Women\'s Spirituality and Women\'s Experience at Midlife

¶ … Gleanings: Readings at the Intersection of Culture and Faith

Women, Midlife, and Leadership.

In Gleanings: Readings at the Intersection of Culture and Faith, Catherine Wallace suggests that several factors in contemporary society combine to make midlife a pivotal period in the lives of women today, much more so than in previous generations. First, Wallace points out that increases in human health and life expectancy in the last century have added so much time to the average life span that it amounts to the equivalent of an entire second adulthood. For example, she recalls her thoughts at her son's college graduation that she is thirty years older than her son but that much younger than her mother, who is herself, active and vibrant in her eighties.

Second, Wallace argues that simultaneous social changes in the way that women are perceived and in the rights and norms that typically shape their adult lives have radically changed the nature of opportunities available to many women in their second half of adult life that were largely unavailable to them in their first half of adult life. She explains that many women approaching midlife today never had a real opportunity to define their lives autonomously during their first adulthood or to explore and develop many of their talents that may have conflicted with societal expectations of women.

Third, Wallace draws a parallel between the first major universal psychological metamorphosis of adolescence and the second metamorphosis that naturally occurs in midlife as a function of psychological concepts detailed by various 20th century psychological theorists. In that regard, she cites explanations about how contemporary psychological theorists describe psychological growth in adulthood

Finally, Wallace concludes that midlife is a tremendous opportunity for many women and that it will typically be defined by their search for meaning in life incorporating all of those factors in conjunction with external influence from social norms in the community and from the spiritual guidance available from their religious beliefs and values. In that regard, religion and social values may play a much stronger role during the second adulthood, partly because of the practical freedoms available without the constraints of parental responsibilities and of the oppressive elements and assumptions pertaining to women in society that played such a significant role in the choices pertaining to life direction and purpose during the first adulthood. More importantly, whereas interpretations of religious concepts may have been used to constrain the opportunities available to women now approaching midlife during their first adulthood, contemporary religious guidance provides assistance in fulfilling their spiritual needs in their second adulthoods.

Feminist and Orthodox Spiritualities: "Women's Spirituality"

In Feminist and Orthodox Spiritualities: "Women's Spirituality," Reinhild Traitler considers the fundamental question of whether or not women have natural differences from men that pertain to and define their ability to minister religious gospel to the community. According to Traitler, on one hand, women do generally possess distinctly different talents and strengths that relate to their relative ability to teach and promote religious though and values; on the other hand, Traitler considers those difference to be substantially functions of prolonged previous eras of gender-based inequality and oppression throughout human societies.

Traitler argues that women have naturally developed (even evolved) different abilities than men, particularly as regards perceiving needs on a personal level and in recognizing and responding to interpersonal issues and needs simply by virtue of their historical relegation to the home and to matters of their nuclear and extended families and of their immediate communities. As a general principle, Traitler believes that regardless of their source, these modern-day characteristics of many women can be tremendous assets to them in the role of religious minister and spiritual counselor.