Recently I finally had the opportunity to see a live of production of Broadway’s Hamilton. Based upon Ron Chernow’s 2004 biography, the musical tells the story of both the titular founding father and the heated political climate around the time of the American Revolution.

I was struck by one of Hamilton’s most important themes: the idea of narrative, and the shaping thereof. A refrain heard repeatedly throughout the musical asks the question: “Who tells your story?” When it comes to historical remembrance and fact, narrative matters.

It’s a prescient reflection, in a world where we are bombarded with competing versions of events, both past and present, that can shape our worldviews and threaten our existing self-concepts. As I’ve also been reflecting lately upon Christian anthropology, womanhood and feminism — you can read some of my recent essays on the subject here, here and here — I’ve encountered a number of different (and often inconsistent) perspectives and ideas. This question of personhood, the very meaning of life, and more specifically how a woman’s vocation — with her biological potentiality for motherhood — really ought to play out, remains controversial and compelling.

Which historical narrative about women is indeed the correct one? And does it matter?

Is it true, for instance, that women were globally oppressed and prevented from making any meaningful contributions in the public square before the 18th-century publication of Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Women? Do we ultimately owe the status that women enjoy today to Enlightenment-era thinkers and the increasingly secular, progressive feminists who came after? What about the historic Christian vision for women, as reflected in the letters of St. Paul and the teachings and life of Jesus Christ himself? How are modern women of faith to conceptualize the history of feminism and women’s rights, particularly as it intersects with the Church’s approach to the dignity of women throughout history?

These questions are complex and multi-faceted. Feminism is not so easy to define, for one thing, and it would be short-sighted (and unfair) to characterize the entire women’s movement, from Wollstonecraft to Elizabeth Cady Stanton to Judith Butler, as a monolithic cause. Not to mention that feminist theory has given way to gender theory, and today’s situation for women and the modern women’s movement looks vastly different than it did even 25 years ago.

But complicated or not, it is important for women to understand their place in the world and the nature of the vocation to which God has called them. How else are we to build our lives and think about our work? There is a sharp dichotomy between the progressive feminist narrative, with its relentless emphasis on “reproductive rights” (which is essentially a euphemism for a war against female biology, specifically the potentiality for motherhood) and a more traditional understanding of the role of women in the culture, which all too often sadly devolves into a fetishization of household tasks at the expense of the female intellectual and creative life.

This is where the great question from Hamilton comes in. It matters who tells the story about the legacy of women throughout time and place, because not all storytellers are created equal.

I had never heard of Dr. Bronwen McShea until she visited my parish last year to give a talk on her (at the time) recently released book La Duchesse: The Life of Marie de Vignerot ― Cardinal Richelieu's Forgotten Heiress Who Shaped the Fate of France. McShea describes herself as a “historian, writer, speaker, and artist,” and in 480 pages tells the little-known story of Marie de Vignerot’s lasting influence upon the nation of France in the 17th century.

I found myself fascinated by this long-ago wealthy patron of science and arts, who also devoted herself to works of charity and to the Church — particularly because this was during a historical period when it is generally assumed that women were incapable of wielding any sort of cultural, social or religious influence whatsoever. The book is both dense and readable, and deserves a place on every Catholic woman’s bookshelf.

During her talk, McShea mentioned another book she was working on: Women of the Church: What Every Catholic Should Know. Jointly published by Ignatius Press and the Augustine Institute earlier this year, this is effectively a walk through the history of Catholic women, both lay and religious, and their (many) accomplishments and contributions to the culture and the Church.

I cannot say enough about both the scope and emphasis of McShea’s work, especially considering that it is in such a desperately needed area of scholarship and discussion. McShea includes a vast and diverse array of notable women, many of whom I’d never encountered before, and demonstrates that perhaps there is more to the story of the influence of women on the world, after all, and Catholic women in particular. The book is both rich in information and completely accessible, and should be a staple for Catholic men and women alike.

From the first woman ever to earn a doctorate (Elena Cornaro Piscopia was a Benedictine oblate living, incredibly, in the 17th century), to the Martyrs of Compiègne during the French Revolution, to St. Kateri Tekakwitha, to Caryll Houselander and (my favorite) Flannery O’Connor, McShea profiles women from all walks of life who not only give testament to what Pope St. John Paul II called the “feminine genius,” but who can serve as strong, smart and courageous role models for us and our daughters.

The stories of these varied women, and their love for God and his Church, are the perfect antidote to the progressive feminist narrative — a narrative that has convinced scores of moderns that women’s liberation comes not through the sacraments, radical love or a life of service and connectedness, but through the rejection of our unique gifts and very embodiment as women.

Women of the Church makes a beautiful and compelling case for the idea that women have wielded vast influence in the shaping of the Church and of the culture since the time of creation, and that it has been the Church — and not the secular feminists, after all — leading the way in the promotion of women’s dignity and well-being across time and place. Far from being a run-of-the-mill, whitewashed hagiography that focuses primarily on the other-worldliness and unrepeatable aspects of female saints, the book explores both laywomen and consecrated religious alike, whether of noble rank or the peasantry, who embodied virtue in little and big ways and who, ultimately, made society the better for it.

McShea’s work also functions as an antidote to the reductive counter-narrative to modern feminism, where there is a general reluctance to acknowledge (much less celebrate) the many and diverse gifts that women bring to all spheres of life. This unfortunate sensibility was, for example, reflected in some of the reactions to the film Cabrini, where some felt that the popular saint was portrayed as too much of a “girl boss” — as opposed to a submissive, prayerful servant of Our Lord. Yet are those two things — on the one hand, a confident Catholic woman who takes charge, and on the other, a woman wholly devoted to prayer and the sacraments — mutually exclusive?

A woman’s gifts need not be confined solely to the home, although that may certainly (and by necessity) be the primary focus for those women called to the vocation of marriage, particularly if they are raising young children. Yet the profiles featured in Women of the Church demonstrate and celebrate the remarkable differences between women — deeply united and singular in their love for Christ and others, and yet called to a multitude of different, meaningful and enduring things.

The importance of books such as McShea’s cannot be underestimated. Neither historical record nor public imagination are immune to bias and ignorance. For far too long we have been treated to a radical feminist narrative that somehow diminishes the actual work of women, claiming that the institutions of both marriage and Church oppressed and prevented women from contributing anything worthwhile to society. Or we’ve been confronted by a viewpoint that paints women with too broad and monochromatic a brush, which ignores both the variety and number of gifts that women have consistently offered the culture.

These narrow understandings of history, in their own respective ways, fail to acknowledge the creativity of God and the many important accomplishments that Catholic women have achieved in his name.

Perhaps, then, it is time for Catholic women to rise up, take a page out of Hamilton’s book, reclaim the narrative, and tell their own story. In Women of the Church: What Every Catholic Should Know, Bronwen McShea does precisely that.