First Things RSS Feed - Ashley Crouch https://www.firstthings.com/author/ashley-crouch en-us Copyright 2025 First Things. All Rights Reserved. ft@firstthings.com (The Editors) ft@firstthings.com (The Editors) Mon, 20 Jan 2025 16:53:02 -0500 https://d2201k5v4hmrsv.cloudfront.net/img/favicon-196.png First Things RSS Feed Image https://www.firstthings.com/rss/author/ashley-crouch 60 How TV Execs Realized Nuns Were Bae https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2015/01/how-tv-execs-realized-nuns-were-bae-1 https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2015/01/how-tv-execs-realized-nuns-were-bae-1 Tue, 06 Jan 2015 15:53:00 -0500 Nuns are having a moment in the media. Lifetime television recently conducted extensive studies to identify the unmet desires of its viewers and found that what young women want is—more Christian programming. The network responded by creating the reality series  The Sisterhood: Becoming Nuns to follow five surprisingly relatable young women—Stacey, Claire, Christie, Eseni, and Francesca—in their discernment to be Catholic Carmelite nuns.

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]]> The Feminist Shaming of Fertility https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2012/02/the-feminist-shaming-of-fertility https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2012/02/the-feminist-shaming-of-fertility Thu, 09 Feb 2012 00:01:00 -0500 In light of recent controversies over Planned Parenthood, it is helpful to have a book that illuminates the organization’s motivating ideology. In Women, Sex, and the Church: a Case for Catholic Teaching , Angela Franks lays out how self-described “women’s health groups” view a woman’s fertility fundamentally as a hindrance, a burden, a disease to be eradicated. This much, perhaps, is already well known. What Franks adds to the discussion is the extraordinary way that these groups demonize women who fail to adopt their view of fertility.

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