88: Go Post-Reproductive Women! A Writer’s Passage through Menopause. Eve Eurydice w Darcey Steinke

Eve Eurydice speaks with Darcey Steinke, author of Flash Count Diary, a feminist fearless book about aging, desire, life. We discuss the shame and stigma attached to female aging. Darcey sees menopause as a channel through which new realms of possibility, depth, strength and growth are revealed. Transition from childhood to nubility to motherhood to Menopause is eventful and hormonal. Post Menopause is the first time in our cognizant lives when we can exist as persons free of gender difference & we have the opportunity to be who we are. The masculine capitalist productive time denies the feminine time of rest & embroidery, art & beauty, kinship-making & collective Wisdom. The stigma of menopause is a sign of the lasting power of the patriarchy. Women don’t look forward to the change as an emancipation because the young sexual - FERTILE - woman is very important to the patriarchy. Beauty is a social (patriarchal) programming. Sexuality, the numinous energy of life, is used by patriarchy to keep us all in our place in its reproductive order. We Err on the side of Reason At the expense of Emotion. But the ecstatic ekphrastic traditions—Ritual, Instinct, Faith—are as important as the attributes of Reason. Pregnancy, child rearing, eldercare, art and body care teach us to live in feminine time. If we divorce ourselves from our patriarchal identity, if we don’t get our self worth exclusively from this culture that merely quantifies us, if we remember that we can always choose our identity, as we Discard our reproductive self, we will enter a time of balance and equilibrium. Mature women bring together into the rising feminine the ancestral grandmother knowledge passed down to us & the feminist lessons that the leaders of our movements have given us. In our day, women of menopausal age wield & command extraordinary power. It’s ironic that women come into our most powerful after we complete our maternal work. Most female world leaders —Golda Meir margaret thatcher Indira Gandhi Ruth Ginsburg Madeleine Albright—were elders. We live longer non-fertile than fertile lives. Darcey has also authored the memoir Easter Everywhere and 5 novels: Sister Golden Hair, Milk, Jesus Saves, Suicide Blonde, & Up Through the Water. Her web story Blindspot was in the 2000 Whitney Biennial. For more on Darcey’s work, Go to https://darcey-steinke.com. For more on Speak Sex, Go to https://Speaksexpodcast.com ⚡️ For Eurydice totes, books, art, merch go to https://Eurydice.net. ⚡️ For Apple podcast, subscribe to https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/speak-sex-with-eve/id1448261953 ⚡️For video episodes, Go to https://YouTube.com/SpeakSexwithEveEurydice ⚡️ www.facebook.com/Speaksexpodcast #speaksexpodcast #darceysteinke #eveeurydice @eveeurydice @darceysteinke #menopause #risingfeminine #feministlives --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/speaksex/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/speaksex/support