See It Then Be It Geena Davis did not worry about all those stories of movie roles drying up for women in their forties, until it was her turn. After making a movie every year throughout her career, and starring in huge box office hits like Thelma and Louise and A League of Their Own, the actress made one movie in all of her forties. Just one. And, she says, it was not because she was
Power and Madam Pelosi We watched with interest as Nancy Pelosi fought to regain her role as House Speaker when the Democrats took the House after the November 2018 election. Congresswoman Pelosi is part of a generation of older leaders in government, including Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. No matter what we think of their politics, it is clear that Pelosi’s age is brought up more frequently as a reason for her to step aside
The world is made of stories, not atoms. – Muriel Rukeyser Myths are Ideas and stories and images that shape how we see the world. Celebrating and creating myth is one way to see and be seen. A Sex Goddess for Older Women? Last year I asked a friend who is a mythology buff to name an erotic goddess for older women. He was stumped. “The closest I can think of is Baubo,” he said.
Making Women Visible After Midlife The anthropologist Margaret Mead married a series of men, each one a researcher about to travel to a place she wanted to study. At the end of an assignment, she divorced and married anew. An extreme method, perhaps, and yet it enabled Mead to examine and write about cultures all over the world. Decades later, when her work was already famous throughout the first world, it amused Mead that her
Dress Like You Have Diamonds at the Meeting of your Thighs “Does my sexiness offend you? Does it come as a surprise That I dance like I have diamonds At the meeting of my thighs?” — Maya Angelou, “And Still I Rise” We have all read those articles, the ones that tell us what not to wear at our age. “No self-respecting woman over someage would be seen dead wearing that”. “Who does she think she
The Grandmother Hypothesis In the 1980s, American anthropologist Kristen Hawkes observed Hadza hunter-gatherers in Tanzania, and realized that the older women spent their time collecting food for their grandchildren. This freed up the mothers to have more children. Hawkes hypothesized that the fittest grandmothers had the most grandchildren, which created selective pressure for longevity well past menopause in humans (as opposed to other apes, whose lifespan ends just after their childbearing years). Hawkes suggested that
