There's a woman in it

I have to apologise about the title - it's an in joke that probably only my sister would get. BUT, it does capture the essence of the post, so I don't feel bad about it.

Looking about places I've lived, which is Wales, England, Scotland and France, and others Ive visited, I became aware over the past few days that some of them have a more visible, what's the word ... ancestral, female presence than here. Native Americans, the Aborigines, and other societies have well-defined, well-known, strong female dimensions in their societies. Even in Wales, at least within living memory, the Welsh mam was a force to be reckoned with. In Scotland, or at least parts of it, the matrilinear tradition, and the often female seers are not lost in the mists of time. My experience in England doesn't have the same kind of traditional/ancestral memory to it, and I'm not sure what to make of that. But here in France, after nearly two years, I'm beginning to wonder where that female and feminine strand is in this society.

In some ways the rural Massif Central would be one place to expect to find a strong or at least a memory of a strong female role, but either I'm blind to its subtility here, or I'm not meeting the right people, but it just seems to be missing. And I'm now curious enough to open my 'eyes' and see what I can 'see'.