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
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
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
Sexual Agency Beyond Midlife In her 2016 book, “Girls and Sex: Navigating the Complicated New Landscape,” Peggy Orenstein describes the pressure on American women to perform sexually from an early age, and to please young men while doing so. In
Blonde at 65 or The Tale of the Peacock What have peacock tail feathers ever done for the peacock? They are heavy, they harbor ectoparasites, and they add nothing to the bird’s ability to eat, drink, or move. So why
