. The significant difference between a man and a woman (Genesis 1:27).
3. The synergetic relation of a woman and a man (Genesis 1:28; 2:24).
4. Intergenerational fruition (Genesis 5:1-32).

Through history she traces various ideas reflecting equality with or without complementarity, forms of polarity that usually devalued women, and forms of complementarity that affirmed equal dignity. Among the ancients and medieval thinkers, Hildegard of Bingen stands out as a defender of integral.

The Renaissance, Modern, and Nineteenth century are a mixed bag. On one hand, satires reinforced ancient polarities that diminished women. By contast, humanists affirmed women’s identity and women were found to be writing, speaking, and in the case of Joan of Arc, fighting. Cartesian dualism strengthened gender equality but fractured any sense of unity.

The final part shows the “chronic vigour” of integral gender complementarity while confronting what the author considers corruptions in modern sex/gender ideologies. She introduces many of us to formidable Catholic thinkers from Lonergan and Maritain, to von Balthasar and von Speyr, as well as to her own formulations and Karol Wojtyla’s personalism.

It is nothing short of an intellectual tour de force to summarize over twenty centuries of thought into four hundred pages. Thus, Allen offers the reader what amounts to a comprehensive intellectual history of the concept of woman. What is striking is that the contemporary discussions of egalitarian and complementarian positions within evangelicalism do not warrant mention. By the same token, evangelical discussions don’t mention the development of the doctrine of woman (and man) in the Catholic church. What is striking to me is the absence in the idea of integral gender complementarity of the sharp bifurcation that exists between the two evangelical camps. Equality and complementarity are held together.

At least mostly. The question of the priesthood is not discussed, a glaring silence it seems to me. At least here, the difference between women and men overrules equality. Some discussion of this seems warranted.

Nevertheless, this is an important resource, particularly for its trenchant critique of modern and post-modern sexual and gender ideologies. The synthesis of her earlier three-volume text makes it useful as an academic text. Along the way, she acquaints us with the centuries of rich thought from Augustine, Aquinas, Hildegard, the Maritains, and Wojtyla. There is much of benefit for Catholic and non-Catholic readers alike.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.