Anna Jagielska Weiblichkeitsdiskurs in vatikanischen Verlautbarungen (1880–2015)

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This book, which was written as a dissertation, is a detailed cultural-scientific analysis of more than one hundred ecclesiastical writings (e.g. encyclicals, council documents, speeches) that reconstruct the official Catholic discourse on femininity. This reconstruction begins in 1880 with Leo XIII and ends with the pontificate of the present Pope Francis. The discourse analysis is carried out on two levels: one diachronic and one synchronic. Thus, the first part of the study deals with the historical contextualization that is to represent the process of change in the ecclesial reflection on femininity. It will examine which preconditions of thought determine the thematization of femininity and how women’s issues are dealt with in these texts. In the second part, the diagnosed constructions of femininity are examined in detail. What are the ‘typifiable components’ of femininity? What do the Vatican authors understand by - their presumed - ‘true’ nature of the woman? How is this legitimized?

The discovery and visualization of the structures that condense into a basic pattern of the official Church-discourse on femininity should help to take away their self-evidence and make them accessible to further investigations. Since Vatican announcements are decisive and effective for particular churches, they shape gender relations in different social and political contexts. For this reason the work is fundamental for the research of the situation of women in different societies in which Catholicism is the dominant denomination.