Old bat.
Crone.
Hag.
What is it about the ‘other side’ of menopause that condemns women to this Disney image of crazy-lady ugliness?
Enter the witch…
Historically, women have tended to be compartmentalised into clichés: the Virgin, the Whore- Witch and the Crone-Witch. When the virginal state is past, the woman now has ‘knowledge’, and knowledge equals threat.
Beware the Whore-Witch.
She beguiles you with her long tresses and bewitching eyes, drawing you inexorably into her spell until you are lost in her power: you are her victim, hers to use and discard as she wishes.
She is Circe, she is La Belle Dame sans Merci, she is Medea, she is Eve.
“I saw pale kings, and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
Who cried —"La belle Dame sans merci
Hath thee in thrall!"” (Keats)
Beware the Crone-Witch.
She frightens you with her grey hair, her warts, her pointed hairy chin, her crooked back, her wizened ugliness, stirring her cauldron with its toxic ingredients and sewing her poppets, ready to curse your crops or kill your cows.
She is the crone clutching her broomstick, off to make her pact with the devil.
She is Baba Yaga, she is Oz’s Wicked Witch of the West, she is the Sea Witch, she is the cannibal lurking in the gingerbread house.
The patriarchy has long held a suspicion of women with knowledge, opinions and wisdom. She must be the Whore-Witch or the Crone-Witch: the one usually morphs, via menopause, into the other.
The witch has power. Thus, she is to be feared.
You don’t have to go much further than social media to see the insults: a public female figure of a certain age and voicing an opinion attracts instant taunts of witch, hag and grossly crude insults.
Enjoying recent programmes by the esteemed Mary Beard, scholar and national treasure, and following a conversation with my daughter, Caitlin, I was inspired to write this blog post. Due to Dame Mary’s age, grey locks, uncompromising intellect and straight-talking, she has attracted many a ridiculous attempted insult, ‘Get back to your cauldron’ being a notable example.
Why?
Is she malevolent? Is she in league with Lucifer?
Perhaps, in addition to zooming her latest series on the Beeb, she is zooming into the night on a broomstick?
No, she is merely past child-bearing age, doesn’t choose to dye her hair, is a successful academic and broadcaster and speaks as she finds.
The divine Dame, of course, celebrates the language of hag and crone, reclaiming the language as a positive descriptor. They are “wild women”, they are “powerful”.
How did the figure of Mother Earth, the mother goddess, the creator of life, the nurturer, come to be a figure of disgust? Why is she such a threat? Anne Boleyn was recreated as whore-witch to feed the patriarchy’s fury: a sixth digit on her hand, a warty thing on her neck and a devil-foetus born from unnatural couplings, all invented to repaint the ‘predator’ who stole a king and brought down the Catholic Church in England as an instrument of Satan.
How did Oz’s Witch of the West become Wicked? Because she was different, didn’t conform, had something just a bit ‘other’ about her, struggled with her self-image and other folks’ reactions to her.
Good deeds don’t count if the world perceives you as something else, if you don’t present a meek, unchallenging maiden serving the patriarchy. Exit Elphaba, enter the Wicked Witch, pointy hat and broomstick properly in place.
It is too easy and woefully unimaginative to sling a derogatory comment at a woman, mocking her physical appearance or casting her as ‘witch’. Social media has made it even easier for hidden voices to make comments intended to humiliate, embarrass and abuse. Come on, what is it that actually makes a troll so furious or critical or threatened?
(Just to say at this point, I know that men get disgusting insults too. And that some trolls are female. Both topics for future blogs…)
Back to the hag-haters.
By all means, criticise a female politician for her policies or her poor performance on Question Time or her misrepresentation of facts. She will have to take it all in her stride as the job requires. But call her an old hag, comment on her breasts, make threats of sexual violence? Really? In 2021 we still have to witness this?
So, here’s what we do. We reclaim our post-menopausal selves.
Hug the hag.
Crown the crone.
Welcome the wonderful witch.
Grey hair? Enjoying more time in the garden? Hairs sprouting on the chin? Stiff backs or knees? Knobbly knuckles?
Fabulous!
Guess what? No more periods!
If I looked the same as I did at twenty-five, it would be at best unnerving, at worst a thing of science fiction. I don’t want my portrait in the attic - my wrinkles show how much I laugh.
We have experience, knowledge.
We have had tough times, some very tough times, and got through.
We know better than the youth around us, we are always right. Even when we’re not. No-one said we had to be perfect, but we should embrace everything that we have become.
We can choose whether we luxuriate in our grey hair or dye it gold, black, even magenta with scarlet highlights if we wish.
We keep family traditions going.
We know remedies.
We give great advice.
We have learned that much of the stuff we agonised about when we were young really doesn’t matter at all.
Learning the properties of dong quai and black cohosh, agnus castus and red clover – if you didn’t think you were a witch before those hot flush days, you certainly fit the bill now.
Guess what? We’re sexy too.
Guilt-free, pregnancy-free, expert sex.
There is a glorious liberation in celebrating the lives we have experienced and the place where we have arrived, the peculiar years of menopause and coming out the other side wiser, cooler and appreciative of our new freedoms.
And if that’s being a witch, then I am proud to grab a cat and put on my pointy hat.
Call me a hag? I will smile delightedly and beam back at you with gratitude, “Why, thank you!”
***
Catch more of Mary Beard’s excellent discussion and humour in this Woman's Hour episode (23:14 timestamp) here.
For real delight, enjoy her appearance with percussionist and co-hag Evelyn Glennie in Series 2, Episode 2 of Inside Culture (24:00) here.
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