Getting On: Some Thoughts on Women and Ageing

Author: Liz Byrski
Publisher: Momentum
ISBN: 1743340478
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 80

Book Description
Why are we so obsessed with staying young? In a culture that advocates the pursuit of endless youth and physical beauty how can we embrace the reality, the pleasures and the rewards of getting on? And what does the 'fight against ageing' mean when all women must eventually face the double-standard of ageism and sexism? Once past fifty, older women begin to sense that they have become invisible. From the visual displays in the mall to the pages of magazines and the television screens at the heart of our homes, young women with perfect skin, bouncy, enhanced breasts, pouting lips, long straight hair and perfect teeth gaze down on us. The ageing population is traditionally viewed as a problem; a drain on financial resources, health, housing and community services and a burden on younger generations. But living longer and living well are the triumphs of a civilised society. It is also the future that all generations want for themselves. Can we change the conversation on ageing? Getting old is tough, but it's also an opportunity to celebrate how far we have come and to shape a different future. In this essay, Liz Byrski (author of Last Chance Café and Bad Behaviour) examines the adventure of growing old in the twenty-first century: the new possibilities, the joy and the sorrow of solitude, the reality of grief and loss and the satisfaction of having travelled so far. "Writers like Byrski are needed not only for the clarity of their emotional intelligence but for the courage of their political convictions." West Australian

Bright Lights, Prairie Dust

Author: Karen Grassle
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1647423147
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 385

Book Description
Karen Grassle, the beloved actress who played Ma on Little House on the Prairie, grew up at the edge of the Pacific Ocean in a family where love was plentiful but alcohol wreaked havoc. In this candid memoir, Grassle reveals her journey to succeed as an actress even as she struggles to overcome depression, combat her own dependence on alcohol, and find true love. With humor and hard-won wisdom, Grassle takes readers on an inspiring journey through the political turmoil on ’60s campuses, on to studies with some of the most celebrated artists at the famed London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts, and ultimately behind the curtains of Broadway stages and storied Hollywood sets. In these pages, readers meet actors and directors who have captivated us on screen and stage as they fall in love, betray and befriend, and don costumes only to reveal themselves. We know Karen Grassle best as the proud prairie woman Caroline Ingalls, with her quiet strength and devotion to family, but this memoir introduces readers to the complex, funny, rebellious, and soulful woman who, in addition to being the force behind those many strong women she played, fought passionately—as a writer, producer, and activist—on behalf of equal rights for women. Raw, emotional, and tender, Bright Lights celebrates and honors womanhood, in all its complexity.

Women Coming of Age

Author: Jane Fonda
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
ISBN: 9780671469979
Category : Aging
Languages : en
Pages : 456

Book Description
Offers advice on diet, exercise, sexuality, and self-image for middle aged women. Includes the Prime Time Workout.

Not Too Old for That

Author: Vicki Larson
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1538155621
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 255

Book Description
Helps women break through the tired and hurtful stereotypes of aging to better reflect who they are, how they live, and what they want as they age. Who hasn’t heard the stereotypes about women of a "certain age?” That’s the age when women become invisible, irrelevant, undesirable, asexual, unhinged, dried-up, hormonal messes. It’s when women quickly slide into fragility and become forgetful, passive, weak, feeble, debilitated, disabled, dependent, and depressed. Or so the story goes. Not only are those outdated narratives sexist and ageist, they are also damaging to women’s physical, emotional, financial, romantic, and sexual health. It’s time to change them. In Not Too Old for That, Vicki Larson helps change the narrative about being a woman at midlife and older. She questions what we’ve been told aging would be like and encourages us to instead ask ourselves, what do we want it to be like, and how can we get there? The key is to be curious, open-minded, and intentional about the ways we are becoming our future selves.We have an opportunity to create new narratives of aging as a woman, ones that value women at all stages of life, not just youth, and it starts with us. Once the stereotypes that have held women back are broken down, women can move past them and rather than feel helpless as the years add up, they can discover and tap into just how much agency they have. Not only will this book help to create a less-ageist, less-sexist, more-inclusive future, it will release our daughters and all young women from a similar future.

French Women Don't Get Fat

Author: Mireille Guiliano
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 1400044804
Category : Cooking
Languages : en
Pages : 306

Book Description
#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The book that launched a French Revolution about how to approach healthy living: the ultimate non-diet book—now with more recipes. “The perfect book.... A blueprint for building a healthy attitude toward food and exercise"—San Francisco Chronicle French women don’t get fat, even though they enjoy bread and pastry, wine, and regular three-course meals. Unlocking the simple secrets of this “French paradox”—how they enjoy food while staying slim and healthy—Mireille Guiliano gives us a charming, inspiring take on health and eating for our times. For anyone who has slipped out of her Zone, missed the flight to South Beach, or accidentally let a carb pass her lips, here is a positive way to stay trim, a culture’s most precious secrets recast for the twenty-first century. A life of wine, bread—even chocolate—without girth or guilt? Pourquoi pas?

This Chair Rocks

Author: Ashton Applewhite
Publisher: Celadon Books
ISBN: 1250297249
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 302

Book Description
Author, activist, and TED speaker Ashton Applewhite has written a rousing manifesto calling for an end to discrimination and prejudice on the basis of age. In our youth obsessed culture, we’re bombarded by media images and messages about the despairs and declines of our later years. Beauty and pharmaceutical companies work overtime to convince people to purchase products that will retain their youthful appearance and vitality. Wrinkles are embarrassing. Gray hair should be colored and bald heads covered with implants. Older minds and bodies are too frail to keep up with the pace of the modern working world and olders should just step aside for the new generation. Ashton Applewhite once held these beliefs too until she realized where this prejudice comes from and the damage it does. Lively, funny, and deeply researched, This Chair Rocks traces her journey from apprehensive boomer to pro-aging radical, and in the process debunks myth after myth about late life. Explaining the roots of ageism in history and how it divides and debases, Applewhite examines how ageist stereotypes cripple the way our brains and bodies function, looks at ageism in the workplace and the bedroom, exposes the cost of the all-American myth of independence, critiques the portrayal of elders as burdens to society, describes what an all-age-friendly world would look like, and offers a rousing call to action. It’s time to create a world of age equality by making discrimination on the basis of age as unacceptable as any other kind of bias. Whether you’re older or hoping to get there, this book will shake you by the shoulders, cheer you up, make you mad, and change the way you see the rest of your life. Age pride! “Wow. This book totally rocks. It arrived on a day when I was in deep confusion and sadness about my age. Everything about it, from my invisibility to my neck. Within four or five wise, passionate pages, I had found insight, illumination, and inspiration. I never use the word empower, but this book has empowered me.” —Anne Lamott, New York Times bestselling author

Women in Late Life

Author: Martha Holstein
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442222883
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 317

Book Description
Contemporary old age is fraught with contradiction and complexity—women portrayed either as incompetent and cuddly grandmothers or as young women trapped in old bodies, images that rarely reflect how women actually see themselves. Women in Late Life explores the thorny issues related to gender and aging, including prevailing but problematic cultural expectations, body image, ageism, the experience of chronic illness, threats to Social Security and the very possibility of a secure retirement while challenging a long-term care system that disadvantages women. Author Martha Holstein writes from a critical feminist perspective, drawing on her many years of experience in gerontology, as well as interviews and personal experience as a woman now in her seventies. The book highlights how women’s experience of late life is shaped by the effects of lifelong gender norms, by contemporary culture—from gender stereotypes to ageism—and by the political context. The book blends critique with proposals aimed at resisting damaging inequities resulting from being simultaneously old and a woman. She focuses on changes needed on multiple levels—societal, cultural, political, and individual. This interdisciplinary look at key questions around gender and aging is nuanced and beautifully written.

No Stopping Us Now

Author: Gail Collins
Publisher: Little, Brown
ISBN: 0316286494
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 432

Book Description
The beloved New York Times columnist "inspires women to embrace aging and look at it with a new sense of hope" in this lively, fascinating, eye-opening look at women and aging in America (Parade Magazine). "You're not getting older, you're getting better," or so promised the famous 1970's ad -- for women's hair dye. Americans have always had a complicated relationship with aging: embrace it, deny it, defer it -- and women have been on the front lines of the battle, willingly or not. In her lively social history of American women and aging, acclaimed New York Times columnist Gail Collins illustrates the ways in which age is an arbitrary concept that has swung back and forth over the centuries. From Plymouth Rock (when a woman was considered marriageable if "civil and under fifty years of age"), to a few generations later, when they were quietly retired to elderdom once they had passed the optimum age for reproduction, to recent decades when freedom from striving in the workplace and caretaking at home is often celebrated, to the first female nominee for president, American attitudes towards age have been a moving target. Gail Collins gives women reason to expect the best of their golden years.

Ageing Women in Literature and Visual Culture

Author: Cathy McGlynn
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 331963609X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 338

Book Description
This timely collection engages with representations of women and ageing in literature and visual culture. Acknowledging that cultural conceptions of ageing are constructed and challenged across a variety of media and genres, the editors bring together experts in literature and visual culture to foster a dialogue across disciplines. Exploring the process of ageing in its cultural reflections, refractions and reimaginings, the contributors to Ageing Women in Literature and Visual Culture analyse how artists, writers, directors and performers challenge, and in some cases reaffirm, cultural constructions of ageing women, as well as give voice to ageing women’s subjectivities. The book concludes with an afterword by Germaine Greer which suggests possible avenues for future research.

Women Rowing North

Author: Mary Pipher
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1632869608
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 273

Book Description
New York Times Bestseller * USA Today Bestseller* Los Angeles Times Bestseller * Publishers Weekly Bestseller A guide to wisdom, authenticity, and bliss for women as they age by the author of Reviving Ophelia. Women growing older contend with ageism, misogyny, and loss. Yet as Mary Pipher shows, most older women are deeply happy and filled with gratitude for the gifts of life. Their struggles help them grow into the authentic, empathetic, and wise people they have always wanted to be. In Women Rowing North, Pipher offers a timely examination of the cultural and developmental issues women face as they age. Drawing on her own experience as daughter, sister, mother, grandmother, caregiver, clinical psychologist, and cultural anthropologist, she explores ways women can cultivate resilient responses to the challenges they face. “If we can keep our wits about us, think clearly, and manage our emotions skillfully,” Pipher writes, “we will experience a joyous time of our lives. If we have planned carefully and packed properly, if we have good maps and guides, the journey can be transcendent.”