Masculinity and femininity are definable realities: Understanding them can lead to a deeper awareness of love and God

‘I don’t want to prove a woman is strong like a man – no, a woman is strong in her own way, our strength is in our femininity.” These words of Angela Nikolau in the Netflix documentary Skywalkers: A Love Story set the tone for what would be a profound and welcome exposition of masculinity and femininity. The documentary follows the lives of Angela and Vanya, two Russian “rooftoppers” who scale tall buildings without any safety equipment. 

It’s easy for English speakers to believe that the ancients merely projected their own biological gender out onto nature in calling heaven masculine and earth feminine, the sun masculine and the moon feminine, when in fact what they were doing was observing and articulating a givenness. 

Masculine is visible, feminine is hidden; masculine projects outwards, feminine receives inwards; masculine holds, feminine is held; masculine walks the road, feminine provides the space. The female body points to the feminine; the male body points to the masculine. So much of this sacramental worldview has been lost – the idea that things themselves can be signs, pointing beyond themselves. One consequence of the feminist movement is the irony that it set new limits preventing women from conforming to their unique telos. 

With the feminist emphasis on equality as sameness, a post-feminist world has stripped away the true value of woman and ended up securing, as the theologian Alice von Hildebrand observed, “a great masculine victory”. By filling masculine social tropes with female characters who embody those very tropes, it is not a recognition and elevation of the feminine that we see, but rather a blind attachment to masculine qualities as the ones that truly matter. 

The message is that being on top, leading, being a warrior is somehow more virtuous than the caring intimate connections of our private realm. The French writer Michèle Vinet wrote that “the value of a people can be measured by the value of its women”. But how do we value women? 

In a culture that treats fertility like a disease to be medicated, removes babies from the wombs of their mothers by their millions, pumps puberty blockers into understandably confused teenagers, tells girls that they will be taken seriously only when they emulate boys, and so disdains the feminine that it would rather end lives than improve care, it was a surprise to see a love story unfold in a Netflix show in which we see femininity discovered, not feminism imposed. 

The documentary begins by introducing us first to Angela, the Russian daughter of circus performers. “In our family all the women are tough,” Angela’s grandmother says to her as she looks at photographs of her own daughter’s circus act.

“In the circus,” Angela comments, “they take crazy risks every day because it allows them to realise their full potential”, before speaking to the wound which drives her. “But I saw how quickly it can all be taken away – Dad left Mum for another woman, and that was it. No more Dad, Mum got depressed. I remember always feeling hungry. Grandma taught me to be strong.”

The scene was set for a documentary about an independent woman, making her way through life without the need of a useless man who will only hurt her. “For years I didn’t even let myself cry,” she says. “I didn’t know who I was; I just knew I wanted something bigger so I went searching for who I could become and I made a rule never to depend on anyone but myself.” And so began her rooftopping – or skywalking, as she prefers to call it. 

After some time scaling tall buildings on her own, Angela encounters Vanya – another fiercely independent skywalker – and they begin to work together. On day, atop a tall building and with his arm around Angela, Vanya whispers, “I worry about you so much it’s overwhelming.” As their notoriety spreads, they are interviewed about their risky exploits and asked about their relationship. “She has become a part of me, my focus is shifting from my own safety to hers.”

“That’s called love,” the host responds.

The two then observe something about their union. “The safer she was,” says Vanya, “the more creative she became, and although she would never admit it, I saw her starting to get softer.” “It’s not like I need a protector,” Angela retorts, “but I admit, the work got better and better”. The pair, who climb without safety equipment, decide to take on the task of ascending Merdeka 118 in Kuala Lumpur, which stands at 679m (2,227ft). 

While they prepare for this feat, their relationship begins to falter. Vanya worries about an injury Angela has picked up; Angela resists his attempts to protect her. In the midst of this turmoil, she leaves him behind to go and visit the circus – where she breaks down.

“My happiest childhood memory is of the circus,” she says. “I thought it was because the performers were applauded for their success, but I realised it was because the circus is where my parents were together.” 

We see, in this moment – as she does – that climbing with Vanya had become about the restoration of the right relationship more than it was the assertion of her independence and the need for adulation.

“Maybe relationships should be like in the aerial show,” she observes. “There’s the flyer, a woman, and the catcher, a man.” Everybody’s eyes are on the flyer and “nobody focuses on the catcher, yet he performs the main function. He is in charge of safety, keeping them grounded.” She pauses, before concluding: “I cannot do this alone.” 

Angela’s insight was not a show of weakness as the feminists might have us believe, but a recognition of the power of humility. Just at the moment she has this revelation, Vanya appears to tell her about his own. “I thought rooftopping was for personal achievement, but when I met you I realised it’s an art form and was inspired by you.” These words reveal an understanding of femininity as that which gives integrity to all that is masculine; they need each other. 

Both realised that the hunger which drove them to the rooftops could not be satisfied alone. Interdependence, not independence, was what they had sought all along. 

After a long and gruelling climb to the top of the Merdeka tower, their display of togetherness high up in the air struck me as a symbol of the reordering of the feminine and the masculine such that together both can reach their full potential on the other side of the fear that has set men and women against one another for too long.

We need to take ourselves out of the artificial world of propaganda and learn to trust again. When we see that our femaleness and maleness are as given as the wetness of the sea and the height of the mountain, then can we work with what has been given, and not against it. We can work with the giver and not against Him; we can receive the gift and not reject it. 

“Love is like heights,” Angela concludes. “The fear never goes away, you just get better at facing it. I thought Vanya was put in my life to teach me to skywalk, but now I see that skywalking was put into my life to teach me how to love.” 

Photo: A shot from the new Netflix documentary ‘Skywalkers: A Love Story’, following the lives of Russian rooftoppers Angela and Vanya.

This article appears in the October 2024 edition of the Catholic Herald. To subscribe to our award-winning, thought-provoking magazine and have independent, high-calibre, counter-cultural and orthodox Catholic journalism delivered to your door anywhere in the world click HERE.

The post Masculinity and femininity are definable realities: Understanding them can lead to a deeper awareness of love and God appeared first on Catholic Herald.