I Am Crone, Hear Me Roar
This article first appeared in the Minden Times and Haliburton Echo in March 2026.
Who is most likely to have time, energy and motivation to save the world from going to hell in a handbasket?
I’m gonna say Crones.
Here’s why.
They are past their assigned usefulness, so they have time. And invisibility, which may be an asset in the planning stages.
They have had the advantage of living in a (more or less) evolved society, so they’re relatively hale and hearty. In any case, they are well-practiced in doing the necessary even when they’re exhausted.
They are accustomed to cleaning up the messes of others, and they might want to do it on their own terms for once, a matter of choice rather than duty. The sense of praxis, an ‘I’ that can ‘do’, that which Paulo Freire says differentiates mankind from domesticated animals (Pedagogy of the Oppressed, published 1972), is high octane fuel.
Here’s what I think we Crones should do for the salvation of society:
We should retire from assigned tasks. We should take a page from my father’s benediction when I set off for university: “I’ve done my best for 18 years; time to see how good a job I did.” We’ve been nurturing and training and cajoling and mentoring and modelling for a few decades; time to stop doing and start watching.
We should set aside the vacuum and take to our easy chairs or our garden nooks and read deeply and thoughtfully. We should gobble up knowledge like a bear building fat for hibernation. We might have to make like a mama bear to protect our project, but that’s good practice for what might await.
We should gather with like-minded Crones to “fuse vision and language into a single circuit for understanding’ (Rick Lash, Toronto Star, Jan 17/26, cited in my Unhinged column). The goal is to build collectively an alternative vision of the world that can inspire new choices.
We should link arms like the women who took over the war-time workforce, put on some jazzy music, and show the world how cleaning up is done.
Which involves, of course, taking the occasional recalcitrant shirker by the ear and introducing them to the joys of accomplishment. Reminding people to use their manners. Wash mouths with soap if tongues are unruly. Ensuring that kindergarten rules about sharing and playing together nicely are enforced. Sending people to a solitudinous spot to learn or remember how to self-reflect.
Of course there is a place for men in all this.
The women were allowed to take over the war-time workforce because the men were off doing important stuff. Like killing people, wreaking havoc on the earth, (some) making tumbrels of money, rejigging the map of the world, playing favourites. Really important stuff that laid the foundation for future peace and prosperity. For the deserving, at least.
So what important task should men be assigned to keep them out of the way while women do what needs to be done? Some are showing an interest in resurrecting their old war jobs. Some are hiding in their parents’ basements playing with the toys they got last birthday. A lot of them are kicking around on the veranda swiggin’ back beer and trash talking whatever hoves into view or conversation, wearing their victimization like a worn flannel shirt, a few buttons undone to show pubescent chest hairs.
My thinking is we let them continue their fascination with these hobbies and move into the space they’ve abandoned. Starting with the home front, long our domain before we got sucked out to buoy their world.
To a great extent, we’re already doing this – it’s called volunteering, and without it, society as we know it would crumble in a week. But we’re doing the work we’re assigned, not the work we decide needs to be done. We’re doing jobs that have been defined by others who may not be in sync with this shared vision we plan to develop.
The new vision might look a lot like the way we did things when we were building this country the first time. (I clarify, we settlers: with due apology for not including the Indigenous history, which I don’t know enough to respectfully include. All I know is that many Indigenous cultures were matrilineal at least, maybe matriarchal. In all likelihood that’s the deep reading I need to assign myself…)
I say that because I know the woman-informed version of our colonial history enough to know that women were considered essential elements – the Filles du Roi, HBC’s country wives, my own father who knew no Western farmer could be successful without a good wife. By which he meant an equal but unique partner.
In short, a woman with praxis, and ‘I’ that can (and does) ‘do’.
Crones? It’s our time.
