First Things RSS Feed - Marie I. George https://www.firstthings.com/author/marie-i-george en-us Copyright 2025 First Things. All Rights Reserved. ft@firstthings.com (The Editors) ft@firstthings.com (The Editors) Mon, 20 Jan 2025 16:52:41 -0500 https://d2201k5v4hmrsv.cloudfront.net/img/favicon-196.png First Things RSS Feed Image https://www.firstthings.com/rss/author/marie-i-george 60 What Aquinas Really Said About Women https://www.firstthings.com/article/1999/12/what-aquinas-really-said-about-women https://www.firstthings.com/article/1999/12/what-aquinas-really-said-about-women Wed, 01 Dec 1999 00:00:00 -0500 In several passages in the Summa Theologiae and elsewhere, Thomas Aquinas asserts that the inferiority of women lies not just in bodily strength but in force of intellect. To top this off, he maintains that feminine intellectual inferiority actually contributes to the order and beauty of the universe. But he also affirms that in Heaven there are and will be women who occupy higher places than men. What can we make of this apparent inconsistency? Is he simply hedging on his seemingly chauvinistic positions to accommodate Mary, Queen of Heaven? Or do his views on women make sense only as part of his comprehensive view of the universe?

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