Consider the Hag, with Marianne Franzese

Twisting the Plot

Consider the Hag.

Will You?

Most of us cringe at the mention of her.

We would just as soon keep her banished to the deep woods.

Who can blame us?

She is rot, she is ugly, she does not follow our rules. She has one foot on the other side; death.

The Hag embodies suffering, a weathering by life; she stands for oldness. She is not who we want to become.

But…Marianne Franzese sees things differently.

She challenges us to re-consider.

Marianne suggests that we could go deep into the woods of our own being to find the cast-off hag. Perhaps, says Marianne, our hag offers strength and power. She could be a container for our outrage, the keeper of the fires of social justice. She could be our biggest liberation.

Marianne says that culturally the Hag has been feared by the patriarchy and therefore demonized, degraded, and diminished to the one-dimensional. According to Marianne, the Hag is as individual as each of us. She just needs to be reimagined and reclaimed.

It’s a big plot twist.

But given the overturning of Roe vs Wade and the impingement on the rights of LGBTQ+ and all marginalized groups, we may need a big twist.

Marianne asks us to consider “a very personal call to break out the extreme push for older women to maintain a certain level of beauty, grace and quietness.”

Perhaps some of us are called to something different.

Listen to this podcast as Marianne discusses her reasons and plans to bring the Hag out of the woods and into our psyches as older women.

Reach out to Marianne at [e-mail] if you want to learn more about her Hag Project.