Great weekend.  Winter Park Boat tour  http://www.scenicboattours.com/ fun, lunch with friends, got my hair done http://www.haircuttery.com/  and hanging at Starbucks drinking coffee with an extra shot.  Even some grocery shopping and Greek pita http://www.mykonoslongwood.com/  Now back to work

 

 

 

 

Some people are praising Sam Heughan for a possible Emmy nomination….let’s keep our fingers crossed.   http://www.eonline.com/news/663875/outlander-s-sam-heughan-talks-shock-of-emmy-buzz-for-his-fearless-and-risky-performance

 

 

 

 

THE NUN:  A WOMAN’ PLACE.

We have a nun in our neighborhood, I mean a real habit (modern one but) wearing nun.  I’ve never lived in a neighborhood that has had it’s own nun before.  She’s an older lady, maybe retired?  Not being catholic I’m not sure, can nuns retired.  I never really thought of it before I guess I just always thought that nuns just kind of faded away somewhere in their convent surrounded by their aging peers and younger versions of themselves.

But I’ve heard that the younger generation of women, which in these modern days are constantly moving from the traditional religion to something else or nothing in particular,  aren’t flocking to nunneries any more and this has left nunneries and the church they belong to in a lurch.  Older nuns are left to fend for themselves in an aging population with few if any novices to assist them in their old age.

I have not heard if there is a similar shortage of priests, but one could see why this traditional role does not appeal to the “new” woman, who is constantly bombarded with her own importance and need to succeed at success.  Given the role models of this and the recent past generations, dawning a habit and serving others is slightly out of step.

Young girls want to be brash and important,  how can basic black (or the more sedate wear of the new habit-less sister) compete with bare midrifts and being constantly on the cover of all the gossip rags, TV gossip shows or their own “reality” gigs?

Did anyone notice that when Princess Di was killed while running from the press, she became a poster child for the rich and famous.  I am not saying that I did not feel sad at her passing.  But I did notice that at the same time Diana departed this realm with great fan fare, that a tiny elderly woman died quietly with no huge media feeding frenzy , no accusations , in fact with little note at all and while she did make the news it was in a quiet forgetful way, mostly noted by her fellow nuns and the poor, teaming masses who were cared for by Mother Theresa.  And while Diana’s mention still raises questions and issue, the saintly mother who died as she lived quiet and unassuming is seldom every brought to mind.

It make me wonder at our priorities, but I must warn you that this basically Protestant leaning if not particularly religious woman mourned the tiny nun in the cheap white habit and left the princess’ wake to the rest of the world.

All in all it brings into account just exactly where women are today.  Has our liberation been a success or are we just deluding ourselves?  Are we happy or just too tired to care?  Will the succeeding generations be better or worse?

When time began we were weaker, smaller and often encumbered with infants and young children.  But on the other hand we were capable of reproducing life–which in an age that didn’t understand conception gave us a mystic quality.  Deities during this time were usually female.  The Mother Goddess bore children (often male gods or leaders) and brought forth crops and wildlife.  It was a harsh age and between the gathering and preparing food women were constantly  conceiving and bearing young  and often dying of complications of that same process.

 

As civilization progressed the hunter gatherer left his caves, built shelters and developed basic crops.  Goddesses were still there, but slowly their powers were being eroded by male deities.  And as the knowledge of where “Babies come from” was evolving–the mystic powers of woman and  the matriarch line was rapidly disappearing.

We were still weak, often large with child and dying young in the process of birthing that child, but now the gods were evolving into male warrior figures.  Civilization grew, cave were abandoned to more complex shelters.  Nomads left their wonderings to form villages, villages grew to cities an cities into complete cultures which spawned empires that struggled for prominence and domination.

 

Woman’s mystic status was still there (the wise woman turned witch being one example) but only in a hidden often distrusted way.  Men now knew that women could not conceive without them and while one act could make a man a father, the woman remained burdened with pregnancy and child rearing, while still subject to early death and pre-mature aging inherit in the process.  In  some societies they became almost disposable with men having harems and concubines with aging wives being replaced by younger, more attractive replacements.

Rare was the society where they had a voice in their own fate, let alone that of their children.  The community was protected, governed by the strongest and often most cunning or devious male member.  Men amassed treasure, lands and with them power, and the females that were available given all that.

Women were chattel–married by their all powerful fathers to unseen men to cement land deals, stop feuds, and even develop alliances between war lords for small and large countries, fiefs and kingdoms.  And though some wore beautiful gowns and lovely jewelry they were still little better than their sisters who dwelled in poverty as they were still often big with child and dead in bearing same.

And while a few used their beauty and sexual talents to gain power and security for themselves, the majority of women moved into the “modern era” burdened down and reached the 20th century  with only a hope of a better life, with the rapid turn over of technology, and life styles and bigger and better warfare but basically otherwise unchanged in status and reproduction.  But the times they were a changing.

First came the right to vote and have a voice in our political world–not let me preface this by stating that this is more of a European world-view (US, Europe even some of areas influenced by them) and not necessary a lot of other nations and religious beliefs.  This was a long drawn out struggle pushed by our braver fore-mother’s efforts which often was greeted with abuse and punishment.

Medicine improved but primitive birth control was still the norm, so while woman still had issues with multiple pregnancies they were less likely to die of same.

 

  Then in the 60’s came the big liberator–the pill–Women were suddenly in control of their own reproduction.  This of course wasn’t full proof with complications of reactions to the medication, religious disapproval and the usual life issues making this less workable for some.  But in less than 100 year technology of all kinds have came forward out of the primeval slime and woman were suddenly not necessarily an object of nature’s whims.

Our newest generations have the opportunity of being fully capable of making their own destiny.  I am not saying they are always good at it but at least they have the chance.  And if you feel they are not doing too well with it yet, remember that men have been empowered for years and often still don’t make much of a showing.  Women like me came of age in  the heady freedom of the 60’s.  And while we were more liberated than those before  us I am not sure that our attempts at our lives were such a great example to our daughters–the first generation to be technically free and now their daughters are inheriting the world,.

Which is where we are today a generation often rejecting traditional roles, like those of nuns but not always certain of what choices should be made to fill the gapes that are left in a world hustling to keep up.  And a world where men makes more of the frame work decisions than we as modern women like to admit.