Nov 14, 2025
Should mothers work outside the home? If you want an answer more
solid than groundless internet opinion or conveniently vague
appeals to personal discernment, this is the podcast for you.
Margaret McCarthy joins the Catholic Culture Podcast to discuss
her essay on why anti-sex-discrimination law’s treatment of the
sexes as abstract interchangeable units hurts real women, real men,
and real children (and real workplaces!). Then we dive into the
neglected teachings of John Paul II and earlier popes on the
objectively different relationships that men and women have to the
home and to work outside the home.
Margaret Harper McCarthy is associate professor of theological
anthropology at the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies
on Marriage & Family, at the Catholic University of America. She is
the editor of Humanum: Issues in Family, Culture, and Science,
serves on the editorial board of the English edition of Communio:
International Catholic Review, is a member of the Academy of
Catholic Theology, and is a consultant to the USCCB’s Committee on
Doctrine.
00:00 Introduction
2:30 Anti-discrimination law discriminates against real women,
children, men, and workplaces
34:30 Sex difference: division of labor and customs
1:03:43 Catholic teaching on working mothers
1:33:08 Contraception and public life vs. the real feminine
genius
Links
Margaret H. McCarthy, “The Case for (Just) Sex Discrimination”
Thomas’s article citing John Paul II and earlier popes on
working mothers
Some other articles mentioned:
Maria Baer, “Maybe Women Can Have It All—But Can Their Kids?”
Matthew Mehan, “Wanted: Men of Purpose”
Magisterial texts mentioned:
Rerum Novarum, Divini Illius Magistri, Quadragesimo
Anno, Laborem Exercens, Familiaris Consortio
Pope Pius XII’s addresses to married couples, Dear
Newlyweds
Ratzinger/CDF, “On the Collaboration of Men and Women in the
Church and in the World”
