A bit late to the party, but I was working all week and saving this to read on Friday night in place of my traditional (pre-menopausal) martini which I can no longer metabolize, dammit. Riveting as hoped, and I have so many agreements but also some dissonance. So many thoughts, but as someone who now lives close to the land, children and animals I feel I must point out that women live long lives because our *wisdom* is crucial to our tribe's survival. It is not easy to learn to grow, harvest and put up food or tend a thriving flock/herd or raise healthy children. Old women were prized for their knowledge and skills until about 5 seconds ago in human history. Even now in my rural New England town people remember the elder women's quilting skills and their jam recipes. The idea that we're useless after menopause is a distinctly urban phenomenon. I often think that the cat lady stereotype has truth to it because older women are meant to tend animals. It's what old women and children have always done since goats were domesticated by humans 10,000 years ago. We aren't meant to be sexy forever, which means invisibility in modern culture, but that doesn't preclude usefulness, happiness and deep satisfaction with life. Children and animals don't care what you look like. Getting closer to infirmity and death is invariably a downer for the sentient beings we are, of course. "Thou are blessed compared with me, the present only toucheth thee," as Robert Burns famously said to a mouse. We're cursed with knowing what's to come, but damned if we don't enjoy each season of life for the pleasures it brings.
Thanks for those really interesting thoughts Brigid. I would add that even in urban areas there is a respect for older women’s knowledge and wisdom. But that respect and appreciation is more subterranean or at least you generally won’t find it circulating as aspirational in celebrity-dominated culture (one notable exception being Pamela Anderson - and I could write a whole long piece about her as a feminist icon!) Two major forces of opposition to recognising and celebrating older women’s wisdom were patriarchal religion - in the UK, the Reformation was imposed from above and took many many decades, even centuries, to totally destroy those earlier beliefs that gave many older women that recognition - and modern medicine of course to the extent that the menopause has been reframed as a wholly medical (and negative) event. There are clinicians that reject that claim, too, thankfully, and hopefully it will slowly change.
A piece on Pamela Anderson would be amazing! Yes, so true about religion and medicine disempowering older women. Society tends to portray women and children as side issues (the little "lifestyle" section of the paper), but control of women’s fertility is *the* central problem of patriarchy and much masculine energy is focused on keeping us in line. Older women and our truths are a huge threat and must be pathologized and silenced. Disney has not helped matters but that would be another piece as well!
Totally agree with every word. In menopause I have found a sovereignty and a freedom that I could never previously grasp or attain. I look back on my life and wish I could have felt then how I feel now.
Professor Romantic... Ha! Thanks again for another excellent piece, which fully resonates with my own experience. I am very much like Justine "“I don’t feel pushed and pulled about by hormones anymore; I don’t feel the need to conform to the expectations younger women face...I really don’t care what anyone thinks. That’s the point.” This is exactly how I am now (not feel, AM)-- I just really do not care. I'm sure you've come across this, but it captures it all superbly:
Remedios Varo! Great surrealist woman artist, almost forgotten.
A bit late to the party, but I was working all week and saving this to read on Friday night in place of my traditional (pre-menopausal) martini which I can no longer metabolize, dammit. Riveting as hoped, and I have so many agreements but also some dissonance. So many thoughts, but as someone who now lives close to the land, children and animals I feel I must point out that women live long lives because our *wisdom* is crucial to our tribe's survival. It is not easy to learn to grow, harvest and put up food or tend a thriving flock/herd or raise healthy children. Old women were prized for their knowledge and skills until about 5 seconds ago in human history. Even now in my rural New England town people remember the elder women's quilting skills and their jam recipes. The idea that we're useless after menopause is a distinctly urban phenomenon. I often think that the cat lady stereotype has truth to it because older women are meant to tend animals. It's what old women and children have always done since goats were domesticated by humans 10,000 years ago. We aren't meant to be sexy forever, which means invisibility in modern culture, but that doesn't preclude usefulness, happiness and deep satisfaction with life. Children and animals don't care what you look like. Getting closer to infirmity and death is invariably a downer for the sentient beings we are, of course. "Thou are blessed compared with me, the present only toucheth thee," as Robert Burns famously said to a mouse. We're cursed with knowing what's to come, but damned if we don't enjoy each season of life for the pleasures it brings.
Thanks for those really interesting thoughts Brigid. I would add that even in urban areas there is a respect for older women’s knowledge and wisdom. But that respect and appreciation is more subterranean or at least you generally won’t find it circulating as aspirational in celebrity-dominated culture (one notable exception being Pamela Anderson - and I could write a whole long piece about her as a feminist icon!) Two major forces of opposition to recognising and celebrating older women’s wisdom were patriarchal religion - in the UK, the Reformation was imposed from above and took many many decades, even centuries, to totally destroy those earlier beliefs that gave many older women that recognition - and modern medicine of course to the extent that the menopause has been reframed as a wholly medical (and negative) event. There are clinicians that reject that claim, too, thankfully, and hopefully it will slowly change.
A piece on Pamela Anderson would be amazing! Yes, so true about religion and medicine disempowering older women. Society tends to portray women and children as side issues (the little "lifestyle" section of the paper), but control of women’s fertility is *the* central problem of patriarchy and much masculine energy is focused on keeping us in line. Older women and our truths are a huge threat and must be pathologized and silenced. Disney has not helped matters but that would be another piece as well!
Totally agree with every word. In menopause I have found a sovereignty and a freedom that I could never previously grasp or attain. I look back on my life and wish I could have felt then how I feel now.
Brilliant essay Susan - am restacking this !
Professor Romantic... Ha! Thanks again for another excellent piece, which fully resonates with my own experience. I am very much like Justine "“I don’t feel pushed and pulled about by hormones anymore; I don’t feel the need to conform to the expectations younger women face...I really don’t care what anyone thinks. That’s the point.” This is exactly how I am now (not feel, AM)-- I just really do not care. I'm sure you've come across this, but it captures it all superbly:
https://www.facebook.com/reel/2284150775314995
Very powerful Susan and amazingly thought provoking. I couldn’t agree more with the comments already made by Jayne.
Thank you for writing this. It’s absolutely wonderful. Hopeful, wise, affirming.
A superb essay, thankyou.
And thanks Caroline for your fascinating comments.
Great reel! 🤣🤣🤣