Crucible: the stone womb of elderhood
A poetic conversation on becoming a woman elder in this time
At a Peace Summit in 2009, the Dali Lama said something that ricocheted around the globe, “Western women will save the world.” This may or may not be true, and it invokes the complex and problematic benefits and consequences of privilege, but it also invokes the important role women can, do, and will play in the future of our planet.
The fastest growing segment of Western society is adults aged sixty and older, the majority of whom are women. So it is even more important to ask, what role do older women play in our future? To answer this question requires us to look more deeply at how we as a culture, and as individuals, define what it means to be an “old woman.”
When a woman reaches a certain age, usually her late 40s to early 50s, which coincides with the average age of menopause, she becomes invisible. She no longer holds the attention and esteem of dominant society in the same way she did during her young, ripe, fertile, and presumably, most “productive” years. In the most diminutive and diminished term, she becomes a “hag.”
But what if that isn’t such a bad thing?
What if becoming a “hag” is turned on its head, and instead of it being a transition into a shriveling…
