Generational consciousness of and for women

Relying and building on an analytical framework of gendered generation, the question is posed of whether there is a greater or lesser interconnected consciousness among generations of women. Generational consciousness for women may be both thicker and more britte than it is for men. Both patriarchy and feminism are examined as the schism and the cement of women's generational consciousness. As ideals and opportunities for women transform, often as a consequence of women's political movements as well as transforming global situations, women create future generations of women by self-sacrifice, and yet, share less life experience. Patriarchy and social change act as both wedge and driver among generations of women. Women as kin-keepers and as collectors of meanings about generation, even the shared bodily experience of birthing new generations, are situated and situate themselves in the generational differently than men. This is most vividly apparent in times of dramatic social change. Traditions harken to give meaning narratives to lives isolated without generational connections, such as in the early and continuing settement of Canada by immigrants or refugees, in the reconstruction of the ideals of womanhood at the moments of modernity and of post-modernity, and at junctures where social "reforms" are focused on women and families. And at the same time, reinvention of generation, and emergent generational consciousness is occurring in response to the new social challenges.