'Past Their Prime' At 20? Book Chronicles Attitudes Toward Female Aging In America
Known for the punch of her columns, The New York Times' Gail Collins sprinkles conversational, sardonic asides throughout No Stopping Us Now in an effort to keep the decades-long hike spry.
Gail Collins warns us upfront in her robust social history of America's changing attitudes toward women past the first blush of youth that "This is not going to be a tale of steady progress toward an age-indifferent tomorrow."
No Stopping Us Now makes clear, for example, that two particularly challenging times to be an older woman in America were the youth-obsessed 1920s and 1960s. Take heart, though: As its title indicates, the general trend chronicled in Collins' new book is encouraging.
In the 18th century, women beyond their early 20s were considered past their prime, and post-menopausal women, when notcolumnist born in 1945, quotes advertising guru Faith Popcorn's remark that 68-78 has become "the adolescence of old age."
