Interesting question! I’ve just turned 50 (in July) so there’s no doubt about it, I’m getting older. One of the birthday presents a friend got me was a controversially titled ‘Hagitude’ by Sharon Blackie. “Don’t worry”, she said seeing my face as I read the title, ‘you’ll love it’.
Hmmm, but I have to say it makes for interesting reading about an important subject (women aging) that until recent years has not gotten the attention it deserves. Now everywhere I look someone is talking about menopause… In the first chapter of Hagitude, Blackie asks ‘What would it mean, instead of being an elderly woman, to be an elder woman? Because to be an elder implies something rather different – implies authority: ‘a leader or senior figure in a tribe or other group’.
This how I like to view aging. A time of gaining more authority, becoming a wiser, an elder, but unfortunately as a mother of lively 3-year old I’m also worried about looking like an old hag at the school gates! To escape the tyranny of youth is not so easy!
The famous psychoanalyst Carl Jung believed “A human being would certainly not grow to be seventy or 80 years old if this longevity had not meaning for the species. The afternoon of human life must also have a significance of its own…”
While I don’t think or feel I’m in the afternoon of my life it would be fair to say I’m approaching it, and I do think it’s wise to start to pay attention to any wisdom aging may be offering. I mean the osteoporosis, hot flushes, brain fog and cancer that old age promises are not something I want to focus on so in line with my training in positive neuroplasticity (PNT) I am looking for the good in growing older. Choosing to view it as an adventure in here to unchartered territory!
The first chapter of Blackie’s book is about menopause, which I have yet to experience, though the average age for a women to experience menopause in the UK is 52. I was fascinated to read for her (and many others) the experience of menopause was all about rage! Not just anger but anger write large. She quotes Suzanne Moore’s description of her menopause, “I don’t really have the mood swings that some talk about. I have just the one mood. Rage.’
She outlines her own rage and how easily it was triggered ‘like stored up magma set to erupt’ and how she felt it was also ‘righteous wrath’ having had enough of the patriarchy stating “There are times when it’s entirely appropriate for the honest, healthy animal in us to bite.” She equates menopausal women to ‘the Furies’ of classical mythology. Sisters who relentlessly hounded the perpetrators of misdemeanours. She writes:
“The Furies were portrayed as the foul-smelling, decidedly haggish possessors of bat-like wings, with black snakes adorning their hair, arms and waists, and blood dripping from their eyes. And they carried brass-studded scourges in their hands. In my menopausal years, I certainly had days when I could have gone with that look.”
Something to look forward to then !!!
Germaine Greer in her book ‘The Change’ suggest that society’s aversion to menopausal women is more than anything, ‘the result of our intolerance of the expression of female anger’. But why do we find women’s range so unacceptable, so threatening? Men’s who express anger are perceived to be strong, decisive and powerful, while women who express the same emotions are perceived to be difficult, over-emotional, irrational, shrill and unfeminine. And this narrative does not just exist among men but its deeply ingrained among women too.
Blackie quotes Soraya Chemaly, in ‘Rage Becomes her: The Power of Women’s Anger’, saying:
“Suppressed, repressed, diverted and ignored anger is now understood as a factor in many ‘women’s illnesses’, including various forms of disordered eating, autoimmune disease chronic fatigue and pain.”
Later Blackie writes: “Anger is an emotion that, more often than not, makes women feel powerless – not just because we’ve been made to feel as if we’re not allowed to express it, but, accordingly because we’ve never learned healthy ways to express it. …
Studies also show that we women often hold anger in our bodies. Unacknowledged or actively repressed, anger takes its toll on us. Numerous psychological studies have unequivocally shown that women who mask, externalise or project their anger are at greater risk for anxiety, nervousness, tension, panic attacks and depression.”
Wow this is serious, health threatening and life-threatening stuff. It just so happens that next
my new book club is entitled ‘Anger’. We will be exploring my teacher Thay’s (Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh’s) book on anger. A classic of contemporary Buddhist literature I wonder what insight he will offer us? A monk from the age of 16, I’m wondering how many rage filled menopausal women he met and if the practices of mindfulness he teaches are able to help us ameliorate this powerful energy of anger.
As most of the people who come to my classes are women over 40, it could be a very interesting course! Not that I ever advertise my classes just for one demographic, it just usually how it turns out. Prior to reading Blackie’s book I may have thought it more likely men were the ones with anger issues, so this is going to be one interesting book club and hopefully helpful for the menopause years ahead should I also get the ‘rage’!!
But as Blackie writes: “You can either see menopause as a possible ending or as a possible beginning.” I’m choosing to see it as beginning… For as the back cover of Blackie’s book says: “Hagitude means being at ease with the unique power women embody in the second half of their life. It means having a strong sense of who we are and what we have to offer the world. And a firm belief in our place in the ever-shifting web of life.”
Find out more about the 11-week ‘Anger’ book club here and get in touch if you have any questions.
Please let me know about your experience of anger and the menopause and if you to experienced the ‘rage’?!