The Inversion of Masculine and Feminine in Popular Culture | Furman College talk

So I'm going to

talk

about the

inversion

of male and female symbolism in

popular

culture

. Just looking at the title it seems very controversial and in a way I suppose there is a part of that, but I hope we can resolve it very well. quickly the controversial aspect and I come to show the beauty of the symbolism of the

feminine

that we have in the Orthodox tradition and, if you are patient, we will get through the difficult part at the beginning, so what is happening today in

popular

culture

. is that there has been for several years, for decades, there has even been this call to have more what people call gender equality in popular culture and therefore this call to have more female protagonists in movies and television shows You know, even in video games and in comics, in all popular cultures, there has been a call to have strong female protagonists, and what has slowly emerged from that is exactly that we have this series of demonstrations, films, comics, video games, all this that has the when.

I guess we could call it the badass female character, you know, who's strong, she fights, she, she, she, she, she, she, she, she, she, she, she, she, she, she, she, she , she, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her , she, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her , she, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her , she, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her, her ,; in some way it manifests the same idea of ​​the action hero or the superhero or the military hero but as a woman and then we see that we recognize them we saw them I just think that these are from this year this year Marvel Comics Star Wars all these these these female characters that they are strong that we are fighting and that they beat up all the guys around them now, what I want to draw attention to is that while we see this, while we see this characterization, there is something that is also happening in the At the same time what What we are seeing is not only the representation of these female heroes but at the same time we see a strange mockery, a strange humiliation of the male characters within those same stories and then at first one would think that this is a matter of parody, right, we have these male heroes.

It would be nice to also have female heroes that we can admire in the same way that we admire these male tears, but the strange thing is that in the stories there are many of the stories have this other trope which is stepping on or mocking, so, for example, They did a version of Ghostbusters. Everyone who's probably seen this, they did a version of Ghostbusters recently that had an entire female cast and in the story that they kind of didn't need to do, there's a scene where the old Ghostbusters, who was a man , Bill Murray, is sitting there in a room and they take him out of the building and he dies, he lands on his head on the hood of a car. and he dies there and you see the ladies come up to the window, I said, I guess that wasn't Ghostbusters material, right? and you think it's a joke and okay, it's a joke, the problem is not that joke, la, la, The difficulty that appears is when it becomes a pattern.

And that's what I'm sensitive to. It's about paying attention to the pattern. There's a recent, there's a recent video game that came out and it's creating a lot of controversy. because the video game is supposed to be a very historically accurate historical representation of World War II and the fighting in World War II and in the video game it's like 50/50, you know, there are women who fight, it's women who fight in the war world. ii then they put a woman on the cover, she has a mechanical arm and cheechee, no she is fighting in WWII, so people are wondering: obviously this is not a historical depiction of WWII , you don't know that there were women involved in the war effort, of course there were, but you know, 95% of the natives, 99% of the people who actually carried a gun in World War II would have been men, so what is the impetus behind that and what is it?

What I want to suggest to you is that there really is this strange

inversion

that is establishing that we want to have this female character, but we want the female character to embody everything

masculine

that we're looking for, so basically it's if you look at superhero characters, it's the same superhero character that was Superman Batman all those those male characters it's just that it's an act it's physically a woman um now the one of the examples that everyone has seen the Star Wars, the last Star Wars movie, so if you look If you look at the cover of the magazine well, you will have the feeling that the cover of the magazine itself tells you what they hope to achieve and then you have it up there. he says well, he can push him along with his new boss and in the movie you have the scene where it just appears that the movie is humiliating the female character and the trope is repeated in the movie several times, you see these characters being humiliated and getting a lesson. taught something and as I said, it is not the act itself because in a story all kinds of things can happen and it is okay that there are variations, the problem is that the question that arises is when do we start to see it.

As this constant pattern that appears over and over again in the stories is when we start to wonder what exactly is happening in these stories because of course there are always exceptions. There is an extremely strong woman who could probably hit. Anyone in this room, the question is not whether or not there are exceptions, the question is what is the right pattern, what is the social pattern that is trying to show us in the last film. Incredible: You really see this inversion play out completely, they have the female character, they tell us that the male character is too reckless, he's too chaotic, he can't control himself, you know, he breaks everything, so they tell us that.

It's her, she has to be the heroine now and he has to stay home and take care of the kids and what's fascinating and this will be important as we move forward in the story is that in the story itself, the lady. she's amazing, she's a super amazing, actually, I really enjoyed watching the movie because it was so well made, so well put together, so the woman is amazing: she does all these amazing things, visually stunning and everything, and then the ultimate character , sorry, I did it. I forgot to change this line and the male character is babysitting but can't, but it's completely useless.

You know, everything is falling apart around him and he's not sleeping and he's become a total representative until you actually have. this dichotomy where you have one character who shines, which is amazing, and then the other character, the father, who is basically, you know, he can't do it, he just can't, he can't, he can't hold it together and we've seen it, I want say, we've seen this character, we've seen this character on television and in movies for the last few decades. It's Homer Simpson. He is the father of the family. It's all those idiot parents. They are right.

You know they gave them to us. Know?. piece by piece, you know, and when we see this now it's almost like we're used to seeing this stored trope, we've seen it for so many decades that when we see the idiot dad who can't do something right and it's like breaking everything and he can't acting together we think that's normal it's a pattern of a story now a lot of people will think that I'm obviously exaggerating a lot of people think that I'm looking at this from a certain angle, maybe from a traditional angle, whatever, but you have to pay attention to what that's happening because what you find is that as these stories come out, the people who promote them in the media, you know.

Even in journalism they are celebrating what I am, what I am showing, right, they are actually celebrating that this has happened, so it is not just that it is happening, but that it is being celebrated, and so, for example, in this in a recent in In the recent movie called Ant-Man and the Wasp, you have this same pattern, so they made the first movie with a male character and then in the second movie you have a character who uses herbs instead in the story and doesn't only. that, but the male character becomes this idiotic, you know, everything he does is kind of like he succeeds just by chance, he doesn't have any skills, he's a bit dumb and in the press I'll read you this is from In this article I put here, the author of the article exposes it herself, she said that we ask for more powerful women, so here we are, so the wasp is the best heroine, her mother is smarter than everyone, the villain is also a girl.

The guys in this movie are unlucky and they only succeed by accident and every one of those sentences has an exclamation point and she's celebrating, she's celebrating the fact that the male hero is being demoted and somehow he's being cast aside. for this guy. of rise of this female superhero and I think this is really the definitive version, so in Marvel Comics they created this character that is Captain Marvel, which is quite recent in Marvel Comics and they are making her the most so she is the most powerful character throughout the universe and one week, if you look at the cover of the magazine again, you can see that this is not like that, this has a purpose, can you see up there that it says that the future is female, so there is this?

Celebration and celebration is not some kind of equality, some kind of parody, which is what we were told that what it was supposed to be, was supposed to be a world where men and women are equal, where men and women work together , where We know we don't differentiate the genders that much, but that's not what's happening, what we're seeing is more of a revolutionary trope where one tries to supplant the other, so why is it happening that way? Why does the problem have to be turned upside down? This is that we believed that they told us that equality means saying that if we are going to believe in the equality of the sexes in some way we have to believe that they are equal, that there is no difference between the two and that is not true, right?

The entire tradition of human existence has shown us that all societies at one point from the beginning have done it in different ways but they have always demarcated the

masculine

and the

feminine

and have had gender roles in society, there they have been different, I'm not saying. that in all societies they have had the same role, but they have always had that distinction and, as you know, the difference was recognized and, in fact, it was celebrated, so, to say, overcompensate, to say that we can have women who are very tough you know, as tough as a fighter, as tough as a killer as a man, the only way to do it is to turn it around because you have to overcompensate for the illusion because we know that's not the case or at least at least not has been the case throughout human history, so there is this desire to overcompensate and that overcompensation creates this reversal which is not only the promotion that is needed but also the degradation that is needed for the pattern of the masculine and the feminine be one.

One of the most permanent patterns in all traditions that you know in all cultures takes different forms, of course everyone will know this symbol, so the yin-yang symbol is a symbol of heaven and earth, it is also a symbol of the masculine and feminine, a symbol of that duality, but a duality, of course, that is together, right, it's not a completely open opposition, you know, you could see it as a complementary and complementary relationship, and in so many traditions you have that played out, it you have in Greek mythology of Gaia and Uranus, you have in Mesopotamia you mrs.

Sir. Damian mythology has Tiamat and absolute this kind of primordial, whether it's heaven and earth or sometimes it can be fresh water or salt water, but this relationship of two complementary, you know, they are opposites that come together to then produce something to produce the world and in the Bible we have a similar pattern we have this established at the beginning of Genesis we have heaven and earth this type of primordial duality and this type of primordial duality in the story of creation itself you see how they come together one to the other you see these different separations but we are getting closer, we know the heavens and then we have the water that the separation of the waters, the earth comes out of the waters, we have fish and birds, if you always wondered why we have birds and fish created The same day. because it is repeating that same pattern the sky and our down and up like this it keeps repeating and then it comes down to the human being and then God takes the dust of the earth and then blows the spirit into the air into his lungs when we read spirit I always have to remember which spiritual wind is the same word, then you have this union of heaven and earth that appears in man and says that man was created male and female and then we have Adam and Eve as a result of that repetition of the basic pattern that was there from the beginning and that is why there is something that is extremely primordial in that relationship and if we stop itside completely we are going to lose a very important aspect of who we are as human beings in the gospel there is a call there is a call for us to transcend opposites just as we see in st.

Paul's call tells us that there is neither man nor woman, neither Greek nor Jew, neither slave nor free and there is this call to transcend opposites, but there is a very big difference between transcending something and confusing something and, hopefully, if you look What I've been telling you, you'll have this, let's say, rise of the female character who wants to take on all the male qualities and at the same time degrade the male characters in the story. You don't have this transcendence you have confusion and an inversion and you have a certain conflict, you have this perpetuation of a fight and now it is only one side that is losing there were moments in his room maybe it was the On the other hand he was losing and now we have this other situation and we can see, we can see in the images that Saint Paul uses about marriage, we can glimpse what it looks like to transcend the opposite because in the union of masculine and feminine in the union of masculine and feminine st.

Paul tells us that we are one body there is a real unity that is created in that bond of marriage and that unity that in a certain way transcends duality because it unifies them it is productive it produces children it produces this community it produces family and so when that happens, there is a result productive, whereas when we have this inversion, the result is the opposite, it is conflict and it is also sterility and once we understand the basic elements of, let's say, that basic opposite of masculine feminine, once we understand that it is in fact established in society as a man and a woman, then we can also see that of course it is more than that, so in a way we are called to play those roles in our lives, as well as in the church, like some.

People like me are called to be the Bride of Christ. I am called to also participate in the powerful and beautiful symbolism of the feminine and then meet my Lord in that way, so it's not just about like I said. not just about controversies and complaints about some political change that is happening before our eyes there is something much deeper there it is something much deeper that needs to be understood now the problem the trick in this this is really what I believe What in a way What's unexpected for a lot of people is that when we look at the trope, okay, so when we look at the badass female character trope, what seems to be happening is that, in fact, what we're praising is actually what we're celebrating.

It's not the feminine, what we're praising, what we're celebrating is what you know, the very classic masculine traits of being strong, knowing, being tough, being able to fight against all those types of traditional masculine types. tropes, that's what we end up celebrating and therefore the inversion actually creates this strange contradiction where what is ultimately diminished or left aside is the beautiful and powerful feminine symbolism that has been maintained by humanity for thousands of years. for years we are ignoring it we are pretending that what really matters what is really important is that we can embody those roles that what matters is being the CEO all we want to know is how many female CEOs there are how many women do you know police officers are there how many that's what that we want to know but we are not, we have forgotten, we have abandoned a celebration of the beautiful images of the feminine, so I want to show you an icon, this icon in the Orthodox tradition could be the most, let's say, celebratory of the which we would call the hero type of behavior, right, it's very, very simple, it pretty much sums up everything that's going on, we have a princess who's in trouble and there. is someone who comes and kills the dragon so he can save the princess and then he has his place I can definitely have his place now the thing is that there is another version of this story there is another one it is not the same story but there is a female version of this interaction between the masculine and the feminine, so this is not a version and I think it has some importance, but there is also a masculine version, so, for example, in the story of Beauty and the Beast, it has a male character who is true monster who is out of control who is the one who wants to control everything who wants to retain her if he wants to capture her he wants to control her her presence there and in the story what happens is that beauty is capable of taming the male monster and she is capable of transforming him into a man.

Now this story is not just Beauty and the Beast. There are many examples of this. One of my favorite examples of this story is called Howl's Moving. Castle is from the Japanese director and Miyazaki and in this story we have that same trope and the female character is extremely powerful, she basically has the life of this monstrous male character in her hands and slowly leads him to transform him. and open up a new space where you can be more than you were before, but think about not just popular culture and the Bible, we have the story of Queen Esther and the story of Queen Esther is pretty much the same history.

Like Beauty and the Beast we have this foreign King who is prepared to destroy the Jews and then she, through her grace, through the way she can approach the king, contain him, you would say she raised to the king. she invites the king to her house and the king enters her house and then she reveals this secret to him that in fact Haman wanted to kill the Jews and by revealing this beautiful secret despite this powerful secret, then the king changes and things they change and then the King turns against him and I mean there are many other stories, there are very, very old stories in the story of Gilgamesh, we have a very similar story, we have a beast called Enkidu who is basically a wild creature in the forest and The people of the city send this woman and then by meeting this woman and forming a relationship with her, she learns how to become a human being, so it's a very, very old story and it's a very powerful story that shows You're on the other side instead of just wanting to put a woman on the horse.

George's horse slaying the dragon shows another aspect, another very powerful aspect of what the other side of that story is, so let's look at this image again now that we have many images of what feminine symbolism is in the church in our tradition. and many of them revolve around the mother of God and the images that we use for the mother of God our images of her being the opening of this place the opening of this possibility she is the temple she is the Ark of the Covenant she is the dawn there are all these images that we use of her to show her how this this place in which something will happen in which the divine will manifest and yet still the mother of God becomes the frame she becomes the frame in which it happens the manifestation and we can see that even in this icon here on the right we can see that even though we have this idea of ​​the helpless princess, for example, the princess is the one who attracts, if you will, the hero to act without without her nothing happens there is no heroic action and that can be good or bad this is just a structure it can be good or bad if we look at the Trojan War, we have the same structure that the Trojan War is fought by Helen of Troy she is who brings the Greek state, that is why the Greeks are called Helens.

She is the one who really attracts the Greeks to join together to fight and rescue her from the Trojans, so she becomes the space. in which these Greeks can come and arrive, they actually manifest something so I'm right and so we have this image we have this image of the mother of God of Mary as this frame as the space as the opening of the possibility for You can see her in this, this is the oldest tradition of the representation of the mother goddess to show rather the throne of wisdom to show her as this throne, but if you look at the image you will see that she is also this frame, she is the space from which you know that the Sun rises, the space from which something is happening and that that pattern is going to be the pattern of this mysterious presence of the feminine always there in the church, always there and following the history of the church. and I'm going to show you this pattern, so this is winning the wedding at Cana now in the story that we see exactly is one of my favorite stories in the gospel because Christ is hidden Christ is not acting no one knows she is a secret she knows the secret she is the only one she is the only one she knows the secret but Christ is not acting and then there is a problem no why then she approaches Christ and says there is a problem there is no one and it is very fascinating because what does he answer?

Christ? He says my time hasn't come yet, you think that's a crazy answer. She's telling him there's not enough wine and he says, I'm not willing to die. How are those things related and related in fact? that she is inviting him she is inviting his son she is saying here is the question show me the word show me the answer give us the answer she is there is that crazy scene in the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding I love that scene when everyone knows that's when The lady says, you know, the man is the head of the family but the woman is the neck and we think it's funny and funny, but I think there is something very profound in that statement because the mother God is saying that this is the place where I'm asking you to manifest yourself and then Christ has to decide if he's going to do it or not now think about that think about that in our lives think about that as a church what do we do what does the church do we ask we pray we ask God we say here it is my suffering here is my sin here is my question and we ask God to manifest himself in that space that we open as a church and what does the church say in the book of Revelation in the end, what do they do? they think they are calling for their temptation they are asking they are saying come Lord Jesus they are asking for Christ to return and that is really the powerful symbolism of the feminine as it manifests In the church now this structure I think is a kind of opening scene for this where we really see the mother of God inviting Christ to manifest himself knowing that if he shows himself to the world he will guide him in this.

He knows the path to his death is ready, that is where he will go, but this is the opening of that new space for him to enter. Okay, if you're interested, I wrote an article called Sacred Art and the Power of Women, you can find it on Google. and one of the things that I am sure I show is that Eve also did that as if she, she, she seduced, as if she opened a space for Adam and that space was a fall and then the mother of God does the same. Same thing but she flips it right, opens the space again and then flips it so that now it is for our salvation.

Is very powerful. I think it's just those beautiful patterns there and the great story. Now the pattern repeats itself over and over again. For example, in the trial of Christ there is a pilot who is there and has to judge Christ, but in the background of that story there is a wife of the pilot who we actually venerate as a saint pro kleh and she secretly no one in the crowd notices. knew. but she is secretly whispering in his ear, she said: this man, you know he is special, be careful, don't mess with you, then we have the same structure, who is the first person to go to the empty tomb, who is the first person that alone in that secret meeting to find the risen Lord is Mary Magdalene and then she goes to the disciples and then the disciples will find him in space and they will also be the ones who will proclaim the resurrection of Christ but she is the one who opened that space, so we have all the real women of our history, each and every one of the real women of art, every time a nation may not always maybe be, but at least we know that, there are so many examples that when a nation converts to Christianity what is the trope the trope is the same there is a woman who converts and there is a secret private meeting that we don't even know about, we don't know what those women said to their children or grandchildren their husbands but we see the correct pattern we have we have sankt we have st.

Helena who converts and then Constantine we have Saint Olga, Saint's grandmother. Vladimir who converts and then st. Vladimir but he is everywhere the first Frankish king Clovis the first Frankish Christian king who first converted his wife the first British king King Ethelbert is a pronouncer King Ethelbert of Kent it was his wife who converted first his pattern is continuous and we see it not only with royalty but we also see it with saints, we see st. Monica, who converts and then we have Augustine, who is the Western pillar, you know, the Western, he is basic, you know, he is what the West is founded on and then we also have San.

Macrina the sister of Saint. Basil of Cappadocia is the one who converts and then his family converts, so the difficulty of this is that you know, we often say in the Orthodox Church that the Mother of God is a mystery of the Church, we always say that we say no. . I don't have too many doctrines about her, but what we have is that encounter, that secret encounter, when you enter the life of the church you discover the mother of God and then you know that I have always hidden myself, hesitating to even

talk

about this topic. because in some way here I am proclaiming something that is supposed to be right, this thing that you discover by looking and it is not. there it is, you know this pattern,no one will say oh look you know Constantine's mother can write before and hey that's not like it's something that's hidden and it's this secret opening of a space and in a way it's something. that we probably shouldn't be talking about, but that we should, we probably should be experiencing and discovering in that secret place, but I think the reason I want to talk about it is because I, like I believe, is because this is so beautiful.

The symbolism of the feminine is something that we have like this precious jewel and in a world where we are so confused about these questions, we somehow think that courage is to be strong, it is to be a fighter, it is to be on top, it is to be a leader and then we forget the value of the private space of taking care of the value of taking care of those who are there of also discovering that mysterious opening of the place where God can enter our own lives there is this image yes This everyone knows about the Song of Songs in the Old Testament, where there's the Song of Songs, where it's basically a romantic argument between a lover and two lovers, and the church fathers have always interpreted it as the relationship that we have.

It means having with God that as we need to be able to have that feminine space to open the possibility of later encountering this life this light that we saw in the Honda at the knees of the mother of God the light that we see when we look in the apse of our churches and we see the pan aghia with open arms in Christ coming out of the dawn who is it who is shown in the ark who is sitting on his throne and then I think we need to be aware of that and be able to explore and celebrate that beauty and not let ourselves fall into the War of the Sexes that we see around us and thank you very much, that is what I had for you tonight, so if you have questions, then I will open the space for you.

I'm ready for arrows, but you know. Okay, I'll hide behind Thea. Yes I know. No. I don't think it's ironic. I think you already know. I think you know that there is a there is a saying from Christ that I love Christ says that scandal must happen well, but it will not be because of those for whom it happens I always have the feeling that if when I think about the French Revolution or I think about the Revolution Rusa, I believe that the people's groans were justified and real. I do not agree with a revolution but I think that the king who does not listen to the moans of his people that is going to happen well and that is why I think that we have seen even in the 19th century, since the Enlightenment, I would say that since the Enlightenment it accelerated , we have seen a male tyranny, I would say, of space, whereas in the Middle Ages, where in the traditional world there was this this true celebration of the mother of God, I mean, although the warriors in the West, for example, all the Templars and all the Knights went on the crusade, they were completely devoted to their lady and it was this, this powerful relationship of relationships. between the masculine and the feminine and I think we've seen that with the Enlightenment and you know, that says that the primacy of reason over all of that has led to this extremely masculine space where it seemed like the only thing that could be was that and That's okay, so I have sympathy for women who say well, I want you to know where the value of women is and they want to take that value from the male image and we haven't done that.

We don't celebrate it, we celebrate motherhood, we celebrate caring, we celebrate the kind of secrecy of private space. We are eliminating private space. The private space is almost gone, so I think I think you're in a way. You're right about that, I don't think our reaction to that should be not to want to enter the revolution but rather to rediscover the beauty and life-giving power of this feminine symbolism instead of playing along. This game is being played because it will make us miserable because we need each other, so if we play this war, who is going to win, no one is going to win.

I think I think in a way, yeah, I mean, obviously, we don't need to. pay a lot of attention to entertainment, but our world is run by entertainment, it's all bread and circuses for us, and that's where patterns are going to appear and like I said, I think what we see is a pattern and that's what we need to see and not just the pattern, but like I said, it's not just the pattern but it's the celebration of the pattern that both together make us see that this is not just something accidental that there is. It's really this desire to create this change, but yeah, I don't think I'm going to do it.

I think at some point it's going to collapse. What really scares me, if it collapses, is that I'm afraid of them. I'm more afraid of the reaction than this. I fear that at some point some very angry people are going to start being more aggressive with this question, right? That's kind of the reaction against this. It's what I'm actually most afraid of, so I love it. I think my approach to this question has always been to try to say "yes" to the problem, mainly trying to point out the beauty we have in it. Can we show people, hopefully, that's what I'm doing?

I don't know, I think they come, I think they come from Genesis, I think they come from that first configuration of heaven and earth, that's why we have this image that we have. we use what our Heavenly Father is and so we have this notion of this association, let's say with heaven or that it's a spiritual world as a name of identity qualities of the right things and then if you see how the story unfolds in Genesis, There is this God said. Let it be so, it is very beautiful, so he calls the earth to produce the different animals, the different plants and everything, and it is as if there is a name, there is a naming and then there is this work of gathering and producing the creation . that comes out of the earth and I think that that is our basic understanding of the masculine and then we also so that is understood in the you know that the way in which the ancients understood the sexual union of the masculine and the feminine as being to how to represent that same pattern like playing that pattern one more time and so on, and you can see it, you know we always have to interpret the world phenomenologically, not when we try to interpret it scientifically, this gets strange, but when we interpret phenomenologically we can understand it, you know, someone sees a seed that falls from a tree, there is nothing, it is nothing, it is the mustard seed, it is nothing, then it falls to the ground and then it grows, so the seed is giving that point.

Pearl in the field that that that name and then the field and then the production of this life that becomes saying the feminine the feminine response to this relationship and then we continue and continue to see how st. Paul talks about the relationship between Christ and the church and how he also relates that relationship to the relationship between a husband and wife so that you can see the same patterns that are developing and so you will know the church if you look at the If you look at the architecture of a church, you can see this.

I mean, it's right there, what we have in the apse like a pen. Agia, which is the dawn, was this space from which it emerged. The sun rises in the east and then at the top of the dome we have the fully manifested glorious Christ who is there in the dome, then we go west and we have the dream of the mother of God and we have this final coming. Together from the story where she, like him, was like the yin-yang symbol. I always tell people that the applications and the western wall are like a yin-yang symbol, you have Christ in the arms of the mother of God in the apse. you have the mother of God in the arms of Christ in the West and there is a beautiful fullness to that relationship, so I think it could go on forever, but I think it's outside of the Bible, outside of Genesis.

Paul and then you know what I mean, obviously as an iconographer, I get a lot of my cues from iconography and so if you look at the image of the Ascension, it's a very powerful image of that basic relationship, so you have Christ up there. . in heaven with the Angels in this mandorla and then you have the mother of God who is below him praying like this space just this space which is the one of which Christ is the head but who is also waiting to unite with her again with her son and then outside of her, you know, on the sides, you have the Apostles and the church kind of manifesting, you know, on the sides of her, like being this this this basic space and some of the icons do the Ascension.

You see, it's even very powerful because you'll see mother God is standing on a little square footrest, she rests until Christ is sitting on a rainbow, she's sitting in the heavens and then she's standing on this footrest and she refers to the Psalms. . where it says that you know that the heavens are the throne of God and the earth is his footstool and this with this relationship between the earth the feminine this footstool the church all this comes together that is a kind of money yes it continues so when these The symbols that are expressed in men and women is that it is an expression of the nature of virtue or something else, what do I do?

I'm not sure I understand the masculine expression of virtues. I think it's an aspect of the cosmos, but I think it's there, right there, and then the separation of having an earth right there and the cosmic structure, that's right, I just see it as the basic pattern of reality that It manifests on different levels and then it also manifests in masculine and feminine, and that's how I like it. I said, yes I believe that Christ calls us to transcend that opposite but at the same time transcending those opposites is the image we have of him is marriage and this is this productive Union and it is not a kind of everyone can be whatever they want, which is what we have in our culture today, which is that everyone can have, they can just develop whatever characteristic suits their taste, it's not that these things are, these are patterns, right, they're not.

They are not absolute in each individual manifestation of something. I mean, like I said, we are called to perform. I think we are all sometimes called to play masculine roles and sometimes we are called to play feminine roles and sometimes not. Ask yourself that question as if it's not part of what's going on, that women are cast in masculine roles to supplant traditional masculine aspects, courage, bravery, strength, that kind of thing not just as a way to make women are more powerful, but also. a way to make men less powerful, do you think it's not just, maybe it's step two, but I'm thinking maybe step three is just a complete uncoupling of any kind of gender virtue, any kind of trait that you know, so that we can simply.

It is not like this? We do not replace the man with the woman. We destroy both men and women. I wonder if that's where our culture ends. I think there are some people who want to make it clear and they say it out loud, they don't hide it. I think there are some people who want that, but I don't think it, I don't think it's going to happen and I don't think Canada is right and we can look we can look at the revolutionary movements to see if you look. In Marxist Marxist theory, there is this revolution in which the proletariat takes the role that it takes, there is a tyranny of the proletariat and then after the tune of the proletariat, everything disappears every year and, being on earth, I think there are some people who think that's how it's going to develop, but the problem that it doesn't develop that way didn't develop that way in Marxism and it won't develop that way again in this structure either because they do that, the only thing What you can do, I think is to create an investment, there is no other way because in the end, if you try to like it, I said if you want to suggest that, let's say that women can be as much as possible.

If you are a warrior like a man, then you will encounter a problem, which is true, and that is that reality will resist that proposition, so the only thing you can do is overcompensate and that will create that reversal, then there will be no way - there's no way - there's just no way to destroy it there it's like you can see it even if you try to talk about it but you can't let's eat let's see let's see we have this we have the The transgender phenomenon is now very strong and in the transgender phenomenon you have this idea, Let's say, but what we're really seeing is not that what we're seeing are people who are born masculine and who are celebrated for adopting every cliché. of female representation and then we might criticize a woman for wearing high heels and red, you know, and lipstick and looking like that, but if a man does it, then we celebrate it, so it's like that, you can't help it, it will come back.

So she's going to come back in a strange and confusing way, but she's going to come back no matter what and then the trope of female tropes also shows up in the transgender movement, you can't, you can't get away from it. I don't think so and it seems like even going beyond masculinity and femininity we have the same culture war when we try to think about the modern concept of Nations like you're talking about we can't really supplant it we would just transcend it you know that makes me think in how a lot of people don't want their borders these days and you know when you get down to the biblical essence of that, that's right, neither Jewish nor Greek, but now we're getting to the point where it doesn't seem to make sense. of nation at all, it doesn't make sense, you know we are all human beings in the same way we are not men or women, we are risking the rafters, it feels like we are doing that betweenall the different patterns throughout humanity and it just feels like you know it's a war against humanity itself.

We're trying to erase all distinctiveness, you know, to bring back the awesome ones. If everyone, I mean, I think III was, I think I think the proper view of hierarchy is the ISM. Always the correct way to look at this is that we are one, all one in Christ and we are called to be that and to the extent that we have families to the extent that we have groups that we associate with if we can do so. that in a way that does not compete with our only unity and our loyalty to Christ to me, that is the goal, the problem is when you make a nation more important than God, when you make your gender more important, God, when you make any identity that we can have when you put that in competition with the absolute, then we have idolatry, but that doesn't mean that those acts can't exist, those different identities, and I think that's the confusion we are in.

What we are facing now is that people want to abolish difference, as if that were possible, it is not, it is not going to happen, unfortunately it will come back, it is a key, something that I can return to the Führer with and we do not want that as the proper hierarchy of knowledge. I mean, I think the orthodox structure of the church can have very negative aspects as we've seen recently, but when it takes advantage of its strengths and recognizes the possibilities of a diversity of churches and diversity of identities, all in communion together, so I think that is the ideal, no, I don't think so very well, no, I think there is hope, there are many different revolutions in this type of thing.

Investments develop in different aspects of reality. I think this is one that we can see very clearly, we can see it developing and therefore we can point to it and say we now have a better answer. I think we have a better answer. offer the world in addition to this this kind of revolutionary pattern yes, I think that is part of this. I think there is biology as part of this, but I don't think it is all-encompassing, at least not in a biblical perspective. I think because we have this, we have images of this relationship that plays out in our understanding of the church and of Christ, in our understanding of heaven and earth.

You can see that we can't limit this to biology, but I think we are not materialists. you know biology plays a role in this, obviously there is a biological difference between men and women and I think for me the day is when feminists are not all feminists, but let's say the type of feminists who would push these types of agendas the air that are creating is thinking that what has value is only found in the masculine trope and then wanting to take that instead of exploring the other aspect of the world that is beautiful and that is necessary for the world to exist, so I think that's the problem , sorry, yes, yes, yes.

I think I think you're right. I think it was like you were asking before. I think one of the reasons this happened is because we developed a culture that didn't celebrate we didn't like we celebrated the mother of God we celebrated her constantly and this we live in a culture that stopped doing that a long time ago and I think it's not only that but there is part of that that is developed in I would say that I think that in Protestant ontology I would say that we, they, do not know where to ask this question, they do not know how to approach it and, therefore, it arises in all kinds of situations foreign. ways because they don't have a beautiful image to point to an icon to point to to say look, you know, and we celebrate it and who sings it, so I think that's, I think that's that, I think that's the root of the problem baby, there you go, yes, we are happy, please sit down, no, I think we need to see comfortably, we definitely need to see contraception as part of a larger pattern, you know, technology doesn't come before desire. technology comes with the pattern that develops as the desire to see how to disconnect sexuality from procreation, right, that's an ideological movement, right, and that happened before technology, which would then give people what they want , good like me.

He said it creates a sterile world, I mean a sterile world.