by Gail Collins
First published 2019
Gail Collins examines how American society has treated aging women across four centuries. She shows that age itself is an arbitrary concept that shifts with each generation's values. In Plymouth Rock settlements, women remained marriageable as long as they stayed "civil and under fifty years of age." Later generations pushed women into quiet retirement once their childbearing years ended. Recent decades have celebrated the freedom that comes when workplace ambitions and home caregiving duties fade. Collins traces this evolution through to the first female presidential nominee. The New York Times columnist argues that attitudes toward aging women have never stayed fixed. Each era creates new definitions of what it means to grow older as a woman. Collins demonstrates that these changing standards reflect broader social anxieties about aging itself. Her social history reveals patterns that give contemporary women reasons for optimism about their later years.
Genres: history, 20th-century, gender-studies, american, feminism, biography-memoir, 21st-century, american-history
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: historical-perspective, social-commentary
Setting: America, Plymouth Rock
Period: Four Centuries
432 pages · Hardcover · Little, Brown and Company