Unraveling Catholic Purity Culture Part 3.5: The Scapegoating of Women

How to begin un-shouldering responsibility that was never ours.

In a grad school seminar, my professor once told a story of his friend who oversaw the driving certification of future policemen. This friend had shared a situation that he saw play out every day: the course that drivers had to navigate was littered with cones, and if you hit one, you failed the test. Apparently, he saw many, many failures as men and women became determined to keep their eye out for every cone–but the drivers who succeeded and became certified had one thing in common. 

“They kept their eyes on the course, not the cones,” my professor said, before bringing his analogy home. “Morality is like that. If you look at the cones, you will hit one. If you keep your eyes on where you’re going, you have a greater chance of actually staying the course.”

His simple analogy pierced through the headiness that we were used to as students, buried in Aquinas and Augustine. It pierces me now as I sit here and wonder: how do I articulate the harm that purity culture has done to women, without throwing the baby out with the bathwater? 

Purity culture, especially in the Catholic world, was built on a stark “lust vs. love” paradigm; our actions, particularly in relationships with one another, were either lustful or loving. The path to chastity was like a course littered with caution cones, and if we hit one…we failed.

 I’ve covered this a bit already, but it bears repeating. And, as I dive into my venture for today, I want to add to this analogy: being a woman taught by purity culture is like trying to drive that course and not hit cones on your own, while also watching your boyfriend (or all men?) drive his course blindfolded–and being told if he hits a cone, it means your failure, too…no matter how well you tried to drive.