Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: when all our men are dead and gone

[Lia Olson (liajo]

I confess that might be prejudiced because I'm one of those post 50 women
hoping to be part of a co-housing community, but that aside -- isn't the
salient point to gather together people who seriously want to participate in
community-oriented, rather than me-centered living?    Would anyone dream of
questioning whether a co-housing group had too many married couples?  or
families?   Would it be  beneficial to engineer a 'perfect' demographic?  Or is
there value in learning to flow with those who are drawn through shared values
to live a more inter-connected life?

One of the things I anticipate needing to sacrifice in order to live as part of
community is the level of control over my environment I exercise now.   I've
been impressed by the discussions of the process involved in forming co-housing
communities because it emphasized self-selection rather than control or
approval by a core or existing group.   To me, that means that the diversity
that results is authentic, not architectured.   The percentages might be skewed
at different times in different groups, but surely there are pros as well as
cons in any situation.  Imagine what new growth experiences would arrive when a
group comprised predominantly of young families becomes a group bursting with
the energies of a large adolescent population.   Is it so very much a problem
if a group includes a good deal of seasoned female energy? 

I think something would be lost if the contrasts between singles vs. couples,
families vs solos, young vs old, etc. were given too much attention.  The main
point, for me, is that there are some contrasts, not that they come in any
particular ratio.  But then, that's why I'm drawn to co-housing rather than
some sanitized retirement community.

Lia  

  
--- melanie griffin <melgrif [at] gmail.com> wrote:

> 
> Seriously, I have been involved in a group trying to form co-housing, and
> one of the people in the group suggested that we not invite any more
> 50-something women, who are disproportionately represented in the current
> group. Since those are the only people I know who are thinking about
> community, or innovative housing, or green housing, I asked why but never
> got a satisfactory answer. The men I know who are single or married, gay or
> straight, are either settled or don't want the responsibility of dealing
> with a group and are looking for a partner to do the 2 against the world
> thing with.  We have plenty of brawn and "boy skills" in our forming group,
> and the person who suggested it is probably  not looking to have a pool of
> mates (she has a healthy social life) so I suspect it was out of some sense
> of balance or fairness, but I honestly don't see anything wrong with having
> a group of mostly women as a community, tribe, coven, whatever. As you say,
> they do a large part of the work in any domestic situation.
> 
> Melanie
> 
> On Feb 11, 2008 11:20 AM, Sharon Villines <sharon [at] sharonvillines.com> 
> wrote:
> 
> >
> >
> > On Feb 10, 2008, at 11:16 PM, Christine Johnson wrote:
> >
> > > Problem: "too many single old women"  ?  Can you have TOO many old
> > > women ?
> > >
> > > "Wow, that sounds
> > > fabulous" said a 30 something young woman.
> >
> > Particularly since those old women do so much of the work, perhaps
> > even the majority of it.
> >
> > Sharon
> > ----
> > Sharon Villines
> > Takoma Village Cohousing,Washington DC
> > http://www.takomavillage.org
> >
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