The Rhetoric Of Power.An analysis of Catholic Church discourse on feminism, women and society

Abstract

In this article I address the issue of gender, prompted by the Vatican's letter in response to feminist movements. My purpose is to make the Church's discourse plain by bringing out what is unspoken, or what has been silenced. I examine the Church's declarations on the ethics of care, the renunciation of power and the heterosexual ideal, and I propose a different view. I argue for a new conception of the social contract by which people manage daily life, and which usually remains hidden when politics is addressed only from a macro-social perspective, or when society is seen as allowing unhindered passage.