Many discussions of the feminine or masculine "geniuses" open themselves up to anecdotal rebuttals about particular men or women who defy the characterization. Here we do not define "genius" as something essential to each of the sexes, such as capacity for motherhood or fatherhood, but, rather as: "a set of characteristics, and proclivities that derive from those essential and mutually distinct capacities." The feminine genius, therefore, is the set of characteristics that a well-formed woman will display with a particular proclivity due to her capacity for motherhood. The masculine genius is the set of characteristics that a well-formed man will display with a particular proclivity due to his capacity for fatherhood.
As Cardinal Ratzinger wrote in his Letter to Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Collaboration of Men and Women in the Church and the World,
It is appropriate…to recall that the feminine values mentioned here [a capacity for the other] are above all human values: the human condition of man and woman created in the image of God is one and indivisible. It is only because women are more immediately attuned to these values that they are the reminder and the privileged sign of such values.
The same could be said for the masculine genius, which is a set of characteristics that are ultimately human values, attainable also by women. The integration of both sets of human values leads to human flourishing, beautifully exemplified by the father of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, described by her thus: "Hard as he was on himself, he was always affectionate towards us. His heart was exceptionally tender toward us. He lived for us alone. No mother's heart could surpass his. Still with all that there was no weakness. All was just and well-regulated."
With these preliminaries in mind, we will now turn to the masculine genius.
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