Women On Fire

First published in the syndicated print column , Strictly Haresay.

There is this line from one of my favorite John Wayne movies, The Cowboys, where Wayne plays the part of Wil Andersen, a rancher needing trail hands to help drive his herd to market, but all the men in the area have fled to California with gold rush fever, so he recruits a bunch of school-age boys for the job.

Early in the movie, when he is just considering the idea of hiring boys, he visits the schoolhouse to peruse the potential crop of young cowhands. When he asks the school teacher, Miss Ellen, if he can have the floor to speak with the boys, she asks if he has anything to say to the young ladies, to which he replies, “No, I don’t have anything to say to the girls.” So Miss Ellen then says, “Then we will bow to the fact that it is a man’s world, and leave you to it,” then she and the girls leave the classroom.

Well, this is the part where I am turning the tables on that sentiment for this particular post which pertains more to the gentler gender, and I forewarn the men to tread carefully from this point onward. I’m not exactly discouraging men from reading this. In fact, getting clued in on a thing or two might actually help a few of you guys. Just know, you’ve been warned. When the early map makers got to the edge of the world they used to write, “beyond this place there be dragons.” That’s where you are now, so read on at your own risk.

If you haven’t put it together yet, with my references to hot women and dragons, I’m talking about that time in a woman’s life when she reaches a certain age where, for the second time in her life (third if she has birthed children) biology steps in to take command of her brain and body. Of course the first two physiological landmarks—menarche and pregnancy/childbirth—occur as processes that perpetuate the species, but it is the final phase, menopause, that is the most misunderstood and under-valued period of time in a woman’s life.

Here in the Western World we don’t like to talk about such things. And by Western World, I’m not only referring to the Western part of the U.S., but all of the Western Hemisphere—the half of the earth still referred to as the “New World.” There are many reasons for this aversion to the subject, not the least of which is our youth-worshipping culture and its successive multi- billion dollar industries of anti-aging products, surgical procedures, and pharmaceutical prescriptions, all of which regard menopause as a tragic affliction requiring intervention, or a chronic illness needing medical treatment. In fact, femininity in our culture is so deeply rooted in associations with fertility only that once a woman reaches menopause it is as though she ceases being viewed as a female–or a person at all, really. And women themselves are embroiled in this very limited definition of what it means to be female, as well. Healthy self-care notwithstanding, these desperate attempts to stymie the body’s natural maturation process speak to a wounding much older than anyone alive today, and buried deeper than any wrinkle cream or slicing scalpel can remedy. While it is wise to care for our overall health as we age, it can be a slippery slope to navigate when faced with the plethora of information out there telling us how to manage upper arm flab and sagging jowls, expanding midlines and thinning hair, as if these were the critical issues of our current global paradigm. There are certainly more important things toward which to direct our attention, and exert our female influence.

The fact is, menopause is a very natural physiological process as the female physique and psyche move from availing themselves for the prioritization of procreation, to the reclaiming of the woman’s own sovereignty as an individual. For as miraculous and important as child bearing may be, it is simply one of many facets of being female, in a long strain of equally potent powers that not only carry on beyond the child-bearing years, but actually increase in both quantity and intensity.

These are the hot women I’m talking about—not the young and dumb twenty-somethings with too little life experience to know what their value as women truly is, yet. Older women are the ones on fire.

When hormones sizzle and misfire, it is because a transformation is underway; a new way of moving through the world reignites the mind, and incinerates outdated modes of being as a downshift into a slow-burning and much more powerful gear takes place. This is when hot flashes and fire- breathing rages erupt. This is when placating passivity is burned to the ground, and tongue-bitten thoughts are, at long last, unleashed like wildfire.

This is when doing all that was necessary—holding still and staying strong, playing the good girl to keep the man, keep the job and be the springboard for offspring—is no longer the order of the day, and long-burning ambitions begin to rise to the top of the pyre.

Like a phoenix emerging from the ashes of who she was but no longer is, a menopausal woman is re-birthed into a whole new version of womanhood—often, one that holds a spark of who she was before putting herself on the back burner for the sake of everyone else’s forward progression.

So stand back and watch out. If you know one such woman,or are lucky enough to live with a lady in the midst of what you might mistakenly deem a meltdown, know this: You are, maybe for the first time, coming face to face with the woman she has been all along. Underneath all that nicely coiffed hair, perched on those high heels and propped up by that miracle bra, a real woman has been lurking there. Waiting.

Waiting for her turn; her time. That’s what menopause is really about.

Best not to get in the way.