Midlife Women’s Dinner Parties Are Quietly Powerful

This Spring, I hosted a series of dinners for midlife women. The idea was simply to gather life once a month to share a meal and a minimally-facilitated conversation.

What Happened at My Midlife Women’s Dinner Parties

The results were entirely predictable:

• As nourishing as the meals were, the conversations were even more so!
• Laughter abounded—so much so that I woke up the next morning after the second one and wondered, “Why do my sides ache?!?”
• We covered a LOT of territory, from personal to business to personal and back again. Multiple times.
• Connections were made for business AND personal reasons, and I’ve heard that women followed up, whether it was to barter their services or schedule a walk!

The whole experience made me realize on an even deeper level what I’ve always known to be true: women are hard-wired to gather in community, especially when things feel perilous. And Goddess knows the world is feeling dangerous for women these days.

Why We Gather

You know the whole “fight, flight, or freeze” paradigm that has been drilled into us as to what the stress response is?

Over time, the “fight, flight, freeze” model has been expanded in both in science and pop culture with more f-words: feed, fawn, flop, flail, and—you guessed it—f*ck. Because why not? Alliteration is sexy.

And it turns out that—like in so many areas—Reference Man may once again be mucking up the picture.

The Tend and Befriend Response

According to Shelley E. Taylor, PhD, as reviewed by the American Psychological Association:

Behavior and biology both suggest that females respond to environmental stress by redoubling efforts to care for offspring and creating social support networks. … While fleeing from a predator may be an adaptive behavior for males, running away may not be tenable for a nursing mother, or one who is taking care of infants…. Because our ancestors left the bulk of infant care to females … females have evolved stress responses that protect not only themselves, but also their young. Additionally, research shows that women tend to affiliate in times of stress, while men do not.

The Impact of Gathering

And a 2025 study by the Pew Research Center found that:

Two-thirds of Americans say all-female social groups have a positive impact on women’s well-being. This is higher than the share saying all-male groups have a positive impact on men’s well-being (56%).

And What About The Larger Impact?

Importantly, the same 2025 Pew study shows that:

Americans are also more likely to say women-only groups have a positive impact on society than to say the same about all-male groups (57% vs. 43%).

Perhaps this is one reason the nonprofit world is full of women?

In 2009, His Holiness the Dalai Lama noted that “The world will be saved by the Western woman.” I wonder whether that may need to be amended to “The world will be saved by midlife women.”

Our three acts—maiden, mother, and crone—are based on our “blood mysteries:” onset of menarche, childbirth, and menopause. Once our fertile years are over, our blood is retained by our bodies to power our wisdom.

And given that the average woman now spends 40% of her life post-menopausal, that’s a whole lot of power, wisdom, and time to get some sh!t done. (Like maybe topple the patriarchy?)

We are traditionally the hags, the crones, the keepers and transmitters of wisdom, the protectors of children and the land we leave them. (Remember that part about men fleeing and women staying to ensure their infants and children are safe? That.)

What Will You Do…?

The poet Mary Oliver asks, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do/With your one wild and precious life?”

It’s a question we may not be fully prepared to answer when we’re in the middle of it: working, taking care of a family, trying to have a social life, going through perimenopause…. And it’s one that post-menopausal women are answering loudly and clearly.

Wondering where to start? Here are some suggestions:

• Become the mentor you wanted to have—one of the most fulfilling parts of my 60yo life is having about a dozen “work kids” who come to me for input, and not just about work!
• Show up in the room where it happens: school boards, city councils, nonprofit boards, zoning commissions, hospital ethics committees….
• Vote with your wallet. Every. Single. Transaction. Counts. Direct your spending to women-owned, local economies, and causes that reflect your values.
• Grow and deepen intentional community—start a book group, a walking group, a knitting circle. Throw a dinner party and see who shows up! (I will admit to having an advantage in this area since in Vermont we’re blessed with Front Porch Forum—what NextDoor was supposed to be.)
• Say the word menopause out loud and name what you know about it—we’ve been there and done that and gotten the t-shirt. We have information that the healthcare system is failing to provide.

Not ready to get started just yet? As my friend Melea says, “Hide and watch!”

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About the Author:

Liza is a certified Integrative Nutrition® Health Coach, author, and passionate advocate for women’s wellness in perimenopause and beyond. 

Her EAT | Your Way to Health™ and Stewarding Emotional Eating™ programs support women in renegotiating their relationship with food, stress, and themselves, finally coming into full alignment their intuition and entering a season of sacred harvest in place of decline.

You can learn more about Liza here at Simply Health Coaching. www.simplyhealthcoaching.com