Marianismo
Evelyn Stevens' essay was very significant to this area of study. However, since its publication, her argument has been debated by other researchers and critics. Although her argument addresses marianismo in Latin America at large, many of the sources she uses mainly focus on Mexican culture, thus severely limiting her frame of reference. Also, she is criticized for implying that, despite other differences among various socioeconomic classes, the ideal woman's characteristics are ultimately the same across social classes. Her critics claim Stevens ignores socioeconomic factors, saying "her description of women as altruistic, selfless, passive, [and] morally pure" is inadequate. There have been some responses in the literature to the concept of marianismo that assert that its model of/for women's behavior is very class-based. In other words, the idea that men do all the hard work, while women remain idle, on a pedestal, is a life that rarely exists, particularly for the peasant, poor and working class women that make up the majority of Latin America women. As Gil and Vazquez remind us, "most of her [Stevens's] data came from middle class Mexican women".
History of Catholic Mariology
The majority of Western Marian writers during this period belonged to the monastic tradition, particularly the Benedictines. The twelfth and thirteenth centuries saw an extraordinary growth of the cult of the Virgin in western Europe, in part inspired by the writings of theologians such as Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153). Bernard of Clairvaux was one of the most influential churchmen of his time. In the "Sermon on the Sunday in the Octave of the Assumption" he described Mary's participation in redemption. Bernard's "Praises on the Virgin Mother" was a small but complete treatise on Mariology. Pope Pius XII's 1953 encyclical "Doctor Mellifluus", issued in commemoration of the eighth centenary of Bernard's death, quotes extensively from Bernard's sermon on Mary as "Our Lady, Star of the Sea".