Old women are powerful. They really are powerful. That's not a culture perception, that's a fact. So, what you do with powerful people whom you don't wish to have powerful is you put a mind trick on the whole society. You convince them that those who have power do not have power. You do that by degrading them, trivializing them, disappearing them, and murdering them. They were murdered in great numbers toward the end of the Middle Ages. And that thing is kept up by talking about "old bags" and "old witches" and "old crones" and making fun of them, laughing, and saying, "Don't go near her-she's got the Evil Eye," which is what immigrant populations do. All those sorts of things instill in the minds of all people that old women are not powerful because, of course, they are. If they weren't really powerful, would it be necessary to do all we do to them? It wouldn't be. (JB: Isn't this one of the lessons now being learned by many women in the United States?) ALLEN: Finally. (JB: A lesson that American Indian women could have taught...) ALLEN: If non-Indians had bothered to pay attention. Yes. I think of old women not as grotesque and ugly, but as singular with vibrancy, alive just as the leaves get before they fall...the older you get the more you come into your own and the more your stability increases and your knowledge and your sense of who you are and how things ought to go.

If a woman’s temper is beyond control there can be no control of the mind or heart.

When women age into their power, no wind can upset them, no hand turn aside their knowledge; no fact can deflect their point of view.

For a woman, old age is never pretty.

nothing the western nations can do can stop her or keep her down.

You see a woman, you think that one day she'll be old, only you don't see her grow old. But there are moments when you think you see her grow old and feel yourself growing old with her: this is the feeling of adventure.

Much violence against women originates in emotional territory that they already command. By midlife and early old age, as the hormones of both genders change, women are in total, despotic control of their marriages.

"Be kind and gentle and patient with yourself as an older woman," she said. "Don't only be gentle with yourself figuratively, but literally. You can't do the same heat, the same pulling, the same processing and styling as a woman who is middle-aged."

Picture to yourself, O fair young reader, a worldly, selfish, graceless, thankless, religionless old woman, writhing in pain and fear, and without her wig. Picture her to yourself, and ere you be old, learn to love and pray.

He's a woman.
He's a grown woman
He's a old woman.

In all your Amours you should prefer old Women to young ones. You call this a Paradox, and demand my Reasons. They are these:

1. Because as they have more Knowledge of the World and their Minds are better stor’d with Observations, their Conversation is more improving and more lastingly agreable.

2. Because when Women cease to be handsome, they study to be good. To maintain their Influence over Men, they supply the Diminution of Beauty by an Augmentation of Utility. They learn to do a 1000 Services small and great, and are the most tender and useful of all Friends when you are sick. Thus they continue amiable. And hence there is hardly such a thing to be found as an old Woman who is not a good Woman.

3. Because there is no hazard of Children, which irregularly produc’d may be attended with much Inconvenience.

4. Because thro’ more Experience, they are more prudent and discreet in conducting an Intrigue to prevent Suspicion. The Commerce with them is therefore safer with regard to your Reputation. And with regard to theirs, if the Affair should happen to be known, considerate People might be rather inclin’d to excuse an old Woman who would kindly take care of a young Man, form his Manners by her good Counsels, and prevent his ruining his Health and Fortune among mercenary Prostitutes.

5. Because in every Animal that walks upright, the Deficiency of the Fluids that fill the Muscles appears first in the highest Part: The Face first grows lank and wrinkled; then the Neck; then the Breast and Arms; the lower Parts continuing to the last as plump as ever: So that covering all above with a Basket, and regarding only what is below the Girdle, it is impossible of two Women to know an old from a young one. And as in the dark all Cats are grey, the Pleasure of corporal Enjoyment with an old Woman is at least equal, and frequently superior, every Knack being by Practice capable of Improvement.

6. Because the Sin is less. The debauching a Virgin may be her Ruin, and make he

"There are certain phrases potent to make my blood boil — improper influence! What old woman's cackle is that?"

"Are you a young lady?"

"I am a thousand times better: I am an honest woman, and as such I will be treated."

If she had been left alone she would have gone on, in her own way, enjoying herself thoroughly, until people found one day that she had turned imperceptibly into one of those women who have become old without ever having been middle aged: a little withered, a little acid, hard as nails, sentimentally kindhearted, and addicted to religion or small dogs.

Women have another option. They can aspire to be wise, not merely nice; to be competent, not merely helpful; to be strong, not merely graceful; to be ambitious for themselves, not merely for themselves in relation to men and children. They can let themselves age naturally and without embarrassment, actively protesting and disobeying the conventions that stem from this society's double standard about aging. Instead of being girls, girls as long as possible who then age humiliatingly into middle-aged women and then obscenely into old women, they can become women much earlier — and remain active adults, enjoying the long, erotic career of which women are capable, far longer. Women should allow their faces to show the lives they have lived. Women should tell the truth.