Janine Kramer, M.S. Seminary of the Immaculate Conception, Huntington, N.Y. Degree Earned, M.S. Theology; St. John’s University, Jamaica, N.Y. Degree Earned, B.S. Education; Adjunct Professor, St. John’s University, St. John’s College, Jamaica — Theology 1000C “ Perspectives of Christianity, a Catholic Approach; Director of Religious Education, St. Anastasia, Douglaston.

“Edith Stein and the Feminine Mystique”

The chosen title for the reflection on the thought of St. Edith Stein’s “ the Feminine Mystique” will, no doubt, raise the specter of the feminist revolution of the 1960s fueled by Betty Friedan”s book bearing that title, but this would be a mistake. Edith Stein would not agree with the feminist ideology that would concentrate on woman’s alleged inner conflict over the choice of career or family as though these were enemies one to the other, nor with all of the disaffection that accompanied that revolutionary era. For Edith, being a woman was a way of sharing in human nature equal to and complimentary to the masculine way of sharing in the same human nature. The word “mystique,” used in this presentation, hopes to capture the mystical and metaphysical heart of what it is to be a woman, and what it means as a woman to be fulfilled with both career and family because fulfillment is realized in the way these are lived.

Jamaica, Queens, New York 11439