Being an Old Woman is Liberating

After a certain age and with less fucks to give it's harder to keep us quiet and demure

Image source freepik AI engine

I’m not a fan of TikTok's “demure and mindful” trend. Yes, I know who started it, and I’m happy for her because she went viral and made the money she needed to improve her life.

But the last thing I want is for women to be demure, modest and mindful. No, thank you.

The patriarchy has tried to subdue women long enough. The first thing little girls are taught is to be quiet, modest and pretty. To not be the center of attention and, most importantly, to be mindful of others.

If you want to appeal to the men around you, be demure, modest and mindful. And for god's sake, keep your voice down. Loud, outspoken women are vulgar.

Women struggle against this conditioning all their lives.

We struggle against it when we don’t want the “good man” our parents think is right. How dare we want something better, wilder and more interesting in our lives - how immodest. No one else might want you.

We struggle against it while we chase sexual fulfillment - don’t talk about your desires. You want to enjoy sex? That’s not demure. A good woman doesn’t want sex for fun. She accepts it to procreate.

We struggle against it as we try to make a career. What do you mean? You want an education, a promotion, and more money but don’t want to prepare coffee for everyone—that’s not modest. Be thankful for what you have. Don’t reach for the stars

Be mindful of who you are! You’re a woman. Real women are demure, mindful, and modest.

And we fight. Against the voices inside and outside our brains. It’s a hard struggle.

And then there’s menopause.

With perimenopause come the mood swings - disorders, they say, maybe they’re re-orders. And with it comes the rage.

A rage so deep that many women have issues controlling it. Scary but liberating, it allows us to say things we have often only thought about. It opens our mouths and raises our voices.

It’s like a wave that sweeps away the voices in our heads - or screams over them - and liberates us.

Where we would have bitten our tongues in younger years, we now say whatever comes to mind.

Loudly, forcefully.

Because, fuck demure, modest and mindful. We have just as much right to want, to desire, to speak up and to scream.

And luckily, with the hormones, we’ve lost that part of our brain that cares what you think about how we live our lives. How loud, how colorful, how messy.

You can no longer shame us into being quiet, not on the internet, not in real life.

Screenshot of a FB post by Feminist News

That is why men are afraid of older women, the women who don’t care if they think she is attractive. Whose self-worth isn’t dependent on their approval.

We’re at an age where the saying “sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me” becomes a reality.

We’re no longer interested in your opinion.

We’re no longer interested in demure, modest, mindful - small

We want brazen, immodest, mindless - larger than life.

We’ve been given this one life and intend to enjoy it to the fullest now that we’ve been liberated from the burden of childbearing, childrearing, and child caring—caring for and rearing everyone around us.

We’re off to enjoy our Crone years. And to tell younger women to fuck demure, modest, mindful as early as possible.

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