Turning around the disparaging labels often given to older women

How often have you heard the labels ‘hag’ or ‘crone’ spoken about an older woman as if she is a wizened up old witch to be avoided at all cost?

As I’ve expressed before, I hate labels, but these might just be two that we need to redefine and reclaim.

It might surprise some of you to know that both ‘hag’ and ‘crone’ once connoted an elder woman with the spirit of the goddess within her. Of course in patriarchal societies these women were feared and cursed.

The word ‘hag’ comes from ‘hagia’ meaning a holy woman or wise woman. She was often the female shaman in pre-Christian Europe or the tribal matriarch who had a knowledge of healing, divination and the ways of nature. After menopause her ‘wise blood’ was kept within her body giving her great wisdom.

The ‘Crone’ was the third aspect of the ancient triple Goddess and so the term refers to the third phase of a woman’s life and symbolises her psychological and spiritual growth. It is also an inner potential or archetype that all women have within them.

Jean Shinoda Bolen in her book 'Crone's Don't Whine' describes a crone as 'a woman who has wisdom, compassion, humour, courage and vitality. She has a sense of being truly herself, can express what she knows and feels. and take action when need be. She does not avert her eyes or numb her mind from reality. She can see the flaws and and imperfections in herself and others, but the light in which she sees is not harsh and judgemental. She has learned to trust herself to know what she knows.'

The ‘crone ’ and ‘hag’ should not be a label that men or the young impose on all of us past menopause. It is something we learn to become and we should be bloody proud of it.