“The most effective way women have been “captured” by radical ideologies is through our emotions,” Carrie Gress writes.

Emotional manipulation targeting women has been the undercurrent of the 20th and 21st centuries. In her article, “3 Essentials for Rebuilding a Pro-Life Culture,” Carrie Gress writes that women have been captured by radical ideologies through their emotions. She quotes Clara Zetkin, the founder of International Women’s Day, who wanted to use women to swell their numbers for a future communist revolution:

"Female employees, especially intellectuals ... are growing rebellious. ... More and more housewives, including bourgeois housewives, are awakening. ... We have to utilize the ferment."

Anger, resentment, envy – according to Gress all these emotions are stirred up by radical feminists, and used to promote unease about a woman's situation in life. Radical feminism asks the questions: are you really happy? Are you really respected by your husband? Are you really in control? Consciousness-raising groups, popular in the 60’s and 70’s (and also used in communist China) pulled negative emotions and suspicion to the forefront of women’s minds. These consciousness-raising groups targeted these emotions not to resolve them and bring women peace, but rather to breed the popular discontent that fed their handlers’ political agenda. 

Unfortunately, the same tactics are still at work today. Gress writes:

"The incredible success of emotional manipulation is still on display today, with victimhood having achieved high political status. Fear, envy and encouragement to manipulate others — and even the fear of 'missing out' — are common ways the feminist ideology uses our human nature against us."

Emotions

Our emotions can become an Achilles’ heel. While emotions are a natural part of us, they are easily changeable and easily influenced (For example, an ad about homeless dogs can move you to tears). As Gress points out, emotions can and have been used against us by those who seek to use women for their own political ends. 

Emotions, however, are not the most important part of our nature, nor are they the strongest. Emotions are like clouds. They are real, they are present, but they are not permanent. A cloud may block out the sun, but the sun remains. So too emotions are real; they pass through our lives and deserve recognition, but they should not own us. They should not dictate our choices. They are not who we are.

Emotional manipulation only succeeds if the woman forms her identity based on what she feels instead of who she is. Therefore, the way to avoid emotional manipulation is to remain rooted in your great dignity, as a human being and as a woman. 

The dignity of woman

“Gratefully, the gospel of discontent need not have the final word,” Gress writes. “The Gospel of Christ, supported by 2,000 years of Church teaching and the sacraments, can free us from these controlling emotions.” Gress’ solution to emotional manipulation is the great dignity we have as daughters of God. We need not be slaves to the whims of others, but rather should “see what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are” (1 John 3:1). 

In his letter to the Romans, St. Paul writes that our daughterhood sets us free: “For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” (Romans 8:15). No matter what clouds of emotion cross our path, we can remain firm in the conviction that we are daughters of God – falling back on truth to stave off the lies. 

The divine adoption is for all, but women themselves have a special dignity, as John Paul II writes in his letter to women. John Paul II writes: 

The dignity of every human being and the vocation corresponding to that dignity find their definitive measure in union with God. Mary, the woman of the Bible, is the most complete expression of this dignity and vocation. For no human being, male or female, created in the image and likeness of God, can in any way attain fulfilment apart from this image and likeness.

Women are the “archetype” of union with God and receive from him a special richness in their femininity. John Paul writes, “The personal resources of femininity are certainly no less than the resources of masculinity: they are merely different. Hence a woman, as well as a man, must understand her "fulfillment" as a person – her dignity and vocation –  on the basis of these resources, according to the richness of the femininity which she received on the day of creation and which she inherits as an expression of the "image and likeness of God" that is specifically hers.” 

In the Gospels, Jesus points to the mysterious and beautiful dignity women have and the special relationship women have with Christ the bridegroom. 

Daughters of God and mystical brides of Christ in the Church, women have an inherent precious dignity in how they image God. With such a firm foundation, women have the freedom to examine their emotions, confident that this great dignity cannot be taken away from them. Though the clouds of emotion may be stirred up by what we see and hear on the news and from “strong women,” the women of today can remain firm in the knowledge that these emotions do not define them – God does.