Agatha All Along

[ZeldaFighter]

Have watched the first 4 episodes and loving it 😍

Kathryn Hahn is great as is Debra Jo Rupp. Older women being smart, fierce, funny...even evil and literally being a witch!

It's making me feel so rebellious!!!

Serious question though - the whole "maiden, woman, crone/hag" thing came up. I get it - before menstruation and sexual maturity, then fertility, sex and the potential of motherhood until finally menopause and after. I think it reflects our biological life stages if not our social lives.

My son asked why we use such disrespectful terms? Hag, crone etc Why is it not Elder or Wise woman or somesuch?

Any thoughts?

Well, misogyny/patriarchy, I suppose.
'Maiden, mother, elder' would sound good.
Or we could always reclaim 'hag' and 'crone', like 'witch' is sort of being reclaimed.

I haven't watched this yet. Must get round to it.

I'm glad you're enjoying it. I've not got Disney ATM so will be a while before I watch it, if I ever do (honestly the whole Marvel Universe has grown so big keeping up is like homework). From what little I've heard of it, and with the whole 'woke' Disney I'd feared the worse.

Any road up, I'd heard the whole maiden, mother, hag or variations thereon for ever. The whole trinity seems to have very ancient roots. Lots of triple Goddesses can be found everywhere without looking particularly hard for them. I've seen a male version (youth, warrior, codger) only once and it was in a modern novel (forget which). But codger could easily be swapped out for sage or elder which don't have such insulting connotations. It's not so easily done with hag or crone.

I wonder if it's a chicken and egg scenario. The names came first and the negative associations came later or alongside. Older women could call themselves, or be called, whatever they liked, terf or MIL for example, but the same negativity would happen along because they would still be older women.

Nowt wrong with hag/crone.

The supposed negative aspects of hag/crone are just age and perception of sexual availability. One could argue these are positive traits.

https://www.etymonline.com/word/hag

Nowt wrong with being a crone.

https://www.etymonline.com/word/crone#etymonline_v_380

I’m looking forward to my crone era.

We can largely thank the [now largely-discredited] folklorist Robert Graves for the Maiden-Mother-Crone triple goddess archetype: he claimed it was widespread across European mythologies, a counterweight to the male horned god. Of course, in doing so he actually managed to create the triple goddess now worshipped in many iterations of neo-Paganism & Wicca. (Triune goddesses absolutely were a thing in ancient European cultures, but not in said format).

Thank you. I've been thinking about that since my previous post regarding things like the Norns, the Furies and the Fates, because I didn't recall them being any particular age and, with the first two particularly, if there were even just three of them. I was wondering if it was just a Celtic thing retconned into other mythologies. If it seems not to have really existed until recently, I'm happy to be corrected.

I mean, “The White Goddess” was published in 1948 & really took hold, so most of us will have grown up with the Maiden Mother Crone model as familiar.

Graves was absolutely obsessed with the idea of Magical Women.

Maiden, Mother, Crone are archetypes associated with the ego development of the female psyche, as I understand it.

That's why they are so common in myth and folklore/fairy tales.

Highly recommend Clarissa Pinkola Estes book 'Women who Run with the Wolves' if anyone is interested more in this!

I'm loving Agatha All Along. It's great fun. And I don't think it really matters what we call an elder woman. The word will immediately take on negative connotations in any patriarchal society. I'm all for reclaiming cronehood!

I like the terms hag and crone. For me they've got a touch of the wild and mysterious and adventure about them. They speak to me of a woman who is full of herself and not interested in the male gaze.

Yes, this is a very good point. Unlike 'wizard', the closest male equivalent and with a much more positive connotation.
All the more reason to just use them and to hell with it, I say!
I have a tote bag with 'Hag' emblazoned on it (a free gift when I bought a book of stories with that title). I carry it with great pride.

This all reminds me of Chrissie Hynde's amazing and unusual song 'Hymn to Her' which includes the lines:

Keep beckoning to me,
From behind that closed door
The maid and the mother,
And the crone that's grown old

The song was written by a woman called Meg Keene, who was a schoolfriend of CH. From what I can gather, that was the only song of hers that was recorded.
I think there's some kind of wonderful witchcraft involved in producing this one mysterious gem of a song about women..

All the terms are basically about women’s [un]fuckability…

These are the first positive reviews I have seen of AAA.

I don't have D+, but I would like to see it just so I could form my own opinion of it.

Regarding the names for older women, I have seen enough comments from TRAs on this site that are along the lines of 'you are all going to die soon anyway' that it is clear that sections of our current society does not value the experience that can be gained with age. Older women can be less swayed by peer pressure and they can be more open to swimming against the tide as their basket of fucks has run out. If you don't want young women to listen to those older ones, or to gain the benefits of their protection/life experience, then demonising them (the old ones) seems like a good way of undermining anything they say.

Your last para would fit in very nicely on the Are younger generations more regressive? thread. Well said!

I don't object to crone; it speaks of ancient power. This is the moon goddess that sends men mad, and she has her phases.The idea that women are governed by the moon, that the moon deities are women (not in all cultures but in many) is a powerful trope. I am now, I guess, a crone. 'Beyond all man uses' - though that poem is by R.Graves who has always struck me as a misogynist. I embrace my inner crone - it makes of me a witch. The good variety.