Dr. Josh Herring, host of The Optimistic Cumudgeon, sits down with David to discuss Lewis’ unique philosophy on gender, and how it appears throughout his written work.
S8E22: “Jack and Gender”, After Hours with Dr. Josh Herring (Download)
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Show Notes
Introduction
Quote of the Week
Gender is a reality, and a more fundamental reality than sex. Sex is, in fact, merely the adaptation of organic life of a fundamental polarity which divides all created beings. Female sex is simply one of the things that have feminine gender; there are many others, and Masculine and Feminine meet us on planes of reality where male and female would be simply meaningless. Masculine is not attenuated male, nor feminine attenuated female. On the contrary, the male and female of organic creatures are rather faint and blurred reflections of masculine and feminine. Their reproductive functions, their differences in strength and size, partly exhibit, but partly confuse and misrepresent, the real polarity.
C. S. Lewis, Perelandra
Biographical Information
Today we are joined by Dr. Joshua Herring, a recurring guest, who David met at the Undiscovered C. S. Lewis Conference last year.
Dr. Joshua Herring is professor of classical education and humanities at Thales College in Wake Forest, N.C., where he teaches liberal arts courses and directs the Certificate in Classical Education Philosophy program. He also hosts The Optimistic Curmudgeon podcast and tweets @TheOptimisticC3. He is the author of the forthcoming “Gratitude for the Gift: C.S. Lewis on Gender,” out in 2025 with Davenant Press.
Chit-Chat
- David shares that he has an honorary doctorate from Dr. Michael Ward. You all must now refer to him as “Dr. Bates”.
- Dr. Ward was recently on Dr. Herring’s podcast to talk about “That Hideous Strength”.
Toast
- David was drinking a Free Wave hazy IPA from Athletic Brewing Company.
- Dr. Herring broke out Jefferson’s Ocean bourbon.
Discussion
01. “Jack and Gender”
- The story begins with the French feminist, Simone de Beauvoir, and her bestselling book, “The Second Sex”. This book became one of the most influential texts in the history of feminism.
One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.
Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex
- This book argues that womanhood is not a natural state, but something constructed through oppression. She also says that freedom is found in work, and that a man’s ability to work without having to carry children is the freedom that women should strive to achieve.
- Essentially, de Beauvoir’s thesis is that freedom is rejecting core tenants of femininity, through social construction and modern technology.
- This argument grows in popularity and grows increasingly radical. For example, in “Gender Trouble”, Judith Butler argues that neither sex is inherently real, but social constructions that are meant to be broken and molded to fit our own preferences.
- “Perelandra”, on the other hand, takes a completely different approach. Rather than being a human construction, Lewis argues that gender is a gift from God, and even goes as far as to say that gender is more real than sex.
Q. Do we know the extent to which a younger Jack imbibed these philosophical ideas?
- Yes and no. While there are no early writings explicitly discussing gender, Lewis was a Platonist from an early age.
- The Journal of Inkling Studies published a work on C. S. Lewis and philosophy, showing some of his writings that he brought with him into his studies.
02. “Priestesses in the Church”
Q: I first came across Lewis’ more plain language on gender in his essay, “Priestesses in the Church?”. What do we learn here about Lewis’ perspective?
- This was a live question in Lewis’ day in the Anglican church, which at the time, did not allow women into the priesthood.
- Jack begins by stating that pastoral skill is not in question, because if this was all that was at stake, there are clearly some women who are better “pastors” than men!
- Lewis turns to Scripture for guidance on the issue.
- We must pay attention to what God says about Himself. God always reveals Himself in Scripture in masculine pronouns.
- Pay attention to the directionality. God acts in an outward, giving way, and humanity receives in an inward, accepting way.
- Priests act in an outward way, and act in persona Cristi. For the priest to represent God – the ultimate masculine – to the congregation, the priest must be male.
- Lewis then points out that, rather than being a boon to men, the role is a very serious responsibility.
- Dr. Herring talks about the curses in Genesis, and how they are tied to our masculine and feminine natures. Adam’s curse is much more action and labor based, while Eve’s curse is relational.
- “Perelandra” seems to be Lewis’ correction to Milton’s “Paradise Lost”.
03. “Neoplatonism in the Ransom Trilogy”
Q. Can we circle back to Lewis’ neo-Platonism?
“It’s all in Plato, all in Plato: Bless me, what do they teach them at these schools?”
C. S. Lewis, Digory Kirke, The Last Battle
- Lewis followed several Florentine neo-Platonists, including Ficino, Nicholas of Cusa, and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola. While Lewis does not baptise Plato in the same way these men retroactively declare him a Christian, he does borrow Plato’s notion that the idea is primary, and the physical follows or descends from the idea.
- Make no mistake, Lewis is no gnostic, and is actually very attached to the body. But sex is more than just the body, it is a nature as well, and the body expresses that inherent nature.
- It appears that Lewis’ geography in the first two books of this series are heavily influenced by Freud. On Malacandra, the planet has sharp, pointed rocks, and it’s surface is largely barren. However, there is life and creation in the handramits, or the delving canyons.
On the contrary, the male or female of organic creatures are rather faint and blurred reflections of masculine and feminine. Their reproductive functions, their differences in strength and size, partly exhibit, but partly also confuse and misrepresent the real polarity. All this Ransom saw, as it were, with his own eyes. The two white creatures were sexless, but he of Malacandra was masculine, not male. She of Perelandra was feminine, not female. Malacandra seemed to him to have the look of one standing armed at the ramparts of his own archaic world in ceaseless vigilance, his eyes roaming the earthward horizon whence his danger came long ago. “A sailor’s look,” Ransom once told me. “You know, eyes that are impregnated with distance.” But the eyes of Perelandra opened, as it were, inward, as if they were the curtained gateway to a world of waves and murmurings and wandering airs, of life that rocked in winds and splashed on mossy stones, and descended as the dew and arose sunward in thin, spun delicacy of mist. On Mars, the very forest were of stone. On Venus, the lands swim.
C. S. Lewis, Perelandra
- Much of their nature was found in their eyes. Malacandra’s masculinity was displayed in his attentiveness and search of the “foe”, while Perelandra’s eyes (and femininity, subsequently) were inward.
- Lewis is showing that the masculine and feminine are incomplete by themselves, and increase in potential by joining in marriage; an idea he likely gleaned from Edmund Spenser. This is expressed best in the final book in the trilogy, “That Hideous Strength”, where each of the protagonists is insufficient in their human nature, and must learn to embrace them.
04. “Aristotle”
Q. Let’s switch from Plato to Aristotle. How does the western adoption of Aristotelian thought impact thought process?
- Lewis leans toward Plato more so than Aristotle. In doing this, he shows that he prefers the ideal to the particular day-to-day. Many of the characters in his stories reflect this, perhaps most especially Peter in the Chronicles of Narnia, who is the stereotypical “good boy”.
- This also helps Lewis have a better view of women, since Aristotle didn’t have the highest regard for the opposite sex!
- In St. Pope John Paul II’s “Theology of the Body”, he has a similar idea to Lewis of directionality, and differences at a spiritual, soul level, rather than ending at the body. In fact, “The Four Loves” is actually quoted in the text!
05. “Narnia”
Q. Where do you see Narnia fitting into these questions of masculinity and femininity?
- Lewis’ gender differences are evident throughout Narnia. One instance is with Edmund in “The Horse and His Boy”, when Susan decided not to marry the Prince Rabadash.
“Now Madam,” the King was saying to Queen Susan (the lady who had kissed SHasta). “What think you? We have been in this city fully three weeks. Have you yet settled in your mind whether you will marry this dark-faced lover of yours, this Prince Rabadash, or no?”
C. S. Lewis, The Horse and His Boy, Shasta Falls In With the Narnians
The lady shook her head. “No, brother,” she said, “not for all the jewels in Tashbaan.”…
“Truly, sister,” said the King, “I should have loved you the less if you had taken him. And I tell you that at the first coming of the Tisroc’s ambassadors into Narnia to treat of this marriage, and later, when the Prince was our guest at Cair Paravel, it was a wonder to me that ever you could find it in your heart to show him so much favor.”
- This also is seen when Queen Lucy and Aravis go off together. Lewis left girl talk to the reader’s imagination, since he might not have known how to write the scene himself.
“You’d like to come and see them, wouldn’t you?” said Lucy, kissing Aravis. They liked each other at once and soon went away together to talk about Aravis’s bedroom and Aravis’s boudoir and about getting clothes for her, and all the sort of things girls do talk about on such an occasion.
C. S. Lewis, The Horse and His Boy, Rabadash the Ridiculous
- However, Aravis is also depicted in several scenes wearing her brother’s armour and carrying a sword. Lewis leaves plenty of room for each sex displaying attributes more typical of each other, without calling into question their gender. This is particularly true of the character Orual in “Till We Have Faces”, as she is described as an excellent swordsman and a manly queen!
- Dr. Herring discussed the geography of the worlds in “The Magician’s Nephew”. Charn is a purely masculine world, barren and filled with harsher features. The only living creature there might be a woman… however, she is the most “masculine” woman Lewis has ever created. The Wood Between the Worlds, on the other hand, is vegetative and rich, though there is not enough stability there to retain even memory. Narnia has the feminine land, along with Aslan’s singing, which brings forth life from the land.
06. “The Abolition of Man (and Woman!)”
Q. How do the ideas of masculinity and femininity play into “The Abolition of Man”?
- When technology touches on human nature and seeks to alter it, humans do not gain freedom. Rather, it is placed in the control of someone else. Jack uses the airplane, the telephone, and the contraceptive as technological examples of this. Rather than controlling your travel, speech, and fertility, you have actually handed control of these functions to the companies that offer these services. Gender is part of this reality.
- Lewis also claims that if we strip words of their meaning, we do not have the ability to say anything at all.
Wrap Up
Concluding Thoughts
- Dr. Herring believes the gender discussion will be a part of the culture for some time. Things are easier to destroy than to build after all, and this ideology took about 60 years to appear in society.
- By continuing to read Lewis, we will continue to run up against these timeless truths about human nature.
More Information
- Dr. Herring posts frequently on X (formerly Twitter) @TheOptimisticC3, including his podcast episodes.
- If you would like to sign up for classes on classical education, check out Thales College. Dr. Herring will be running a course on the Ransom trilogy there soon!
