Where are the Red Tents?

So I came across this book at the library, New York Times Bestseller The Red Tent by Anita Diamant. Actually, it's a little embarrassing.  I came across the book around this time last year but somehow or other it got placed on a bookshelf in our guest room where I totally forgot about it.  When the library notices began coming, I really thought they had mistaken me with this lost book.  I finally had to pay the cost of the book (that's one way to support our local libraries), and here I find the library's copy on my book shelf a year later.  Anyway...

Books about ancient biblical characters don't usually catch my attention, but this one has totally sucked me in.  It's a novel based around the lives of the wives and daughter of Jacob.  This daughter Dinah is mentioned as a mere afterthought in the Old Testament narrative, yet the novel is written in her voice.  I am captivated by the lives of these ancient female characters.  Though there is much I could do without from ancient life (i.e. sharing my husband with other wives, exposure to all of the dangers of the wild, no anasthesia, and very few rights or privileges for women--to name just a few), I find myself drawn to the women's "red tent"- the place they go while menstruating and "hang out" with the other women in their camp.

To clarify, I do not wish for this in literal terms... how awkward and humiliating would that be!  It's what happens within the walls of the red tent that attracts me.  It's the way Dinah, her mother, her aunts, and the bondswomen share their lives together.  The red tent is where they weave together, cook together, braid one another's hair, birth one another's babies, nurse one another's babies, talk about their husbands and sex.  It's where they cry and laugh, sing and dance.  In a word, it's where the women come Alive.  And I believe our modern world would do well to learn the secrets of the "red tents."

What I mean is I believe that there is a comradry between women that is difficult to find even in a married relationship.  I have always believed that women need women.  We need our mothers, our sisters, our cousins, and of course our girl friends.  I am generalizing here, but women are the listeners, the supporters, the caretakers and nurturers of society.  They cook meals when a friend has a baby.  They call and send cards when a sister miscarries her child.  They cry with their mother when she is diagnosed with cancer.  But their tears are no sign of weakness.  No, women have the inner strength of oxen.  Often while carrying their own heartaches, they also help in juggling the burdens of their children, their spouses, their aging relatives, and their friends.

I have been blessed to be a part of many "red tents" in my lifetime.  My mother invited me into her "red tent" when I was still young.  She nurtured me through songs and kisses.  She taught me lessons about life and was my school teacher for six years!  She shared her heart with me--her struggles, her joys, her love.  She shared my aunts and her friends with me, and their examples helped usher me into maturity.  I've shared a "red tent" with a very special group of girls I've known since I was little.  We've shared secret crushes, laughed ourselves to tears, shared wardrobes, braided one another's hair, fluffed each other's wedding gowns, held each other's newborn babies, listened to one another's pain.  And I've had the privilege of joining other "red tents" throughout my lifetime, finding support and encouragement from women in every stage of my life.

But I fear that "red tents" are fading away.  Our culture does not have many structures in place for them.  Indeed our lives have become fragmented.  We now raise children without the help of other female relatives, and what a difficult task that can be! We have almost completely lost certain arts which used to bring us together--quilting, canning, baking.  Not that I am trying to imply that being female means being a domestic housewife, or that those arts only belong to women.  I am only trying to demonstrate how difficult it is to create "red tents" since we live on a fast-track, nuclear-family-focused, individualized society.

I have a friend who could really use a "red tent" right now.  Her husband has left her and her two children.  She is trying to pay the bills, help the kids with homework, do the grocery shopping, work night shift, explain to her children why Daddy doesn't want to live with them anymore... all while nursing a broken heart.  I wonder how many other women are trying to survive life alone, who have not been as fortunate as I to have been invited into "red tents."  If you are a woman, do you have a "red tent"?  If you have a "red tent," who might you open your door to?