Latest / The Pressing Play Podcast / Ep8 Pressing Play on Witchtok, Sisterhood and taking our words back
Transcript
- Joanne Fiddy: Have you heard of Witch Tok? Witch Tok has been viewed billions of times. There is a whole generation of women on TikTok and Instagram ⁓ openly calling themselves witches, ⁓ of them. I'm so for it. ⁓ Something is shifting loudly Have noticed how many women in their ⁓ 40s and ⁓ 50s are gathering again? in circles, in retreats, in supper clubs, online, in the WhatsApp groups. Women are coming back together And it's not for symptom advice. It's not for HRT tips. ⁓ Well, maybe it might be. It's for much bigger than that. I'm Jo Fiddy. This is Pressing Play. And today we are taking some words back. Here is what I think is actually happening and it's the reason I wanted to record this episode. much of what makes midlife frightening for women isn't aging itself. It's the words we've been handed about what older women ⁓ are. Crone, hag, witch, ⁓ past it, ⁓ mutton dressed as ⁓ how many of heard about letting herself go. single one of those is a word we were taught to fear becoming. And the moment your body starts changing in perimenopause, the moment you spot a new line, a gray hair, without realizing it, those words come crashing back in. And suddenly, They're not about other women anymore. They're about you. Now, this isn't a hormonal symptom. This isn't something HRT touches. That's 500 years of language doing exactly what it was designed to do. so this week my loves I went down a rabbit hole because I wanted to know where these words actually came from and what I found genuinely changed how I'm going to talk about aging for the rest of my life let's go okay let's look at the words crone did you know that word we've spent our lives flinching at ⁓ comes from the same root as crown, as in the crowned one, the matriarch, the woman whose word settled the room. Hag, that comes from the Greek hagia, hope I pronounced it correctly, meaning holy, the holy woman, the one people travel to see. And witch, witch comes from wit, meaning wisdom, the wise woman. the healer, the midwife, the herbalist, the woman who knew which plant did what, who delivered the babies, who sat with the dying, the one who held the knowledge. Crowned, holy, wise. Those weren't insults. Those were roles. Power words. The highest compliments a woman could be paid in her community. And then somewhere in medieval Europe, those words got twisted on purpose. The wise woman became dangerous. The holy one became grotesque. The crowned one became cackling, bent. Burn her at the stake. And we have been carrying those twisted meanings around in our heads ever since. So who were these women actually? Historians now know from the actual trial records that most of the women accused of witchcraft weren't witches at all. They were widows who owned property, unmarried women who made their own money, healers and midwives, women who read too much, women who spoke too much, women who were too independent, too intuitive, too outside the rules. women who refused to stay small. And the words ⁓ used to ruin them, witch, hag, crone, never about magic. They were about power, Women's power. Which is why when I see what's happening on TikTok. in the millions. I don't see this as a trend. I see this as a whole generation refusing to inherit the lie. And what's happening with women in midlife in sisterhood circles is the same energy in a louder form. We, my loves, are remembering. And here is why this matters for the women in perimenopause. The words we've been hearing about aging women our whole lives have become the words we say about ourselves in our heads when we look in the mirror. I call this the belief soundtrack. The beliefs about aging, about worth, about beauty, about a woman's place in the world, playing in the background, whether we can hear them or not. And in perimenopause, that soundtrack gets louder. But here's the thing about this moment we're in. When women gather properly in sisterhood, in rooms, ⁓ the soundtrack starts to crack because you hear another woman the thing you thought only you were thinking and you realize none of it was ever just you, it was the story and the story can change. When I've been in those rooms, I don't see women diminishing. I see women stepping into their power. I see women taking up space. I see women stepping into the person they were always meant to be. So here's what I want you to sit with this week and ask yourself. What have I been taught to fear about aging? And who benefits when women believe their power expires at 40? And what would happen if you took back the original meanings, crowned, holy and wise? The moment we're in, this gathering, this remembering, this is everything. It's one of the most important things happening to women right now. All over the world, women in midlife are sitting together, refusing to disappear quietly, refusing to fade out, refusing to inherit 500 years of propaganda about what it means to age. And I feel the entry point is perimenopause. It brings us sisters back together again. The witch, the hag, the crone, they were never warnings. They were women who had finally stopped asking permission. And that is the next chapter for all of us. Until next time, my loves, press play.