Unveiled: The Hidden Lives of Nuns Book

One of several books in my quest to understand a long-life fascination with nuns, the lives of nuns, the reasons for choosing to be a nun, and the socio-political implications to the fact that even in 'first-world' countries today, after feminism, women still opt for such choice. Apparently, author Reed has had the same fascination and similar questions and, for the most part, 'Unveiled' answers a lot--both to her and to me.

I guess I hoped for more, though. I remember being about 7 when my parents frequently took me to visit one of my dad's Italian aunts, who was a very modern, very outspoken, very feminist nun with a rather open order, for the time. Her calm, her humor and her very different vision fascinated me--even though I was brought up an atheist and even at the age of 7 pretty much knew I'd remain one. However, another thing that fascinated me was the sense--even at 7!--that there had to be more to it: that reasons for renouncing to a 'normal' life (independence, love, sex, children) had to go deeper than just a 'call to God.' Ten years later, I spent about a month at a gorgeous convent, isolated on an enormous mountain and overlooking valleys, with a protege of my aunt's, who'd become quite a celebrated Mother Superior at a quite revolutionary order. She put me up in a narrow, white, simple little room where I read and from which i'd emerge to 'spy' on what the nuns did. My fascination was never quite satisfied. But I remember that at one time I mentioned to her that i was an atheist and that, perhaps, she couldn't quite grasp that, given that her entire life was defined by belief. And she said, 'Extremes touch, my dear, don't you know?' She never said anything else about it--never even attempted to 'convert' me--but I somehow never forgot it.

Reed's book 'Unveiled' is gripping and in-depth and a great contribution to the quite hefty literature on nuns and their lives, subjects which have fascinated many. But it draws short of really answering: why? Even when she correctly and shrewdly connects the link between strong women choosing to be nuns throughout all history in pretty much every country, and an understanding of feminism as rejecting the limitations of patriarchy, she still does not dig far down enough to answer 'why'? Why nuns? Why an inability to both reject one sort of patriarchy and then abandon oneself to another? Because it doesn't matter how you view it, the Catholic Church in general and convents in particular are and always have been extreme expressions of patriarchy--sometimes, the very worst. Atrocities have been committed both in the name of the Church and by nuns themselves--supposedly, the very women ostracised by patriarchy to the point that they have needed a complete removal and separation from it. Just what kind of strength, and of vision, is it when in order to flee one kind of oppression, one 'escapes' into another? And what sort of feminist womanhood is it, to exist in a woman-only club? Ultimately, the book has reinforced one of my lasting suspicions: that in the end, most nuns sought a socially-sanctioned, morally 'acceptable' form of rebellion that would give them the peace to escape the confinements of life patriarchy without actually doing anything about it.