The Icelandic Canadian - 01.03.1994, Qupperneq 6

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THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
SPRING, 1994
most women did in the not so-distant
past. At the turn of this century the
average life expectancy of a woman
was 48 years. A stalwart husband
could put to rest two or three wives,
dead of childbirth or exhaustion,
before he and their many children
were buried beside them. Walk
through any old cemetery and read
the tombstones if you don’t believe
statistics. Antisepsis changed all that
in North America (that and decent
nutrition). A girl-child bom today has
a life expectancy of 78 years; a woman
who is 65 today can expect to live at
least another 18 years, and counting.
Icelandic women have longer than
that. Women used to have one career:
marriage/family. Few of them lived
until menopause, let alone past it. Not
any more.
American psychologist Abraham
Maslow pointed out that only after
people have met their basic needs -
food, shelter, safety - do they go on to
solve life’s problems, to try to become
what he called self-fulfilling
individuals. Yes, and add to that, only
after they stop dying in childbirth,
and only after they quit thinking their
work is done when the birds leave the
nest, and only when they stop retiring
after menopause. Gerontologist Alex
Comfort says that retirement should
last about two weeks and then every
mature person should have a second
trajectory career. (These days it’s an
economic necessity!) He’s talking
about men. Women, of course, have
several trajectories in a lifetime,
overlapping.
Most women do not follow a simple
arc in their life. They move around the
top of several rings, all linked: half-
way around, move on, around, move
on, around. They work, they marry,
they have babies, they raise them,
they send them off, they keep on
working, and then someone blows the
whistle. Quittin’ time. Quit? Just
when they’ve taken care of all those
(delightful) interruptions and they can
concentrate on - whatever? They’re
not quitting, not any more. They’ve
only just begun.
If you’re an Icelandic-Canadian
woman, you never did quit. Young
and old, you have faced challenges
with the secure knowledge tucked
somewhere inside your psyche that
you have world enough and time. You
have made and are making good use
of the years that have been given to
you.
This issue is devoted to our
women, their interests, challenges
and achievements. Celebrate, and
remember what else the Elder Edda
said: “Men’s minds are unstable
towards women.”
Taylor ■ McCaffrey
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