I just read a wonderful interview with Pilar Castañón about the cultural magazine Woman Essentia , as its founder and director.  Here’s the link to the full interview. Now, I’ll share some of my thoughts. Pilar Castañón. Daughter, sister, wife, and mother of four. Advisor for acTÚa Familia. She also paints oil paintings and enjoys sports.

I’ve always been deeply concerned about everything that was happening.  I thought it was crazy, the banality with which human life was being treated, and because it was directly related to what concerns women and the loss of identity that comes with giving up what characterizes us, due to the “imposition” of a model of false freedom.

Women pay a high price for following what appears progressive, and it is a great tragedy that unjust and inconsistent laws like abortion have so drastically changed people’s opinions on such basic yet important matters, transforming evil into good, which brings consequences and suffering.

Thirteen years ago, I led a project that sought to help women, mothers at risk of social exclusion, reintegrate into the workforce. After working with them for three years, I realized that a woman’s strength lies in her nature; it is her driving force and the way she faces the most difficult situations: it is love and dedication.

The reality is that all publications aimed at women are driven by body worship, encouraging women to spend hours looking at themselves in the mirror, curiously contradicting what they are so criticized for. On the other hand, in their desire to be politically correct, they have also surrendered the feminist message that seeks to transform women into something very different from their nature…

Reality is much more hopeful, because love is expansive, life, dedication, and care are expansive…  So, I thought it was necessary to create a space with articles that interest real women, with true information about what’s happening in relation to our way of being and existing in the world, to talk about the topics that interest us, current challenges, and exceptional women who have made history…

We take special care of life, we defend motherhood as a gift, we boast of feminine virtues, an almost obsolete word, but necessary, in short: we defend the beauty of being a woman… Women are prepared to give life, welcome, care for and accompany, and therefore  we must enhance and be proud of this gift instead of claiming something we are not.

Women are transmitters of life, collaborating in the development and growth of that new life, and this is a privilege we must not renounce, because women, regardless of whether they are mothers or not, are potential mothers, and can exercise that motherhood and give birth in many ways…

To give birth is to give light to another person every day, both within society and for a much larger purpose.  So, giving birth isn’t just the act of giving birth; that phrase reflects exactly what defines a woman: committing to a new being, caring for it, accompanying it, and remaining faithful to its life…

It’s curious how the qualities that accompany motherhood and femininity are important characteristics of leadership: empathy, care, humility, knowing how to accompany, serve, being more practical and decisive, what John Paul II called “the feminine genius”… The idea has been imposed that motherhood is a burden for women and that they must renounce that aspect in order to be equal to men and succeed professionally …

 Woman Essentia magazine is worth reading  because we carefully select who writes and what they write, even in opinion pieces. Opinions are questionable when they’re based on lies and manipulation. They can raise doubts about what’s right, which is nothing other than what causes good rather than harm.