Fade to Grey

Hot on the heels of "The Century of the Self"—of which they are its ultimate product—millennials have sought to redefine Western society as a kinder, gentler upgrade. To their credit, they have crafted a narrative that aspires to transcend the hard-nosed world I grew up in, substituting the communal support systems that once kept society turning with a benevolent ‘Good Samaritan’ ethos, rooted—perhaps unconsciously—in a Judeo-Christian moral framework. This is particularly striking given their generation’s public rejection of faith. 

Education has been reimagined in an inclusive, outward-looking embrace of both those we know and those we don’t—a final renunciation of the self-serving, archaic narratives best left to the distant past. Few would disagree with such humanist generosity of spirit: respect for all, acknowledgement of past faults, and aspirational intent for the future. Yet how has a narrative so well-intentioned given rise to the self-flagellating tribalism now fracturing Western society? How can an educated critique of the past produce so bleak an offering for the future? 

This, I think, is the fundamental problem we face: the complex issues we have identified in the world cannot be solved with despair—they demand hope. And if we cannot instil that hope in the next generation, we rob them of agency; and in doing so, we condemn ourselves to extinction.

I’ve wondered whether this refusal to engage with nuance arises from fear. Deprived of the social belonging once offered by community—a deficit only deepened by the pandemic—we all hunger for meaning and allegiance. The isolation imposed by lockdowns intensified this loss, but also introduced a more insidious moral dimension. By conflating identity with opinion, it ushered in a new era of identity politics—one that operates as a moral as well as a political creed. 

Why the Church of England is Failing Women

The place and position of women within the Church of England, both within the clerical hierarchy and their accepted status within the wider congregation has been a controversial subject since the Reformation. Indeed, the Reformation in England was essentially institutional change to accommodate the needs of a man; women were incidental to its form and function, and it was never intended to accommodate women. The role of women in this patriarchal religious world has been to gauge orthodoxy, whilst defining their proper roles has been the focus of numerous church councils, theologians, and religious authorities. (Ruth Adam : "Reclaiming the power of women in the early church.") The early church focussed on the biological functions of women - capitalising on pre-existing pagan fertility worship which celebrated the fertility of the land and people, and the union of the divine masculine and feminine. Mary as the Mother of God was central to Catholic worship and women's subservient roles as procreators and carers were reinforced, a model acceptable to traditional pagan societies. Yet there is plenty of evidence women played a key evangelical role in the early church, albeit informally. (Smith : Women & their Roles in Early Christianity")

Image from Mikail Duran on Unsplash

Small wonder that association of power and maleness led many women who aspired to play an unorthodox role to jettison their femininity, believing the patriarchally enforced myth that femaleness personified weakness. So powerful has this association been over the passage of time that this process is still played out in the West today with a powerful element of gender in eating disorders, and anorexia in particular. Certainly for female sufferers, arresting female development is exerting control over one's body and for many teenagers, whilst this might have little to do with their personal views on their femininity it feels the only part of their lives they have any control over. By losing weight, a girl loses her femininity. She androgenises herself. It is a deep and fundamental rejection of what is female and feminine, embracing the asexual and often masculine, whether intentional or not. Female hormones are no longer produced as body fat is depleted and curves vanish. Menstruation stops and the figure remains or returns to looking boyish. There is considerable evidence of women deliberating doing this in history. Female "anchorites" in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period used self starvation as a means of gaining a foothold in a male-dominated world, their views and opinions were given a level of credence otherwise denied to women at the time.