Enter the Crone: Wisdom and the (Ageing) Female Body

The sociologist Arthur Frank, in his discussion of chronic illness, argues that we live ‘at the will of the body’. Contemporary Western attitudes suggest, to the contrary, that the body lives ‘at the will of the mind’. This article explores the problems of adopting an overly optimistic approach that ignores the role of the body for identity. I offer, instead, an approach grounded in the pessimistic tradition in philosophy. This approach runs contrary to what we as individuals, and as a society, might like to be the case. In addition, this approach poses a challenge to some dominant strands in contemporary feminist thought, made apparent by bringing to the fore the ageing female body. It might be assumed that a pessimistic philosophy such as the one pursued in this article is wholly negative; yet, it need not be read in this way. A pessimistic perspective may well reflect a healthy realism about the universe we inhabit that, paradoxically, enables us to live more flourishing lives. As Joshua Foa Dienstag (2006), philosopher of the varieties of pessimism, writes, ‘pessimism is a terror that liberates’ (p. 178), and I suggest how this might be of use in addressing climate change.