In an earlier diary kansas suggested that the reaction to the pie fight might have been in part conditioned by age, with older participants, particularly the older women, ultimately unwilling to indulge the shenanigans of the testosterone-soaked adolescents.
This is something I had noticed as well: A recurring theme among the refugees that they were done with dealing with misogynistic politics, having been there, done that in the Seventies already. Said it myself, in fact, in my introductory diary.
The ongoing discussion in kansas’ diary leads right into what I’d wanted to write more about: The Ancient Order of Crones. There’s been a small current in our culture over the past ten years or so that recognizes the empowering effect of a woman getting old, and the name that has often been applied to those empowered old women is crones.
Now, I know a lot of the Dkos refugees are not quite of an age to be called cronely, and many of them are also men (cronesters?). Nevertheless, there is a unique slot in any human society that’s filled by crones and cronesters, and I think the flight of the crones from Dkos will not be an improvement in that community. Before emigrating, I read a number of diaries at Dkos that expressed shock and grief that so many voices that had supplied valued insight and experience were now gone. In fact, some of those diaries are what convinced me to come over.
Without crones, human society slips back to the pre-Upper Paleolithic age. This is the implication of the “grandmother hypothesis” which postulates that the availability of older people to take on some of the burden of childrearing and to share the fruits of their longer experience of life was a huge boost in the evolution of humans. Not long ago, scientific evidence supporting the grandmother hypothesis hit the news. Here’s the summary from MSNBC.
Basically, the researchers reported a huge explosion in the proportion of bones found from “older” individuals (greater than 30 years old – it was a young time then) exploded in the Upper Paleolithic. At the same time, huge cultural advances also took place:
Perhaps around this time people started to value and take care of the weak and the old, and in turn benefited from their help and experience, Caspari sad.
This could be when the uniquely human condition of menopause evolved and started to have an effect, Caspari said. Women not burdened by childbearing could focus on their grandchildren and other kin.
“We live in a society that is so geared towards younger people. It is nice to realize that it might be older people that make us human after all,” Caspari said.
The Ancient Order of Crones is very ancient indeed, and it’s a major civilizing force. The whippersnappers exclude us at their peril.
Thank you for this diary. I love croneship — used the idea in a poem. I’m sure there’s more on this in mythology, but I do not have the time to look it up.
What I have noticed is an increased willingness to speak up, speak out. Vulnerability changed into “what have I got to lose?”
Values become simpler. It’s easier to sift the wheat from the chaff.
At 66, I am in one of my happiest states. Perhaps, I’ve just given myself permission to do what I want to do. And say what experience has taught me.
Yes, I do think “juvenile hall” is unbearable. Why waste the time. for time has become more valuable — and valued.
Yes, it is disheartening to be faced with attitudes that still exist. Perhaps we need that lesson — that it isn’t going away. I can’t just retire from battling racism, and I surely can’t retire from battling sexism. But croneship tells me to choose my battles wisely.
Well this particular whippersnapper happens to adore all of the “crones” (god i have always hated that word, it sounds so negative) hence why I relocated. š
Crone has negative connotations in society at large by design. In pagan spiritualism, the great cycles of nature are represented by three stages:
The maiden, the mother, and the crone — these were appropriated for the “holy trinity” of the father, son and the holy ghost. The crone has a very powerful symbolism (and is associated with “female-ness”) thus, it has been denigrated to the point that negativity prevades its connotations.
Reclaim the word and feel the power!
I left the “maiden” stage long ago (maybe too long ago), am in the midst of mothering (though we never really get to quit that, do we?), and am damn well looking forward to “graduating” to crone-ship! š
As I tell my husband, I can’t wait to be 80, I’ll say whatever a damn well please to anyone…he always laughs and says, “oh, really? you’re going to wait 40 years?”
Oh! I am definitely aware of the pagan interpertations of the “crone”. My best friend came out of the broomcloset to me a few years ago and has taken me under her wing and has been educating me for the most part. š For me I think it’s more a personal thing. But yes I do agree that it’s definitely society at large.
Still trying to work on de-programming myself. š
Aren’t we all? Aren’t we all!
Out of curiousity, here do you live that being pagan was something one would keep from your best friend??
(I hope I am NOT making any judgements with the question, and it may not have a thing to do with where you live, I am just curious.)
No your judgement was quite correct. At the time we both lived in Pensacola, Florida. Very Military oriented city, also right next to Milton, Florida which was in the Guinness world book of records for having the most churches per square mile. I kid you not!
I love the word crone; and an embracing my emerging cronehood as joyfully, and as completely, as I can. I can honestly say that I have never been more content
I love this diary. I’ll go back to mine and direct people over here forthwith!
Should we start the:
Chronic Crone Chronicles
‘Learning after a lifetime of mistakes’
š
better still
Learning from a lifetime of disasters
Gee, thanks, kansas. Especially appreciated coming from the one who set me off.
This is as good a place as any to add something I’d planned to say but left out in the rush to polish it off while pretending to work:
There is a seeming irony in the fact that it seems to be my generation (I’m — ulp! — 58) now asserting the need to use the wisdom of older people. We were, after all, the ones who most vociferously rejected the wisdom of our elders when we were young, and in some ways set off this whole youth culture thing. But that’s only an apparent irony. Remember that the wisdom of our elders at that time could be encapsulated as “Sit down and shut up!” This is in response to our pleas to have our rights respected as students, as women, and for the men, as prospective cannon fodder.
Well, nothing and everything has changed. We still speak up for rights, we still refuse to sit down and shut up. Our message to younger people is not the message our elders gave us. I personally think our message is more evolved. And that’s really the point — the wisdom gained from human experience is additive from generation to generation. It may not seem that way in the current political context, but it is that way. When I went to college, whippersnappers, the women students (but not the men) had to be back in their dorms at 10:00 pm. There were bedchecks to make sure this happened. Now students share coed bathrooms. Perhaps more importantly, the fact that students do actually have First Amendment rights is now accepted. Taking the long view, the human species does march forward, happily pushed along by crones, as long as we are still able to push.
I’ve noticed almost exactly the same age break, around age 35 is how I’ve perceived it.
Younger women have a very chamelion kind of sense of self. Hence the common report that after a breakup, it takes women quite a while to find themselves.
This concept is inconceivable to me as a male. It might take me an equal amount of time to regain confidence, to want to date, to stop sobbing–and I understand the report that old men more often die soon after losing their women than vice versa. But even my closest-ever lovers, including my best-friend-ever-wife, never impacted my concept of who and what I am.
Working on a huge university campus where virtually any male could eventually find someone to pair with, I married a 40 year old when I was younger.
I’ve always enjoyed interacting with middle-aged and older women, starting well before my teens, and I’ve always found it fascinating watching the windows open for them in that stage of life. They still have most of the attractions of the younger years and then they become world-wise too.
What’s not to love?
Interesting — I’ve always pegged 35 as the age at which most women finally realize that the Prince isn’t coming, and it’s up to them to make something of their lives. It also seems to be the time when women realize that their emotional well-being is best served by a mix of friends and children in addition to a main man, who really can’t be asked to carry the whole load himself.
has a certain appeal- by clones I mean the female group that all strive to be ‘Brittany’ or Stepford christian blonde-flip women..snark//
I love being a crone, almost as much as finding myself in the company of a group of similiar women (and men). I thought growing old would be awful, but at 60 I’m more content with my life than ever before.