Welcome to Thomistic Womanhood. My name is Gloria. And in today’s video, we’re going to be talking about five books I think every woman should read. I’m going to go through them rather quickly. Maybe I’ll do a deep dive into each book later on, I don’t know. But either way, these are the three books, the five books, I think you should read. And there was like a bonus six, one somewhere. There’s so many good books. So anyways, I am going to be releasing a course on relationships pretty soon here and you can join it on the waitlist below. I’ll put a link below and then I’ll send you an email when it’s open. If that’s something you’re interested in, it’s basically going to be relationship advice for women of faith. And I’m just going to put in everything that I wish somebody had taught me. And so to that vein, I have been getting out all my books, and I have been thinking about what I’m going to teach. And so it’s gotten me thinking about what books do I think women should read? What would help them the most? And so this is my list.

FIRST BOOK: Fascinating Womanhood

So number one, Fascinating Womanhood by Helen B. Andelin. This is a controversial book, and it’s an oldie but goodie, this is the OG of femininity books back before there was a femininity movement on YouTube, there were pamphlets written in the 30s by a group of psychologists. And it was basically written for single women on how to attract men. The principles on the psychological and emotional principles on which to attract men with and the pamphlets were excellent. And so in the 60s, in response to third wave feminism, a woman named Helen Andelin, took those pamphlets, basically, copy, pasted them into a book added a few things here and there for married women, a few additional nuances and things. And then she released it as a book, you don’t really need to worry about getting the pamphlets. I have the pamphlets and literally 80% of this book is like just a straight direct copy from the pamphlets. So you’re not missing anything. It’s an excellent book, I highly recommend it, it is recommended by priests. Three of these books are recommended by priests. Two of them aren’t. So if that’s something you care about, maybe I figured you might want to know. And so this book is just going to basically talk to you about the principles of how to attract men, everything from how to dress, how to act, what are their emotional needs, how do men feel loved, how to bring back the spark of romance in your marriage? That’s kind of what the purpose of this book was written for. But, it basically just goes under, like, what do men find fascinating. And women, when men fall in love, what is it about her that they really fall in love with, and this book really goes into depth on that, and kind of teaches you how to be that kind of woman that a man will fall in love with. And I think it’s an excellent book.

Now, it’s a little dated, and it’s also written for married women. So there’s a lot of like, kind of advice on how to just live with the man you picked up, she does talk about cheating and alcoholism a little bit. And those are problems where as a single woman, that doesn’t apply to you, you have not made your choice yet. And so you should think carefully about accepting what Amanda, she’s got a chapter in here called accept him at face value. And that’s because this is written for married women, she does have a book on a book like fascinating womanhood for single girls. So I’ve read it, but I like the original one better, but you’re single,  you don’t have to make your bed and lie in it, you can get a new man. And I think sometimes it’s important to do that. So that’s something you should take with a grain of salt. It’s also written by a woman, I believe she was Mormon. And so there’s a little bit sometimes she kind of makes men out to be a little more godlike than they actually are. And, sometimes things like, Oh, don’t question your husband, or blah, blah, there’s a time in place for disagreeing with your man. Obviously, you want to pick your battles, but that’s one of the things I think is a little dated about her book, she doesn’t really teach you how to kind of set some boundaries, I think a little bit, but again, that’s because this is for married women who have already established their boundaries, with the man there with he knows, what kind of woman is which what she is what she won’t stand for things like that. So there’s less of that because, hopefully, you would have already done that in the dating phase, something to be aware of. However, it’s an excellent book. I always laugh when I see femininity channels, like they use these principles, and they don’t credit it because it’s from the 60s and I think at this point, nobody remembers where it came from. So it’s an excellent book. I highly recommend it.

SECOND BOOK: Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus

The next good book also priests recommended Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus by John Gray. Another classic was written in the 90s. This is written by a guy who’s like a therapist and he talks about communication and how many women think differently. And this is an excellent guide, it says A Practical Guide for improving communication and getting what you want in your relationships. This is a really good book if you want to understand how men think. And if you keep having fights with your boyfriend and you don’t understand why you guys keep fighting, this is a book you should read. It will open your eyes and he’s very fair. He’s not biased. He doesn’t act like women are always wrong, or men are always wrong. It’s a good book, I highly recommend it.

THIRD BOOK: The Jane Austen Guide to Happily Ever After

The third book, it’s the The Jane Austen Guide to Happily Ever After: Kantor, Elizabeth. This is the relationship book I wish I had written . It’s so good. She basically taught us the subtitle is what Jane Austen’s heroines can teach modern women about men sex, marriage and lasting happiness. And it is an excellent book, especially if you’re a Jane Austen fan, you’re going to be familiar with the story she quotes. And she basically talks about women back in the day, they had a less humiliating time with love. I think in hookup culture, there’s a lot of dignity that’s been lost, especially for us women, who are expected to do things that are not at all in our best interest. And back in the day, society respected men more, and she talks about, why that is? This is written by a woman, she’s a convert to Catholicism, and she has a degree, yeah, she’s got an MA in philosophy. So she gets into societal commentary on why certain things are happening. Why the hookup culture, if you’re like, oh, my gosh, if you’re like, if I’m so wonderful, why am I still single? She answers that question pretty good, at least in my opinion, in this book, and then she also teaches you principles, how to conduct yourself in a relationship, how to choose a good man, even the proper way to think about relationships in general, it’s an excellent book, I highly recommend you read it. So those are good. And these three books are all about relationships, because obviously, as a woman, it’s something we think about a lot. But something that bothers us, if we don’t have it, right, we don’t have a relationship or, maybe we fight a lot with our boyfriend. And there’s not as much love and connection as we’re hoping for, it’s really important to us, and it’s important to get it right. So these three books are going to help you with that.

However, these next two books are, I think, just as important, but they’re going to help you not so much in a relationship specific way, but they’re going to help you have an understanding of yourself as a woman, no man and kids needed. It is important to understand how to get along with men, how to get along with how to have a happy marriage, however, you need to have a foundational understanding of yourself just in and of yourself without, in relation to a man or a kid. And that’s where these books come in.

FOURTH BOOK: The Privilege of Being a Woman

So the first one is called The Privilege of Being a Woman: Alice von Hildebrand. These priests recommended, in fact, my spiritual director, a priest that I used to go to. He gave this book out to all the women that were his spiritual directors, and this is the copy he gave me. It’s an excellent book. And this woman is a professor of philosophy. She’s really excellent at knowing what feminism is, and pointing out some of the flaws in it and how you can get true empowerment. She is very familiar with third wave feminism, she’s read Simone de Beauvoir’s books, she’s read Betty for Dan’s books. So she knows what she’s talking about when she kind of, points out certain things about feminism that, really aren’t maybe going to help you as much as they say they will. And then she talks about how instead, it’s going to go, how you can get what you want, in a different way. And that’s often rare. When people of faith write books on womanhood, they will often downplay the problems that feminism brings up, because there are we do live in a pretty male dominated society, there is definitely a male bias. There are things that feminists point out that are problems, I would argue there’s way less of a problem with it than there used to be. However, yeah, we do live in a society that tends to glorify masculine qualities more than feminine qualities, and she doesn’t shy away from admitting that, she will acknowledge that but then she goes on to show you, yes, even though society thinks that it’s wrong, and here’s why. And then she goes into what a privilege it is to be a woman. I read the book best summed up the sky, lifted an Amazon review for it, and he said, Wow, I’m a guy and I read this book, and I even felt envious of women. I wished I was a woman after I read this book. I thought that that’s very good. So yeah, it’s an excellent book. I highly recommend you read it.

FIFTH BOOK: The Nature Dignity And Mission Of Woman

The next book is called The Nature Dignity And Mission Of Woman and it’s written by a priest named Father Karl Stehlin. I think he’s polish. But anyways, so this is the book you wrote, I’ll make sure it doesn’t glare. And basically, it’s again, the same thing. It talks about womanhood. But instead of being written by a woman, this time, it’s written by a man. So you’re going to get a perspective on both, and he talks about Father talks about the three aspects of the vocation of woman, and the book kind of puts them into, there’s three aspects, he goes virgin, loving spouse, and mother, all of these aspects are intimately connected and influence one another. And the most eloquent example. And as it were, the incarnation of this vocation is the immaculate lady who is Virgin and mother, Ko, Redeemer and spouse of the Holy Ghost. So he basically talks about womanhood, the virgin, the single woman, the woman who’s not married, here’s things about that. And then he talks about motherhood, here’s other things to consider. And then he talks about being a spouse, there’s more things to consider. And he talks about it in a way that, you don’t have to be married to get something out of this book. And that’s what I like about it, and so he talks in the introduction, he talks about where, in the life of a young person, when they ask themselves, who am I really? And what distinguishes me from other people, and so that’s what he kind of goes into what distinguishes a woman from others, from men, and why did God make women the way he made her? What was maybe his spiritual purpose in doing that, why? Why did God make women different, and it’s a really good analysis of that. So it’s an excellent book, I recommend you read it. So yeah, those are the five books. I hope that was helpful. I hope you enjoyed that.

There are so many good books, so many good books, it was hard, narrowing them down to five. So I mean, I am still on the hunt for a really good health book. I think as women we should really understand our hormones and our body and everything. So once I find one that I think is really good, because I’ve read some that are there. Okay, so anyways, that someday will be Book number six, but that’s what I think is going to be really helpful for you, especially if you’re a younger woman, or maybe you didn’t have a strong mother figure and you didn’t get a good formation on what it meant to be a woman.

These five books are really going to help you and yeah, so having said that, like I said at the beginning of the video, I’m working on a course for you guys. So if you want to get on the waitlist and find out when enrollment opens for that, just go ahead and click on the link below. I won’t sell your email address or anything weird like that. I will literally just email you when the course opens so you’re not going to get any emails. So having said that, I hope this was helpful. I hope you learned something. If you have any questions, go ahead and leave me a comment and I guess I will see you soon in another video.