What a REAL Woman looks like? w/ Abigail Favale

Watch the full interview here:

Abigail answers a supporters question: masculinity and femininity? What is the real difference between a man and a woman? Society gives us little help defining either gender, what does the Church have to say?

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[stevearttus]

Basically, she's saying that masculinity and femininity are a result of being man or woman, not the other way around, which is where Pop culture has it wrong.

[n.c.]

I love this! especially the embodiment part. i did not feel typically feminine until after I had my first child. I didn't really bond with her in the womb and I was afraid that I wasn't nurturing enough, that I was too "cold." i didn't care about my appearance, etc. but after my daughter's birth, I found myself caring about the home, being more gentle, getting into cooking, and wearing makeup. it was wild and strange at first but now that I'm several years in and have my now son as well, I have embraced it and love it and find that my boldness and fiery nature are still there--just transmuted.

this conversation you two are having is so important! need to bring this to young women--teens, college-aged, and 20s.

[erockb]

I think there is, and always will be some mystery surrounding masculinity and femininity, in the same way we will never be able to fully comprehend the mystery of the trinity ( that the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Father, and neither of them are the Holy Spirit, yet they are One). As a father, there is a kind of love I can give my son that my wife cannot, and there is a kind of love that my wife can give my son that I cannot. I think this is a mystery that we can't fully understand on this side of Heaven; there is nothing more masculine than a man being a father, and there is nothing more feminine than a woman being a mother. Fatherhood and motherhood are not restricted to the nuclear family, but The Church allows men to be spiritual fathers and women to be spiritual mothers. And we need more folks stepping into the roles God made them for, as fathers and mothers.

[xty]

I'll try to give my simple and not so elegant answer to the question as a 31 year old Catholic woman who is still a Tomboy (but with age it has all toned down a bit lol). I'll try to keep this short. I grew up as an only girl around boys and men, so you can imagine I played football, basketball, tennis and ran track and I was really good at all of them. Drove bikes like a crazy person and all those rough activities. My best friends up until high school were boys.. Then I went to an all girls boarding school.. Lol such a drastic change. Anyway, in my deliberate walk with God and desire for holiness, and learning more about the church, her teachings and the lives of saints, I've learnt 2 things that answer this question and I hope anyone having this same delimma or question can learn from.
1. If you walk with God and in the teachings of the church, the Holy spirit will transform your heart in ways you didn't think possible and answer your questions, quell your doubts and give you peace in the midst of the noise of the world.
2. My personality and all the "Tomboy traits" are all from God. And this personality is how he wants me to glorify him in my state of Life in this moment in time. God knows all of me, and loves all of me totally and thoroughly. This has allowed me to show up each day and occupy space everywhere in and out of work, with confidence and with love because I know my Father loves me dearly.
All your quirks are known by the Father and he loves them and loves you and wills that you use them all for his glory and the good of your neighbour. There's no one like you in the world. No one can glorify God the exact same way you would with your gifts and awesome personality 😁

So, honestly just walk with God in truth (and when you fall, get back right up) and he will answer your questions, change your heart, give you clarity. And please and please, let yourself be loved by the Father... The validation and confidence it gives, the way your heart will burst with love, words won't be able to describe.


I keep thinking if I grew up in the world today, I would have been told to transition to a boy, or some other nonsense.

Sorry this was longer than planned. 😁 God bless you.

[davidblyth]

An articulate lady who explains the subject well

[paulburchat]

Excellent exposition. I like that we cannot describe feminine and masculine simply as a list of traits but that both have all the traits but express them in different embodied ways which ate complementary and not in opposition to each other. I love your book, "Into the Deep". It is a real gutsy description of conversion and grappling with God. Keep up the good work

Fr. Paul Burchat

[MrMuruks]

Amazing, thankyou 😊
I have a lot of what modern western culture often deem both masculine and feminine and have often been confused because of it. At school when the subconcious pressure for boys to be "hard" and don't care about each other I didnt care and fought toward the polar opposite. At the same time when I need to I can be tough as a nail and press through crises and be strong for everyone else etch. I also embody some of the stereotypes when I sense thats what another person need at that time.

I love both drawing and woodworking, I love learning mechanics and love going around smelling flowers slowly, I love reading both romance novels and wilderness survival books, I love studying both academic philosophy and art history, I love singing and dancing and I love programming, hobby chemistry and electronics, I love baking cakes and I love hitting the gym lifting weights, I love cars and I love animals.

I have stopped trying to fit into any cultural stereotypes of what a man should be anymore, I only care to become more like Jesus now. And reading through the gospels its clear to me he is both one of the most emotional and long suffering men in history, but also the strongest and bravest man that have ever and will ever live.

He fought through life with such passion because the fire that burned within him were love, true love. Not the sad echo of what contemporary culture often deem love to be, but the love that says "I burn for your wellbeing, I would go through fire, water, torture and death for you to be with me". Thats love.

[lizziedoyle]

Yes!!! Would love more content like this!! I think that a potential root for a lot of the gender and sexuality confusion in the world might be that ppl often feel like they don't fit the stereotype of perfect masculinity or femininity, like small guys with the "gay" voice or girls that don't like babies or dressing up. (Things they can't really change). Because they feel that they can't live up to that standard they reject all of it. of course I'm sure it's often far more complex than that but it might be a factor

[beriemab]

Such a beautiful, thoughtful, down-to-earth and relatable explanation. Should be shared everywhere!

[nvp]

Abigail, your answers are SO refreshing. Intelligent, REAL, cohesive. Not confusing, unsure. You were given gifts and thank you for using them to tell the world about real beauty. I will sen this to my niece who I believe is going to listen this with intention and not taping out because it is not fluff. Pax Christi!

[jessicarobinson]

I loved this video! The guest was so articulate! Thank you.
I have felt frustrations with folks that I talk to who almost militantly seem to judge and sort the people they meet into categories “masculine”, “not masculine enough”, “feminine”, and “not feminine enough” and it’s so very toxic. I’ve recently been listening to and reading testimonies from trans people detransitionjng and what comes up over and over is one of two things: 1) sexual harassment or assault as a child or tween or 2) being repeatedly told that they weren’t enough in terms of their masculinity or femininity.
It’s just so cruel (and such a lie straight from Hell) so suggest that any person isn’t enough or good as God created them.
Wasn’t it Catherine of Sienna who said something to the effect of “be who God created you to be and you will set the world on fire”?

[austinmoore]

I think this is a really balanced way at looking at gender. I've always been really intrigued at St. Thomas describing gender as an "inseparable accident" and that it is a difference that stems primarily from the body rather than the soul. I feel that there is a large temptation, as Catholics, to try to draw bigger distinctions out of gender than there really are, and try to say there must be differences in male and female souls (no doubt that the body interacts with the soul to make it more masculine or feminine, but that is an aside). Thinking of gender as an inseparable accident that stems primarily of the body seems to suggest that the nature of male or female is not a formal difference with categorical boundaries (e.g. rationality). But it is a real manifested difference in the body that is "inseparable", so it is of much greater significance than any other accident (hair color, skin color, muscle mass), and is not just random based on genetics. That's why I think the idea of a bell curve, as Dr. Favale seems to draw out, is helpful. Gender does not draw a strict formal difference, but an aggregate set of differences between men and women that come with different lower and higher boundaries.

I also think this is interesting because it is really easy to see how something like this can be misunderstood and be identified as a gender spectrum. That's why its really important that we ascribe masculine to simply things that a man does, and that a man is an unchanging definition according to his body. Otherwise, we fall into the modernist understanding.

[mannss]

The icon analogy is wonderful! Thank you!

[deborahwilson]

As a woman often in what have been described as "male" roles with typically "male" interests, I appreciate this answer. I loved when my physical education teacher said "many of the most feminine women are athletes." I was the only girl in my HS chemistry class and on the chess team (my brothers taught me how to play). I used what I experienced growing up while teaching my own students, especially the girls, who would ask, "Ms. Deborah, is there anything you haven't done?"

[ChachiTelevision]

She described it well. I'm such a New York Jew, I see nothing wrong with hunting and cigars and whatnot, but it's not my thing -- I'm more into soup, bagels, lap swimming, and chess. My masculinity as God designed it and how it's applied in my marital vocation isn't compromised.

[criticalbruv]

Women are made to exemplify beauty in the spiritual sense, remembering that all things are signs of the spiritual but only disguised in the secular as physical. A perfect example is that ex transgender man who is actually a woman on Matt Walshes documentary "what is a woman. When I watched that doco, the way she spoke so passionately, authentically and the actual way she carried herself in that interview, made my heart fall in love with her amazing beauty that I could only perceive in a womanly manor. Women make the world a beautiful place to live.

And men are made to be powerful/strong, remembering that to be strong is to be a rock of mastery in service of others in doing better what nobody else can. And can be manifested in infinite ways just as the men who obtain mastery of the many skills in life, dominate those measurable utilities for the sake of serving the many. Men dominate the world for the sake of propagating goodness and service to all.

These are the right manifestations and the right order of use.

[dannny_macdee]

I LOVE THIS. That was a very deep, yet approachable way of expressing this dynamic. I have been aware for some time, that we are all a kind of mixed bag of things that have been labeled as traditionally 'masculine' or feminine', and that's OK. After all, Genesis said "In His image He created them; male and female He created them". This seems to me to suggest that all of what is female and male is also a part of who God is; and who are we to say how these are to be distributed to His Creatures?

I had a [male] friend whom I liked to watch hockey games with, who also shared an appreciation for figure skating. We watched our favorite women and pairs skate for our country in the Olympics [but neither cared for the men singles skating.. ahem]. The point is, while we liked the display of masculinity on the ice displayed by our Detroit Red Wings, we didn't feel ashamed to show that we also appreciated the gracefulness of that other ice sport; it was an unspoken rule, of sorts.

I also like how Abby said, "We all are nurturing, we all are protective, we all are supportive; it's just that we do these in different ways". And, the order of Humanity-to masculine/feminine-to individual. That was a very clear and delineative way of expressing that dynamic. You know, I have some things in common with this gal; and isn't that wonderful? you, Abigail!!

[vikawinters]

I love this! I’m a crazy mama bear, but I’m still afraid of talking to children and I don’t automatically connect to them. I love my children, but I need to work at being motherly or loving to other children.

[westinbasinger]

I'm of the opinion that there are concepts of masculine and feminine that exists outside of the man and the woman. I think that we as a society have more of a duty to conform and adhere to those more traditional, and might I argue natural law, masculine and feminine traits. Being feminine cannot just be whatever a person with a female body and what a man with a male body happens to be doing. Maybe I'm mischaracterising her argument, I hope not. To me it sounds as if she is trying to subjectivize gender. I feel that there is obviously some gray area in there. But there's a reason that when you see a man who is emotional, nurturing, avoidant of difficult things, etc... you would say they are feminine. And there's also a reason that when you see a typical "tomboy" girl or woman they are perceived as more masculine. Not that neither sex/gender can't or shouldn't have any qualities of the other, but certainly we should be able to say that it is natural and proper for certain traits to pertain to one or thr other of the genders. I guess if I were to boil it down I'd say that gender and the traits of masculinity or femininity are more objective than what she seems to think. But I've been wrong before I guess.

[MissPopuri]

I love babies and small children. My problem was being shy around men especially when they might express an interest in me. They could play games with me, but the sexual games would make them act differently around me.