reviews
Review: Wise Women Humanity’s Untold Origins
Watching Wise Women, Humanity’s Untold Origins felt like witnessing the long-overdue homecoming of womanhood itself. The film takes us on a journey, from the myths that cast menopause as illness, through the “grandmother theory” of evolutionary survival, to the triumphant revelation of the Wise Woman Theory. It’s not just a history lesson; it’s a reclamation, reframing menopause as a rite of passage rather than a medical failure.
For me personally, as a woman who does not have children, not by choice, Wise Women, reached into some of the deepest corners of my story. Patriarchal systems have long reduced women’s worth to reproduction, and those of us without children have often been made to feel like footnotes in the grand narrative of womanhood. Even the so-called “grandmother theory” quietly reinforces that exclusion, measuring our evolutionary value by our relationship to offspring.
But Wise Women flips that script. It dares to imagine a history- and a future- where our worth isn’t tethered to our fertility, but to our wisdom. It reframes the “childless” woman not as lacking, but as essential: the mentor, the maker, the builder of community, the one who holds space for the next generation in countless ways.
This film doesn’t just educate, it liberates. It invites us all, mothers and non-mothers alike, to stand together in the light of our shared, inclusive, power. In that sense, it’s not just a documentary. It’s a ritual of remembering who we’ve always been: wise women, in every sense of the word.
The documentary maps a clear trajectory:
1. The dominant narrative locates menopause in disease or deficiency.
2. Then comes the “grandmother hypothesis,” where women’s post-reproductive lives are framed almost strictly in relation to rearing and raising children and grandchildren (a mediated value).
3. Finally, the film lands in the Wise Woman theory: a bold reclamation of our inherent worth beyond reproduction.
That theoretical scaffold does more than reframe biology. It changes our story: from “you’ve aged out” to “you’ve arrived.”
One of the most resonant themes Wise Women echoes is how rites of passage require witnesses. Midlife transitions, especially menopause, are amplified when held in circle, in ceremony, in shared stories.
The film insists: you don’t walk menopause alone. You walk it with your sisters, your community, your elders, and you begin to see the profound value in that shared journey. It envisions a lineage not of bloodlines, but of living wisdom. It beckons us: become the woman you were always meant to be.
Bryn Meadows
RPC-MPCC
Founder: Menopolooza