While age
segregation holds little appeal for me, I can appreciate that aging is a
women’s issue and the value of an all-women’s space so that women’s voices can
be truly heard. After all, women live
longer than men and thus make up the majority of older adults. Compared with men, older women are three
times more likely to be widowed or living alone, almost twice as likely to be
nursing home residents, spend more years and a larger percentage of their
lifetime disabled, and are nearly twice as likely to live in poverty. Women experience higher rates of domestic
violence than men, and like women who are the majority of caregivers, women in
these situations report higher levels of stress, depression, and other chronic
health conditions. (http://www.aoa.gov/AoARoot/Aging_Statistics/Profile/2011/2.aspx
& http://www.globalaging.org/agingwatch/cedaw/cedaw.pdf)
As one of
20 Community Health Workers selected to participate in this month’s Women’s Health Leadership Institute (WHLI), hosted by Region IX
Office on Women’s Health (OWH) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services, I appeared to be the only participant focused on older adults’ health. For FY 2013, OWH priorities include enhancing
access to information and health care resources that promote the safety and
health of older women (aged 50+) in the areas of prevention and behavioral
health, abuse in older adults or caregiving. Check out OWH's publications on Healthy Aging and A Lifetime of Good Health. (Note: California’s Office of Women’s Health was eliminated as of July 1, 2012.)
Kay A. Strawder, JD, MSW, Regional Women's Health Coordinator,
welcomes our Region IX cohort. Our facilitators, Jenifer Metz and Sali
Butler, are seated in corner. (Photo courtesy of Carmen
Ferlan, MPH, MIS)
Our training emphasized a systemic or ecological approach to public health problem-solving, addressing the root causes of health disparities, to prepare for our Community Action Project. Instead of a superficial “blame the victim” for not taking personal responsibility—like Sheryl Sandberg’s belief that men still rule the world because women lack self-confidence so they need to “lean in”—an in-depth analysis of the problem might identify systemic factors, like institutionalized sexism, lack of access to child care and flexible work arrangements; see http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/11/magazine/the-opt-out-generation-wants-back-in.html.
Our training emphasized a systemic or ecological approach to public health problem-solving, addressing the root causes of health disparities, to prepare for our Community Action Project. Instead of a superficial “blame the victim” for not taking personal responsibility—like Sheryl Sandberg’s belief that men still rule the world because women lack self-confidence so they need to “lean in”—an in-depth analysis of the problem might identify systemic factors, like institutionalized sexism, lack of access to child care and flexible work arrangements; see http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/11/magazine/the-opt-out-generation-wants-back-in.html.
We participated in several activities to understand the context of advances in women’s rights (I was surprised to learn that “Nebraska is the first state to pass a law making it illegal for a man to rape his wife,” actually took place in my lifetime, in 1976, the U.S. bicentennial year), and to analyze women’s biographies (Dolores Huerta, Oprah Winfrey, Michelle Obama) for stones (obstacles) and shovels (leadership skills used to move obstacles). My personal choices for inspiring public figure women biographies would be Frances Perkins (U.S. Secretary of Labor during FDR administration, died at 85 years in 1965) and Vandana Shiva (60-year-old environmentalist).
During
breaks, classmates led activities like hula (Wilma from Lanai, pictured above in photo courtesy of Carmen Ferlan; note, one male Jose on far left), salsa and
merengue (Arletha from Oakland ), creating
flowers from pipe cleaners (Monissa from Saipan), body fat measurement and
aerobics (Phyllis from Santa Clara
WHLI training took place in the Federal Building
Participating in WHLI reminded me of attending “not an all-girls school without men, but an all-women’s college without boys.” At women’s colleges, women have all the opportunities to rule, which does wonders for building confidence, breaking barriers and making herstory! Ready to break out into Helen Reddy’s “I am Woman, hear me roar!”
Participating in WHLI reminded me of attending “not an all-girls school without men, but an all-women’s college without boys.” At women’s colleges, women have all the opportunities to rule, which does wonders for building confidence, breaking barriers and making herstory! Ready to break out into Helen Reddy’s “I am Woman, hear me roar!”
At the
right place and time: I worked as a
proofreader at the College Relations Office, which gave me easy access to
interview visitors like Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Ellen Goodman. A women’s college graduate herself, Goodman discussed how the "values gap" based
on traditional roles for men (high-powered career) and women (home, family)
resulted in the Superwoman myth (women can have it all, only if they do it all
by themselves) as women have had more success in getting into the male world, than in changing that world. Here I
appear as an awestruck teenager in the presence of Goodman with College
Relations Director Susan Shea and College President Mary Metz. Following her retirement in 2010, Goodman
founded The Conversation Project about communicating end-of-life wishes.
I pay more attention to women's leadership. The idea for University Mound Ladies Home (UMLH) came from Mary Staples, a philanthropist and wife of the man who helped San Francisco businessman James Lick prepare his will. Founded in 1884, with a bequest from Lick, UMLH is a nonprofit, 74-room assisted living residence
for older women. It hosted the 6-week
Healthier Living-Chronic Disease Self-Management Program, attended by residents
and the public, but this month’s graduates were all women :-). I love that UMLH has management and staff
trained in gerontology! Check out this interview with SFSU gerontology
instructor Pat McGinnis who talks about how quality of care is compromised in the for-profit
model in assisted living at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/social-issues/life-and-death-in-assisted-living/patricia-mcginnis-get-the-for-profit-model-out-of-senior-care/.
Juicye arrived at SDA reunion, announcing, “Am I Bad? It’s
Michael Jackson’s 55th birthday!” Had Jackson lived to age 55, he would be eligible for additional
“senior” discounts!
Contestants from this month’s Dahlia Show
In Sept. 3, 2013 DOL blog post http://social.dol.gov/blog/the-retirement-equity-act-and-beyond/, Assistant Secretary of Labor for Employee Benefits Security Administration Phyllis C. Borzi wrote about the Retirement Equity Act:
ReplyDeleteThe act lowered the minimum age requirement for pension plan participation, it prevented plans from penalizing parents who took time off to raise families, it allowed pension plans to make court-ordered payments to former spouses and it mandated spousal consent for workers to waive survivor benefits. In short, it began to recognize the working patterns of women, who remain more likely to interrupt their careers to take care of a family member, and provided greater retirement protection for women throughout the country.
It’s important to remember that women still face unique challenges in saving for retirement. Women are much more likely to work a part-time job that does not provide retirement benefits. And with a longer life expectancy, they need their savings to stretch farther.
As we reflect on the many benefits of the Retirement Equity Act, women (and men!) should use this opportunity to take stock of their financial situation and educate themselves about their retirement needs. To that end, EBSA has a number of resources, including a Retirement Toolkit, New Employee Savings Tips and a Women and Retirement Savings publication.
Sept. 5, 2013 DOL blog post about Frances Perkins and the New Deal at
http://social.dol.gov/blog/frances-perkins-and-the-new-deal/:
Kirstin Downey, in her wonderful book, “The Woman Behind the New Deal,” portrays in her opening paragraphs the only terms on which Miss Perkins would accept the offer of President-elect Roosevelt in February of 1933 to become his Secretary of Labor. “She ticked off the items: a forty-hour work week, a minimum wage, worker’s compensation, unemployment compensation, a federal law banning child labor, direct federal aid for unemployment relief, Social Security, a revitalized public employment service, and health insurance.” During his first term, Roosevelt accomplished all of these goals, except national health insurance. And they did much more in which Secretary Perkins played a pivotal role, starting with the Civilian Conservation Corps, which she and Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes put in place within the first weeks of the new administration. Simultaneously she introduced Harry Hopkins to FDR to institute the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, which soon put millions of unemployed men to work. FERA helped spawn the Civil Works Administration and the Public Works Administration that gave way to the Works Progress Administration.
What's the Perfect Age? If You're a Woman, It's 53
ReplyDeleteBy Lindsay Powers | Healthy Living
They say you can't go back, but most women wouldn't want to anyway.
In an era of Botox, stars who appear to never age, and what feels like constant pressure to be young, the 2,242 women surveyed by Harris Interactive report their perfect age is actually 53.
That's not surprising, according to New York City psychotherapist Robi Ludwig. "This is really developmentally the time of life that women plug into themselves and respect themselves, listen to their own voice, and develop their own voice, so it makes perfect sense that they would really feel good, because they're doing that," she tells Yahoo Shine.
With age comes wisdom, she says. "Women in their 20s today are still very much young-minded…They almost see themselves as kidlike. As they're into their 30s, they're beginning to make more adult choices that will serve as the foundation [of the future], but there's still a bit of wanting to please parents, wanting to please bosses, be culturally in sync."
By the late 40s and into the early 50s, "It's almost like a second adulthood in the sense that you've played by other people's rules, and now the name of the game is, 'What works for me? What makes me happy?' And that's what this phase is all about."
It's liberating, Ludwig says.
. . .
Just 10 years ago, the same poll found that 41 was the ideal age. So what's changed? "A lot has to do with the boomers themselves...the graying of America," says Corso. Also, that the past few years have been rough economically, but by now many Americans in their 50s might feel like they're back on track financially and professionally.
For men, the ideal age is 47, the poll says. . . .
When you don't account for gender, 50 is the ideal age if you could live forever in good health, the poll says.
http://shine.yahoo.com/healthy-living/perfect-age-youre-woman-53-172300884.html
“ . . .inequality in women’s health outcomes steadily increased between 1985 and 2010, with female life expectancy stagnating or declining in 45 percent of U.S. counties. Taken together, the two studies underscore a disturbing trend: While advancements in medicine and technology have prolonged U.S. life expectancy and decreased premature deaths overall, women in parts of the country have been left behind, and in some cases, they are dying younger than they were a generation before. The worst part is no one knows why.”
ReplyDeletehttp://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/10/us-women-are-dying-younger-than-their-mothers-and-no-one-knows-why/280259/
New Blog Launched by the HHS Office on Women’s Health
ReplyDeleteThe U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office on Women’s Health (OWH) now has a blog! Our first blog post highlights an important women’s health issue — domestic violence. Did you know that more than one in three women in the U.S. experience rape, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetimes? Read the full blog post to learn more
http://womenshealth.gov/blog/post.cfm?p=domestic-violence
Men Are Obsolete
ReplyDeleteFive reasons we are definitely witnessing the end of men
By Hanna Rosin Jan. 02, 2014
Once upon a time, the men ventured out to hunt bison while the women stayed behind to dust the cave, gather berries and raise the very hairy children. This is the story we have told ourselves for tens of thousands of years to explain why men rule the world while women are relegated to being the second sex, (“physiologically unsuited for leadership” is how the current Australian prime minister put it). Now after more than a century of global economic revolutions and a few decades of recession it’s become obvious that this story is no longer true, if it ever was. Here are the reasons:
ONE: It’s the end of men because men are failing in the workplace.
Over the last few decades men’s incomes have been slowly declining and women’s have been rising. Last year one in five men were not working, something economists call the biggest social crisis we will face. Party this is because the economy is changing quickly, but men aren’t. As the manufacturing economy gets replaced by a service and information economy, men are failing to adjust or get the skill they need to succeed.
Meanwhile, women are moving in the opposite direction: In 2009 they became the majority of the American workforce for the first time ever. Now in every part of America young single women under 30 have a higher median income than young men, which is really important because that’s the phase of life when people imagine what their future will look like. As one sorority girl put it to me — remember, I said sorority, not someone from the women’s study center — “Men are the new ball and chain.”
It’s the end of men because men are failing in schools and women are succeeding. In nearly every country, on all but one continent, women are getting 60 percent of college degrees, which is what you need to succeed these days. Many boys start falling behind as early as first grade, and they fail to catch up. Many men, meanwhile, still see school as a waste of time, a girl thing.
TWO: It’s the end of men because the traditional household, propped up by the male breadwinner, is vanishing.
For the first time in history women all over the world are marrying down, meaning marrying men with worse prospects than they have. We have a new global type, for example, called the alpha wife, a woman who makes more money than her husband or boyfriend. Not that long ago she was exceedingly rare. Now she’s part of about 40 percent of couples in the US. And that does not count the growing number of single moms who head their own families.
Women are occupying positions of power that were once totally closed off to them. The premiers of the Canada’s four biggest provinces, the head of Harvard, the COO of Facebook, the newly appointed chairwoman of the Fed, ruler of the global economy, Janet Yellen, who got the job basically because Larry Summers said women weren’t that good at math. And lets not forget Christine Lagarde, who took over the job at the IMF from another shining example of modern manhood.
And why aren’t there more female CEO’s or heads of state, one of you will ask? To that I have to remind you that women’s ascendance is only about 40 years old, while men have been in power for 40,000 years. So by that standard we are rising at dizzying speeds. . .
Hanna Rosin is the author of the book The End of Men. Adapted from her opening statement at the Munk Debate, “Resolved: Men Are Obsolete,” held in Toronto.
http://ideas.time.com/2014/01/02/men-are-obsolete/#ixzz2pPFrsfoD
5 Reasons to Enjoy Being an Old, Invisible Woman
ReplyDeleteBy Kristine Holmgren | November 17, 2014
… I turned 50 and joined the community of invisible women.
However, being old is not a curse. It's a blessing.
The transition took some adjusting. For the past 15 years, I've been managing my new status. And now, I don't mind aging at all. In fact, I think I'm doing well at the entire endeavor.
I don't mind living in the shadows either. I welcome them and learned there are advantages to being invisible.
And so — with great humility — I offer the top five reasons to enjoy being an old, invisible woman:
1. The freedom to stare
When you're old and invisible, no one cares if you stare…
Invisible, I am free. I sit in coffee shops and watch… All of this becomes fodder for my playwriting, my essays.
2. The freedom to interfere
When you're a young woman, your opinions are discarded…Younger women are held to high standards of physical attraction. That’s not the case when women age. Overnight we fade into the wallpaper. We're invisible.
Now, as an old, invisible woman, I interfere all the time…
Interrupting bad behavior is an old woman's secret approach to making the world a better place for younger women.
And so far, my meddling has never, ever been rejected.
Every time I interfere — every single time — someone thanks me.
3. The freedom to fight back
When we are young, the well-being of our families is directly dependent upon our ability to get along with others (mostly men).
Women are trained from early childhood to yield to forces that control our lives.
At work, we are seldom brave; we seldom break rank or challenge the people (mostly men) who treat us poorly.
At home, we cooperate with our husbands to keep our families harmonious. We ask little and expect less. We build up everyone around us and hope that our families become stronger because of our hard work.
And so it happens that most of our young lives are devoted to pleasing people (mostly men).
Then, we grow old.
In a heartbeat, dependency is over. We draw down our pensions and secure our Social Security.
And we are no longer for sale.
Invisible, old women with strong opinions and independent means have little to lose.
Invite us to your rallies. Include us in your demonstrations.
We can be dangerous.
4. The freedom to love
No one forgives, understands or opens her heart like an old woman.
We know your struggle. If we haven't lived through it, we know others who have.
Being old bestows a perception of reality that youth and beauty envy. Our only care is for peace and contentment.
If you have an old woman in your life, count on her to settle any dispute that threatens to divide your family.
Lean on her.
Her first gift is the gift of her undivided attention.
Her best gift is love.
5. The freedom to pass it on
Your world was first made habitable by the hard work of women who are old and invisible… Consider this: If you are a woman and have done any of the following, you did so because an old woman first made it possible: opened a checking account; secured a credit card, mortgage, auto loan or lease without the co-signature of a man; demanded you be paid the same wage as men doing your job; asked and received a prescription for birth control — without your husband's approval or father's consent; played hockey, football, basketball or soccer in high school, college or as a profession. . .
Believe me, the women who opened these doors for you did so by limiting their own professional, personal futures.
We spoke out nonetheless because we wanted a better world for you and your children.
So tell an old woman you appreciate her sacrifice, her hard work, her good nature. Tell her she inspires you to be better person. Promise her you'll work to advance your generation.
But don't make it into a big deal.
She's old. She doesn't need the attention.
She loves being invisible.
http://www.nextavenue.org/article/2014-11/5-reasons-enjoy-being-old-invisible-woman
In the Fight for Global Gender Equality, Women and Girls of all Ages and Abilities Must be Counted
ReplyDeleteBy Kathy Greenlee, Assistant Secretary for Aging and Administrator of ACL
The importance of rigorous data collection to inform international development programs aimed at empowering women and girls can hardly be overstated. For these efforts to be successful, however, all women and girls, regardless of age or ability, must be included.
This week, reporting by the Thomson Reuters Foundation brought attention to the troubling absence of older women in much of the research that informs global health and development priorities. Women over the age of 49 comprise nearly a quarter of the world’s female population, yet many surveys on important topics such as HIV, access to economic resources, and intimate partner violence focus primarily on women of reproductive age.
The result is that women who are older remain invisible in policies and programs addressing global gender issues. The same is often true for women and girls with disabilities of all ages. This is especially problematic in the development of strategies to combat gender-based violence, as women and girls with disabilities suffer alarmingly high rates of abuse.
When we do include all women and girls in research, we should not assume that a 65-year-old and a 95-year-old, or a wheelchair user and a woman with a developmental disability, have similar needs and experiences. By digging deeper and disaggregating data by gender, age, and disability, we could design high-quality domestic and international programs that serve women and girls holistically and more effectively.
Last month, I joined my colleagues from the State Department and USAID as part of the U.S. Delegation to the 59th United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. While at the UN, I had the privilege of representing the United States in panel discussions on the importance of rigorous data collection, empowerment of marginalized women and girls, and promoting social norms that value the human rights of all people.
I was particularly proud to speak on a panel at a side-event hosted byHelpAge International and the Permanent Mission of Argentina to the U.N. on the crisis of violence against older women. As we commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, it is critical we recognize those women and girls for whom progress has stalled.
Women and girls from marginalized communities—including those who are older, have disabilities, are living with HIV, are indigenous, or identify as a sexual or gender minority–face disproportionate rates of violence and abuse. This violence constitutes a public health and human rights crisis that we simply cannot ignore.
Activists and policymakers are working hard every day on behalf of women and girls. We refuse to accept that more than half of the world’s population is denied their full human rights and equal participation simply because of their gender. I am proud to be an advocate for the rights of women and girls of all ages and abilities, so that no one is invisible. I hope you will join me.
http://acl.gov/NewsRoom/blog/2015/2015_04_17.aspx
Promoting Equal Futures across the Lifespan
ReplyDelete11. May 2015 10:46 by WHCOA Blog Contributor
By Kathy Greenlee, Assistant Secretary for Aging and Administrator of the Administration for Community Living, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
On April 24, I was honored to represent our nation’s older women in a roundtable discussion hosted by the White House Council on Women and Girls.
The meeting, “Promoting Equal Futures across the Lifespan,” brought together leaders from the fields of aging, health, abuse in later life, and financial security to discuss key issues affecting older women, complementing the 2015 White House Conference on Aging.
I was joined by Deputy Director for Minority Health Dr. Nadine Gracia, Acting Social Security Commissioner Carolyn Colvin, and Nora Super, Executive Director of the White House Conference on Aging. Kicking off the conversation, Executive Director of the Council on Women and Girls, Tina Tchen, spoke of the commitment of the Council to address inequalities and barriers facing women and girls of all ages. Tina’s leadership in expanding our national dialogue on women and girls to include older women sets an example I hope others will follow.
I say this because all too often, conversations about women and girls do not include older women. If we look across the lifespan, however, we see that many of the challenges older women face are the same barriers they encountered earlier in their lives: wage discrimination; unequal expectations of caregiving and raising children; higher costs of health care; violence and abuse. Gender disparities exist regardless of age and can be intensified by discrimination based on disability, sexuality or gender identity.
For example, Dr. Gracia pointed out that women of color often face food insecurity, along with the stress and expense that comes with managing multiple chronic conditions. “Health disparities can be exacerbated by cultural and language barriers for minority women, as well as reduced access to health care,” Dr. Gracia said.
Adding to these challenges is widespread financial insecurity for many older women. As Carolyn Colvin explained, “Because of their greater longevity, women are at greater risk of exhausting their savings. While income from other retirement programs and savings may run out, Social Security benefits continue for life.” Social Security is truly a lifeline for some older adults—mostly women—who rely on this as their only source of income.
Good health and economic security are undermined by abuse. The more we learn about elder abuse, neglect and financial exploitation, the more we understand that elder abuse predominantly impacts women—and that’s not simply because women outnumber men as they age. In fact, one of the most common forms of violence against older women is abuse by an intimate partner or spouse, which can include economic coercion or fraud. And, just as women and girls with disabilities are victimized at higher rates, older adults with severe dementia and Alzheimer’s disease are at increased risk of experiencing abuse.
Last month, I addressed this issue as part of the U.S. Delegation to the 59th United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, highlighting the urgent need for data collection that counts women and girls of all ages and abilities. As a vital support to so many families around the world, we must eliminate negative stereotypes that depict older women as burdens, rather than honoring them.
Older women—mothers, aunts, and grandmothers—are the backbone of our families and communities. Their lifetime contributions to the success and well-being of children and grandchildren; to our economy and our workforce, deserve special recognition.
Thanks to the White House Council on Women and Girls and all who joined us at the roundtable, older women are becoming more visible.
http://www.whitehouseconferenceonaging.gov/blog/post/promoting-equal-futures-across-the-lifespan.aspx
Things I Wish I'd Known When I Was Younger
ReplyDeleteMay 12, 2015
By Dr. Nancy C. Lee, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health — Women's Health
I am 64 years old. There, I admit it. Women don't always want to admit their age, but there is one really good thing about seeing the decades roll by: I finally appreciate that "women's health" means different things at different times…
In my 20s
Fall in love with working out. ...Not making exercise a habit in your 20s makes it much harder to pick it up later in life… Get active now for an easier time later.
Protect yourself from the sun.
…Many of today's skin products include sunscreen, but you also need protective clothing and hats to protect yourself from the sun's dangers every time you go outside, in every season. You should also seek shade and avoid outdoor activities during periods of peak sunlight.
Walk your miles in comfortable shoes.
…Start taking care of your feet early to avoid future pain (and maybe even foot surgery!). Choose comfortable, properly fitting shoes with good arch support and cushioning…
In my 30s
Let it go.
As you move into your 30s, you develop a greater sense of self and a deeper understanding of what you need to be mentally and emotionally healthy. Everyone feels difficult emotions like anger, jealousy, and resentment, but how we choose to deal with them is up to each of us. In my 30s, I learned that I could let go of anger. For you, it might be something else, like learning to say "no" or letting others make their own mistakes. Whatever paying attention to your mental health means to you, this is a good time in life to work on it.
Eat well.
…if you really want to have more energy, feel strong, and lower your risk of illness and disease so you can be around to see your kids grow up, eating healthy is important.
Get more sleep.
You may be able to function on 5–6 hours of sleep, but you won't be at your best — and it might make you seriously ill. Not getting enough sleep is associated with a wide array of chronic diseases and conditions, including stroke, heart disease, diabetes, obesity, depression, and kidney disease. Why risk it? Experts recommend adults get 7–8 hours of sleep per night. Start taking care of your sleep needs now. If you have trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, or feeling refreshed after sleep, talk to your doctor.
In my 40s
Don't sweat the small stuff.
If your 30s are about being comfortable in your own skin, your 40s are about being comfortable in the world… Instead of worrying about all of the little stuff, I learned to focus on the family and friends who are so important to my daily health and happiness.
Be kind to yourself.
Are you tough on yourself like I was? In my 40s, I juggled my scientific career, two small children, a husband, family obligations, and friendships. I had to learn to be patient with myself when I couldn't do everything…I learned that doing my best was just fine.
"The Change" can start earlier than you think.
... Taking that time to talk with your health care provider about how you're feeling, what you might expect in the coming year, and what tests and screenings you need can help you recognize and deal proactively with any menopausal symptoms — or anything else going on. Just because menopause is a natural process doesn't mean you have to suffer.
In my 50s
It's never too late to make good choices.
…What changes can you make for better health? Quit smoking, take up running, cut out sugary drinks — both big and small steps can do wonders for your health. The goal is to make more good choices today than you did yesterday.
Even in my 60s, I'm still working on some of these things, and I still haven't learned to get enough sleep. But life is all about the process, not the end result…
http://womenshealth.gov/blog/things-known-younger.html
The Price of Caitlyn Jenner’s Heroism
ReplyDeleteBy RHONDA GARELICK
JUNE 3, 2015
…Caitlyn Jenner’s transition is more than a private matter. It is a commercial spectacle on an enormous scale, revealing some disturbing truths about what we value and admire in women.
…Ms. Jenner appears languid and glamorous, her body still and on display rather than performing any activity.
Ms. Jenner is 65 years old, but Caitlyn “codes” many decades younger. Her features are tiny and doll-like, her lips plumped, her skin lineless. Even her new chosen first name feels bizarrely girlish, conjuring more a college student, or maybe a sixth Kardashian sister, than a grandmother.
We have known for months that Bruce Jenner was becoming a woman, and we rejoice if this brings her happiness. But were we prepared for this woman?
What does it mean that Ms. Jenner’s newly revealed “true self” (in her own words) comes packaged like a 30-something starlet along the lines of her famous daughters and stepdaughters?... Like her children, Caitlyn will soon allow her life to be minutely chronicled in a reality television show, produced by the same team responsible for “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” — that docudrama devoted to makeup, hookups, breakups and, of course, plastic surgery and clothes.
Long ago, Ms. Jenner was a hero, admired for dazzling athletic skills. Even on the Kardashian show, Bruce often distinguished himself as the voice of reason amid a circus of vanity and consumerism. But as Vanity Fair’s Caitlyn, Ms. Jenner has morphed into a consumable commodity — a strangely static, oddly youthful and elaborately adorned body that is, rather than does. This seems less the liberation of a true self than a reminder of the straitjacket requirements of acceptable, desirable womanhood.
That Ms. Jenner makes an excellent icon of fashion is unsurprising. Not only has she long lived within the corridors of Hollywood celebrity, but her physique — still the slim-hipped, sinewy body of a male Olympic athlete — actually lends itself (with a few tweaks) more easily to the female modelesque ideal than do most genetically female bodies. And certainly, very few transwomen could achieve this aesthetic ideal either, as the actress and transgender activist Laverne Cox has pointed out in a widely read Tumblr post.
What of the millions of other 65-year-old women, whether born female or trans, who deserve attention? The millions of women who become invisible with age and could never successfully mimic a Kardashian (and would not wish to)? They remain offstage and out of mind, their own accomplishments unknown to us.
What’s more, those few women of Ms. Jenner’s age category who do manage to enter the public arena are routinely excoriated simply for being older — see the endless discussions on whether Hillary Clinton is “too old” to be president — or else they’re shamed for trying to appear younger via cosmetic enhancement.
The French writer Simone de Beauvoir famously wrote that “one is not born a woman, one becomes one.” She was referring to the innumerable embellishments, codes of behavior and self-censoring acts required by femininity, the turning of the self into a prestige commodity. In becoming a woman before our eyes, Caitlyn Jenner proves that little has changed since 1949, when de Beauvoir wrote those words. To be admired in the public eye, to be seen, a woman must still conform to an astonishingly long, often contradictory list of physical demands — the most important being that she not visibly age.
While the fanfare around the emergence of Caitlyn may advance our acceptance of transgender individuals, it does so, in this case, at a price: the perpetuation, even celebration, of narrow and dehumanizing strictures of womanhood sustained by the fashion and entertainment industries. True liberation of gender’s vast spectrum should ask more of us than that we simply exchange one uncomfortable, oppressive identity for another.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/03/opinion/the-price-of-jenners-heroism.html
Emma Stone, Jennifer Lawrence, and Scarlett Johansson Have an Older-Man Problem
ReplyDeleteBy Kyle Buchanan
June 1, 2015
…at 37, Maggie Gyllenhaal was recently deemed "too old" to play the love interest of a 55-year-old male actor; if over-the-hill stars can continue to have their choice of A-list women who are 30 and under, why should they ever stop? There are a host of other factors at play here, too: Since most prestige movies are made by middle-aged men about middle-aged men, actresses like Jennifer Lawrence have to age themselves up to grab those high-profile roles, a pattern that not only contributes to a continued dearth of leading men in their 20s but also indirectly takes parts away from actresses like Gyllenhaal. Indeed, Lawrence keeps playing roles for David O. Russell — bitter widow, divorced mom, single-mother mopping magnate — that would typically call for women in their 30s, not a woman who's yet to even hit 25.
And while we don't necessarily look to the movies for realism, steering these young actresses toward near-constant May-December romances is wholly out of step with what's actually going on in the culture. According to the 2013 census, nearly 60 percent of heterosexual married couples are within two to three years of each other; a union separated by 15 years, like the one between Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper in Silver Linings Playbook, comes up only 1.6 percent of the time, and some of Emma Stone's recent screen romances with men who exceeded her age by 20 years are reflected by a mere one percent of actual couples. I don't doubt those percentages would be different if you surveyed only Hollywood, where aging movie stars and powerful producers routinely walk the red carpets with blonde 20-somethings on their arm. But shouldn't we want more for our best young actresses than an onslaught of onscreen age disparities that evoke the notion of a trophy girlfriend?
http://www.vulture.com/2015/05/emma-jlaw-and-scarletts-older-man-problem.html
Why Are the Oldest People Alive Usually Women?
ReplyDeleteAmy Capetta
June 8, 2015
Most supercentenarians (people who live to at least 110 years old) have one thing in common: They’re women. According to researchers at Stanford University, 95 percent of the world’s oldest people are female.
Here’s a small sampling of the proof: The oldest person on Earth today is Jeralean Talley from the Detroit area, who is 115. She took the crown in April from 116-year-old Gertrude Weaver, who took it from Misao Okawa, who passed away in April at 117. But so far, no one has outlived Jeanne Louise Calment from France, who is listed in Guinness World Records as the oldest living person recorded. Calment was born in 1875 — one year before the telephone was invented — and died in 1997 at the ripe old age of 122.
The Stanford scientists, who shared their findings in the journal Cell Stem Cell, point to previous research on estrogen, the hormone that controls the female reproductive cycle, as a possible factor. One study states that estrogen has been shown to increase the number of blood stem cells in female mice, ultimately boosting the “regenerative capacity” of stem cells in the brain, while another study discovered that male mice lived longer with the help of estrogen supplements…
“From our own studies, we know that women definitely win the longevity marathon — 85 percent of centenarians are women and 15 percent are men,” Thomas Perls, MD, a geriatrician at Boston Medical Center and a professor of medicine at Boston University School of Medicine, tells Yahoo Health. And while it may seem that all arrows point to estrogen as the key, Perls says the power may have to do with iron — or rather, lack of it.
“Menstruation leads to iron deficiency, which when it doesn’t lead to symptomatic anemia, may be very good for you,” Perls explains. “It turns out that…by having less iron, women might produce fewer oxygen free radicals, which might translate into slower aging and decreased risk for age-related diseases.”
…women can live 50-plus years beyond the average age of menopause, which he says is estimated to begin at 53. Another theory: It may have something to do with evolution.
“The need to live long enough to take care of our kids until they themselves can have children, or to live long enough to become grandparents, likely led to the selection of genes that allowed humans to age more slowly and to defend them from aging-related genes that adversely impact upon fertility,” he says. “A longer reproductive span increases a woman’s opportunity to successfully have children, therefore increasing her chance of winning the evolution game — she who has the greatest chance of passing her genes on to the next generation wins!”
Walter M. Bortz II, MD, a clinical professor of medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine and author of Dare To Be 100, also feels that Mother Nature plays a pivotal role in keeping women around longer. “Nature puts a higher premium on the female species because they’re around for the duration, while men are there for the moment,” he tells Yahoo Health.
And then there’s the bonding aspect. “Women nurture; they have a circle of friends their whole life, while men tend to be loners,” he explains, adding that women have also been shown to be more resilient. “It’s true that when a wife dies, it kills the husband. But when a husband dies, it doesn’t kill the wife. Men are brittle; we break, women bend.”
…both women and men can stick around longer if they make it a point to just keep moving.
“All that life does is take solar energy and makes it useful,” says the 85-year-old expert, who writes, teaches, lectures, and runs regularly. “And that’s what exercise does — I’m a firm believer in that exercise is the magic elixir!” (In fact, arecent study found that even small doses of physical activity can keep the Grim Reaper away.)
“Here’s my law: It’s never too late to start, but it’s always too soon to stop.
https://www.yahoo.com/health/why-are-the-oldest-people-alive-usually-women-121015407152.html
An Age-Old Dilemma for Women: To Lie or Not to Lie
ReplyDeleteBy HANNAH SELIGSON
JUNE 27, 2015
Last month, Maggie Gyllenhaal told The Wrap, “I’m 37 and I was told recently I was too old to play the lover of a man who was 55.”
In a clip from Amy Schumer’s sketch comedy show, which has been viewed over four million times on YouTube, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, 54, gave sarcastic thanks to Hollywood for letting her stay sexually desirable into her 50s.
Rebel Wilson, 35, tweeted to her over two million followers in response to a brouhaha over allegedly shaving six years off her age: “OMG I’m actually a 100 year old mermaid.”
In what seems to be a flash point in popular culture, women in entertainment are taking on aging in humorous and subversive ways.
“I am so open about my age, when I can remember it,” said Marta Kauffman, 58, a creator of the new show “Grace and Frankie,” starring Jane Fonda, 77, and Lily Tomlin, 75.
The show remains an outlier in a business in which age-blurring starts young. A former MTV writer who asked to remain anonymous (because she may want to keep lying about her age) took a decade off her age when she worked at the network.
“I was in my 40s and told them I was in my 30s because I realized that the corporate culture was informed by the youngest intern, not the 42-year-old mom of a toddler,” she said.
The new hit TV Land series “Younger” follows 40-year-old Liza Miller, who passes for a 26-year-old in order to land a job as an assistant at a publishing firm. While on the surface it may seem that the show is feeding into the youth-obsessed culture, Ms. Miller is played by Sutton Foster, who is also 40. “I didn’t want to cast a woman who was 33 or 34 — that would be too much cheat for the audience to play 26,” Darren Star, the show’s executive producer and director, said in March.
For some, age-claiming is a feminist issue. Suzanne Braun Levine, 74, the first editor of Ms. Magazine, says numeric honesty is a matter of principle.
“Whenever I am with groups of women, I always try to make a point of urging them to be courageous about their age,” she said. “It’s basically a variation on the theme of what has kept the women’s movement moving forward: telling the truth about our lives.”
Ms. Braun Levine said her mother starting lying about her age at 50. “When she died at 94, as far as the world was concerned, she was in her 70s,” she said. And when Ms. Braun Levine’s mother received her Ph.D. from Adelphi University at 82, she was unwilling to take recognition for the being the oldest Ph.D. at the university.
“I just keep thinking what she could have done for women of her generation in terms of making them feel less invisible,” Ms. Braun Levine said.
Age shame, ironically, may dissipate with age. “The people who have the hardest time with aging are the 20- and 30-somethings,” said Ari Seth Cohen, 33, who is the founder of Advanced Style, a popular street-style blog dedicated to women over 60. “They freak out with the first wrinkle under their eyes.”
He credits his grandmother Bluma Levine, who lived to be 95, as the inspiration behind the site. “She made me see aging in a very positive light,” he said.
But even for the most intrepid age claimers, like Ms. Braun Levine, there is a lingering fear about coming clean. “I’m afraid that the age 74 turns off women in their 50s with whom I want to relate to as comrades,” she said. “I worry we have internalized this ageism so much.”
Ultimately, though, what’s the harm in taking part in the female rite of passage of being vague, withholding or just plain dishonest about one’s age?
Those who study and write about ageism say that it’s psychologically damaging. “When we lie about our age, we are distancing ourselves from our future selves,” said Ashton Applewhite, who turns 63 on Saturday and who runs the Tumblr “Yo, Is This Ageist?”
“And then we feed this notion that there is something terrible about aging,” she said. “But aging is living.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/28/style/an-age-old-dilemma-for-women.html
After Full Lives Together, More Older Couples Are Divorcing
ReplyDeleteOCT. 30, 2015
By ABBY ELLIN
…Late-life divorce (also called “silver” or “gray” divorce) is becoming more common, and more acceptable. In 2014, people age 50 and above were twice as likely to go through a divorce than in 1990, according to the National Center for Family and Marriage Research at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. For those over 65, the increase was even higher. At the same time, divorce rates have plateaued or dropped among other age groups.
One explanation is that many older people are in second marriages; the divorce rate is about two and a half times larger for those who have remarried and are often grappling with blended families or greater financial challenges.
Life expectancy also plays a role. In the past, “people died earlier,” said Pepper Schwartz, a professor of sociology at the University of Washington in Seattle, and the love, sex and relationship ambassador for AARP. “Now, let’s say you’re 50 or 60. You could go 30 more years. A lot of marriages are not horrible, but they’re no longer satisfying or loving. They may not be ugly, but you say, ‘Do I really want 30 more years of this?’”
Besides realizing that “adequate” does not suffice, separation no longer holds the stigma it once did. Just look at Al and Tipper Gore, who split in 2010 after 40 years of marriage and four children (they have yet to make it official). Or the Alabama governor Robert Bentley, and his wife, Dianne, who filed for divorce in August, one month after their 50th wedding anniversary.
But perhaps the biggest reason for the increase in late-life divorce is the changing status of women, who initiate about 60 percent of divorces after age 40, according to AARP. This does not mean that the men aren’t disenchanted too. It just means that women actually take the decisive step.
“I think men don’t want to rock the boat, and they’ll put up with a not ideal situation,” said Avivah Wittenberg-Cox, 54, whose marriage dissolved five years ago…“Part of the shift is that now women have been liberated, empowered, moved around, know how to get what they want. They are increasingly breaking up the relationships to find someone else or to be on their own.”
Dr. Schwartz, the sociologist, agrees. “Women have higher expectations for their emotional life,” she said. Dr. Schwartz, 70, has personal insight into the issue: She and her husband divorced 15 years ago. They had been married for 23 years,…
By the time most couples enter their mid- to late-50s, children usually have their own lives, and it becomes painfully clear that their parents don’t need to stay together “for the kids.” …
Many women also feel they should be good role models for their children. “What you are really showing your kids is whether to live for love or for fear,” said Ms. Wittenberg-Cox, who remarried in the spring. “Will you stay because you love what you have or because you fear the unknown? In the end, I chose love. I hope they will, too.”
Beyond the emotional toll, personal economics factor in, both in keeping people in unhappy unions and in inspiring them to check out. Women still earn less than men. Because they also tend to live longer, they face greater economic risk on their own.
Current research by Susan L. Brown, a professor of sociology at Bowling Green, has found that “gray divorced” over-62 women receive smaller Social Security benefits, on average, than other single women and men. And more than a quarter live below the official poverty line.
On the other hand, more than half of women from 55 to 64 are employed, which means they have an independent source of income.
“After retirement, male spouses are around 24/7, the cracks in the relationship deepen into crevasses, and the emotional distance becomes more apparent,” said Julie Schwartz Gottman, a clinical psychologist at the Gottman Institute in Seattle. “As women gain financial independence, they feel safe leaving an unhappy union.”…
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/31/your-money/after-full-lives-together-more-older-couples-are-divorcing.html
Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Gloria Steinem on the Unending Fight for Women’s Rights
ReplyDeleteNOV. 14, 2015
…Ruth Bader Ginsburg …embraced her old friend Gloria Steinem.
…Justice Ginsburg, 82, led Ms. Steinem, 81,…reminisced about their parallel careers and experiences as women, and the work that has made them part of history.
Philip Galanes: Let’s start with a glaring inequity…
When you were young, women couldn’t rent apartments or get credit cards without men. Did you buy into that?
RBG: Gloria went to Smith; I went to Cornell. It was the school for parents who wanted to make sure their girl would find a man. Four guys for every woman. If you came out without a husband, you were hopeless.
PG: Was Smith more enlightened in the early ’50s?
GS: It was a women’s college, but the emphasis was on marriage. Even the Smith president of the era said, “We are educating women because to have educated children, we must have educated mothers.” The idea that women would do something other than produce children was not out there…
PG: Let’s take a step back to your mothers, very different women. R.B.G.’s pushes her; Gloria’s is seriously depressed. Yet these different women raised such independent daughters.
GS: Perhaps we were living out the unlived lives of our mothers….
RBG: My mother…wanted me to be independent. And what she meant was becoming a high school history teacher because she never dreamed there would be other opportunities….
GS: My mother worried about me economically. But my father had inadvertently prepared me well to be a freelance writer by being such a free spirit and never having a regular job…
PG: They didn’t even hide why they were rejecting you?
GS: No. I tried to get a much less prestigious job, at Time magazine. And they made it very clear that women researched, and men wrote. No exceptions, in spite of Clare Boothe Luce.
PG: You remind me of my grandmother’s line: Rejection is the best thing that can happen. It pushes us. There might not be a Ms. magazine or Notorious R.B.G. without it.
GS: …There’s no virtue in injustice…The great thing about obstacles is that they cause you to identify with other groups of people who are facing obstacles…
RBG: It’s a facet of the gay rights movement that people don’t think about enough. Why suddenly marriage equality? Because it wasn’t until 1981 that the court struck down Louisiana’s “head and master rule,” that the husband was head and master of the house. Marriage was a relationship between the dominant, breadwinning husband and the subordinate, child-rearing wife. What lesbian or gay man would want that?
GS: Exactly. Marriage had to change before it could apply to more equal relationships…
PG: Did you decide marriage wasn’t for you?
GS: Absolutely not. I assumed I had to get married. Everybody did. If you didn’t, you were crazy. But I kept putting it off: “I’m going to do it, but not right now.” Until I was in my late 30s and the women’s movement came along, and I realized: I’m happy. Not everyone has to live the same way…
PG: One of the cleverest things you did as a litigator was demonstrate how rigid gender roles harm men as much as women.
RBG: There was an interesting case this court decided in the first year Justice O’Connor was on the bench, about a man who wanted to go to the best nursing school in his area, but it was women-only. You could read between the lines what she understood: There was no better way to raise pay for women in nursing than to get men to do it.
GS: Equal pay for women would be the biggest economic stimulus this country could ever have. Big-time profits are being made from gender roles as they exist. It would also be win-win because female-headed households are where children are most likely to be poor.
PG: Last subject: You are both bridge builders…
GS: … what we want in the future will only happen if we do it every day. So, kindness matters enormously. And empathy. Finding some point of connection.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/15/fashion/ruth-bader-ginsburg-and-gloria-steinem-on-the-unending-fight-for-womens-rights.html
Male And Female Brains Age In Different Ways
ReplyDeleteJANUARY 3, 2016
New research may help explain why particular diseases are more prevalent in men or women as they get older
While there is a large spectrum when it comes to the brain and gender, a new study has found that male brains apparently deteriorate faster than in women in certain areas. This could explain why men are particularly vulnerable to neurological conditions like Parkinson's disease.
What did the study find?
A team of neuroscientists in Hungary compared brain structures of 53 men and 50 women matched by age. They focused on the subcortical structures, which deal with movement and emotional processing, and the thalamus which acts as an information hub - passing signals to different areas of the brain.
In both genders overall brain volume was reduced with advancing age, but the loss of grey matter was more pronounced in men. Furthermore, only in men did two structures, the caudate nucleus and putamen, loss volume with age.
"These findings might have important implications for the interpretation of the effects of unalterable factors (i.e. gender and age) in cross-sectional structural MRI studies"
Why might this be?
A complex interplay of genetics, epigenetics, environmental and hormonal influences means that sex differences are often hard to define when it comes to the brain. While there are many who buck certain trends, previous research has defined some structural variety but we still know relatively little about the aging process in the brain - let alone between genders.
This study defines some key changes that hint at why men have a particular vulnerability to Parkinson's disease, as the subcortical structures are central in movement control. It does not explain why women are generally more vulnerable to Alzheimer's disease. At this point we don't know why these differences occur, but it could well be due to different hormonal exposure as the sex hormones affect a huge range of physiological processes in the body.
"The volume distribution and changes of subcortical structures have been consistently related to several neuropsychiatric disorders (e.g. Parkinson's disease, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, etc.). Understanding these changes might yield further insight in the course and prognosis of these disorders"
http://www.longevityreporter.org/blog/2016/1/3/male-and-female-brains-age-in-different-ways
Male And Female Brains Age In Different Ways
ReplyDeleteJANUARY 3, 2016
New research may help explain why particular diseases are more prevalent in men or women as they get older
While there is a large spectrum when it comes to the brain and gender, a new study has found that male brains apparently deteriorate faster than in women in certain areas. This could explain why men are particularly vulnerable to neurological conditions like Parkinson's disease.
What did the study find?
A team of neuroscientists in Hungary compared brain structures of 53 men and 50 women matched by age. They focused on the subcortical structures, which deal with movement and emotional processing, and the thalamus which acts as an information hub - passing signals to different areas of the brain.
In both genders overall brain volume was reduced with advancing age, but the loss of grey matter was more pronounced in men. Furthermore, only in men did two structures, the caudate nucleus and putamen, loss volume with age.
"These findings might have important implications for the interpretation of the effects of unalterable factors (i.e. gender and age) in cross-sectional structural MRI studies"
Why might this be?
A complex interplay of genetics, epigenetics, environmental and hormonal influences means that sex differences are often hard to define when it comes to the brain. While there are many who buck certain trends, previous research has defined some structural variety but we still know relatively little about the aging process in the brain - let alone between genders.
This study defines some key changes that hint at why men have a particular vulnerability to Parkinson's disease, as the subcortical structures are central in movement control. It does not explain why women are generally more vulnerable to Alzheimer's disease. At this point we don't know why these differences occur, but it could well be due to different hormonal exposure as the sex hormones affect a huge range of physiological processes in the body.
"The volume distribution and changes of subcortical structures have been consistently related to several neuropsychiatric disorders (e.g. Parkinson's disease, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, etc.). Understanding these changes might yield further insight in the course and prognosis of these disorders"
http://www.longevityreporter.org/blog/2016/1/3/male-and-female-brains-age-in-different-ways
Q&A: ASHTON APPLEWHITE ON WHY WE MUST MOBILIZE AGAINST AGEISM
ReplyDelete05/04/2016
ERICA MANFRED
Once in a generation a book comes along that changes the way we think about ourselves and the culture that’s shaping our lives. In the 60s that book was Betty Freidan’s “The Feminine Mystique.” It put into words “the problem that has no name” — the malaise that millions of suburban women were feeling as they polished their kitchen floors, conforming to expectations that doing so was their ultimate fulfillment. In questioning that paradigm, Friedan revealed the personal and political underpinnings of sexism that became central to the feminist critique.
Now comes “This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism,” which might be the book that catapults the dialogue around ageism to center stage.
To what extent is ageism a women’s issue? How is today’s struggle against ageism just the next step in the feminist struggle of the ’60s and ’70s?
I am a card carrying feminist — I have a place on Phyllis Schafly’s enemies list — and I think there is tremendous overlap and an enormous analogy between the women’s movement and the anti-ageism movement.
Consciousness raising was the process through which women compared notes and came to realize that what they’d come to see as a personal problem was a political problem that required collective action. It’s the same with aging — it’s not changing until we work together to change it…
What is it about our society that reinforces ageism?
It’s hugely reinforced by American society’s stress on independence, the go-it-alone mentality. When we’re demoralized or afraid of getting old, we think we should eat more kale, save more money, do more exercise, as if the problem was ours alone. Instead, we could be looking at the entrenched discrimination that isolates us and leaves us without support.
Does ageism affect women more than men?
Yes, it does affect women more than men because of what Susan Sontag called the double standard of aging. Women depreciate while men grow more distinguished. Women experience ageism sooner and more cruelly, but we can also be our own worst enemy by being so judgmental of ourselves and each other.
Because we are judged harshly on looks — and to look older is to look “bad” — we go to great lengths to disguise our age. I understand and acknowledge why women dye their hair and get facelifts — these are really effective ways to not become invisible. But bottom line, it’s like a person of color trying to pass. It’s not good for your self-esteem and it doesn’t do anything to change social problems. By trying to look younger, we’re acknowledging that our older self has less value than our younger self.
I make an analogy to the body acceptance movement. We need to learn to accept ourselves as we are. Social norms are powerful, but the best guarantor of whether you have a good time is how you feel about how you look — that’s what you’re going to project.
Who suffers the most from ageism?
Women whose self-esteem is irrevocably linked to looking and behaving young. But the topic is double edged. Only you should get to say when you will let go of trying to look young. It may be a victory or a defeat, depending on your attitude. I think that denial is a really effective strategy and it works for a long time — until it doesn’t.
If looking good is one of your goals, if there’s self-love in it, great. But I appreciate the older women who speak about being liberated from male gaze. Some women feel they aren’t hostage anymore to what people think or they just don’t give a damn. It’s all what you choose. If you want to hang up your toe shoes and stop trying it’s up to you. I do think it’s important to say how old you are and question any fixed meaning you attach to that number.
http://seniorplanet.org/qa-ashton-applewhite-on-why-we-need-an-anti-ageism-movement/
Thriving at Age 70 and Beyond
ReplyDeleteBy JANE E. BRODY
APRIL 25, 2016 5:45 AM
A recently published book, “70Candles! Women Thriving in Their 8th Decade,” inspired me to take a closer look at how I’m doing as I approach 75 and how I might make the most of the years to come. It would be a good idea for women in my age cohort to do likewise. With a quarter of American women age 65 expected to live into their 90s, there could be quite a few years to think about.
…If I have one fear as the years climb, it’s that I won’t be able to fit in all I want to see and do before my time is up, so I always plan activities while I can still do them.
…As baby boomers age, women in their 70s, already a large group, will represent an increasing proportion of the population, and how to best foster their well-being will be a growing challenge.
What are the most important issues facing these women as they age, and how might society help ease their way into the future? Leading topics the women chose to explore included work and retirement, ageism, coping with functional changes, caretaking, living arrangements, social connections, grandparenting and adjusting to loss and death.
As members of the first generation in which huge numbers of women had careers that defined who they were, deciding when to bow out can be a challenge. Some have no choice, others never want to, and still others like me continue to work part-time. However, sooner or later, most will need to find rewarding activities to fill their now-free time.
The authors reported that “the women seemed to fear retirement before the deed was done, and then to relish their newfound opportunities afterward.” Several warned against rushing into too many volunteer activities, suggesting instead that retirees take time to explore what might be most meaningful and interesting, from taking art classes or music lessons to mentoring students, becoming a docent or starting a new career.
As one woman said, “There are many places where you are needed and can make a difference.” Another said, “It’s more like putting new tires on a car… re-tiring!”
…Still, many lamented society’s focus on youthfulness and its failure to value the wisdom and knowledge of elders like themselves. Ageism abounds, they agreed.
As Ms. Giddan and Ms. Cole wrote, “Our bodies change as we age, even when we eat healthfully, exercise and try to take good care of ourselves. Sight, hearing, bones, joints, balance, mobility, memory, continence, strength and stamina — they will never be what they once were.”
There is also the matter of attending to or accommodating various aches and pains. As one physician reassured a woman of 70, “All my patients your age who are free of pains are dead.” I’m not one to run to the doctor the moment something hurts. Rather, I give it a few weeks — maybe a month — to see if it will go away on its own. Even if fully covered by Medicare, doctor visits cost time and effort, and tests that ensue may have side effects.
Also important as women age are social connections, especially with other women. Whether married, single, widowed or divorced, participants reported that women friends were their greatest source of support and comfort.
Perhaps most important, for men as well as women, is to think positively about aging. A 2002 study by epidemiologists at Yalefound that “individuals with more positive self-perceptions of aging, measured up to 23 years earlier, lived 7.5 years longer than those with less positive perceptions.”
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/04/25/thriving-at-age-70-and-beyond/
Hollywood Legend Olivia de Havilland Sends a Shout Out to Mills in People Magazine
ReplyDeleteOakland, CA–July 01, 2016 Hollywood legend Olivia de Havilland celebrates her 100th birthday today. In next week's issue of People magazine, the two-time Oscar winner opens up about her life, career and romances, saying she is "content with the role that life has given me – a centenarian!"
Asked if there's any advice she'd give to her younger self, she replies, "Take a long leave of absence from the Warner contract and go to Mills College, where the scholarship I had won in 1934 is still waiting for me!"
Credited as a pioneer who took on the studio system and won, the de Havilland Decision of 1944 makes it clear that California law limits to seven years the time an employer can enforce a contract with an employee.
https://www.mills.edu/news/2016/newsstory-07012016-OliviadeHavillandShoutOut.php
The Gray Gender Gap: Older Women Are Likelier to Go It Alone
ReplyDeletePaula Span
THE NEW OLD AGE
OCT. 7, 2016
…Older Americans 2016 …shows, older men are far more likely to be married than older women.
About three-quarters of men ages 65 to 74 are married, compared with 58 percent of women in that age group. More surprisingly, the proportion of men who are married at 75 to 84 doesn’t decline; among women, it drops to 42 percent.
Even among men over 85, nearly 60 percent are married. By that point, only 17 percent of women are.
Life expectancy explains only part of this gap, said Deborah Carr, interim director of the Institute for Health at Rutgers University who has studied marriage and widowhood.
Yes, women tend to live longer and to marry men older than themselves, so they’re more likely to be widowed.
The other factor, though, is that “men are much more likely to remarry than women,” Dr. Carr said. With 2.55 women for every man among unmarried people over age 65, and 3.27 unmarried women for every unmarried man over 85, “a man who wants to remarry has a very large pool.”
At older ages, these differences can have significant repercussions.
Consider living arrangements. Among people over 75, the report points out, 23 percent of men live alone. For women, the figure is twice as high.
Healthy, solvent people can flourish on their own…
…Alicia Munnell, director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, has calculated poverty rates based on the federal Current Population Survey. Her findings: About 8 percent of married older adults are poor or “near poor.” Among unmarried men, the percentage rises to about 20 percent. For unmarried women, it’s 27 percent.
... because “women are the health experts within families,” the ones who arrange doctor’s appointments and monitor medications and diets. “When men lose that, they suffer the health consequences.”
… maybe women fill nursing homes not only because they’re ailing and need care, but also because they’re more apt to be single.
Unmarried Alzheimer’s patients, for instance, enter nursing homes significantly sooner than married ones, according to a study led by Susan Miller, a gerontologist and epidemiologist at Brown University.
… many older women flower after widowhood and grief.
… older women have a not-so-secret weapon: stronger social ties…
Cohort changes may eventually torpedo a lot of these gender and marital differences. The divorce rate among those over 50, known as “gray divorce,”has doubled since 1990, for instance. Since the divorced are more likely to remarry or cohabit than widows or widowers, we could see a lower percentage of older adults living alone in coming years.
A host of other sociocultural changes, from less stigma about divorce to more women in the work force, could also play out as boomers and their children age.
…race and ethnicity also play significant roles. Older African-Americans and Hispanics are more likely to face financial burdens regardless of marital status…
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/11/health/marital-status-elderly-health.html
Iconic Photographer Peter Lindbergh Talks ’90s Supermodels, Aging and Why He Loves Instagram
ReplyDeleteCady Lang
Sept. 6, 2016
"Beauty is about sensibility, is about emotions, all these elements are more important than perfection and youth. Why should you be young?"
Now, with over four decades to his credit as one of the world’s most pursued photographers, Lindbergh is returning to one of the most coveted gigs in the fashion industry — shooting the annual Pirelli calendar…
TIME: This is your third time shooting the Pirelli calendar — what will you be doing differently now than you have in the past?
Peter Lindbergh: Pirelli told me, “You don’t have to do nudity,” which was nice because I think it’s pretty boring to do these calendars with nudity all the time. And then I thought, this is a possibility for me to show how beauty should be treated today because beauty today has been kidnapped by commerce. And we start to believe that all these magazine pictures of women and clothes are beautiful. And I don’t think so. Or these over-retouched monsters, they all want to be perfect. I mean, no one is interested now in anything interesting or intelligent that is beauty. They just think beauty is perfect and everyone does the same thing. So I thought I would take women everybody knows, actresses, in a very sensible way, and show that beauty is about that sensibility, is about emotions, all these elements are more important than perfection and youth.
People think feminine is when you retouch everything you ever saw out of your face and then you look great. So that was the idea of the calendar to be like, “Hey guys, is that really beauty?” I don’t think it is. And I know that it is not. That was the mission.
You’re known for capturing the world’s most famous faces. Do you ever get star struck by beauty?
No, that is one of my qualities — not star struck, not impressed. Not at all. It has not always been like that. That’s great now that I’m older. When you are old, and you can achieve something like that, you can go anywhere you want and you don’t try to impress yourself or anybody…
You talk a lot about wanting to show vulnerability and aging as a part of the wide range of beauty. Do you also feel a responsibility to capture diversity as a part of that range, especially when it comes to the people that you are casting?
In general, yes. But for the calendar, I thought it might be better not to show all the facets of femininity, vulnerability, because it’s so hidden. The rest is all re-touched and the perfection terrorizes the world. That need for perfection is the most fickle thing. But it’s a great weapon for commerce. To make people believe that that is beautiful because who doesn’t want to be beautiful? I mean I would, but it is too much effort. Someone with commercial interests tries to make you believe that perfection is beautiful. But perfection is an insult.
So many of the girls that are being booked right now in fashion have big Instagram followings. How do you see your work interacting in the digital age now?
I love Instagram! For certain reasons only though — as long as you don’t use it to show the world for instance, that you have dinner with Brad Pitt. If you have something you want to say, you can reach people you would never be able to before. But to be measured in followers, that’s one of those ridiculous things because that’s again the unsensible idea of one being important, following someone. There are many reasons why someone might follow you. If you have a great butt and you show it all the time, you might have a lot of followers but it doesn’t mean anything. If you are an artist and you think you are a great artist because you have a lot of followers, then Justin Bieber would be the Leonardo DaVinci of today. So forget about the followers.
http://time.com/4477101/peter-lindbergh-pirelli-2017/
SEE UNRETOUCHED PHOTOS OF NICOLE KIDMAN, UMA THURMAN & MORE FOR THE 2017 PIRELLI CALENDAR
ReplyDeleteHollywood's A-list goes au natural for Peter Lindbergh.
By Chrissy Rutherford
Nov 29, 2016
For the second year in a row, Pirelli eschewed their usual, sexed up look for their 44th annual calendar. Last year, Annie Leibovitz was tasked with taking the project in a new direction—casting inspiring women of all ages, …
This year, Peter Lindbergh became the first photographer to shoot three Pirelli calendars. His 2017 also marks another first for "The Cal", as the images have not been retouched…All the women featured were tasked with sharing their natural beauty for the black and white calendar which he has titled "Emotional".
After talks with Pirelli, Lindbergh, who often speaks out against photographers overuse of retouching, asked to use the calendar to make a statement about beauty today. "Beauty is just commercial interest, as you see in magazines, women are washed out from every experience. That's just the opposite of what I wanted. These are the most talented women that I admire in the entire world. They are emotional and I wanted to show that," Lindbergh said during the official press conference in Paris today.
The legendary fashion photographer was joined by three of the calendar subjects, Helen Mirren, Nicole Kidman and Uma Thurman at Hotel Salomon de Rothschild. "It's dangerous, we are used to such spectacular images—amazing locations, incredible lighting, airbrushing—and we're going away from that," Mirren said during the calendar unveiling. "Let's find the amazing in something that is simple, human and real. It's dangerous because our eyes need to become re-educated. We're used to digital-enhanced images, let's go back to the simple truth of humanity."
The new calendar is a call to return to natural beauty—a return to real women. All the subjects featured were photographed between California, New York, London, France and Berlin over two months—there was little makeup, hair styling, and wardrobe. All the women put their trust in Lindbergh, whose career has spanned 40+ years, to bring out their best. "We all have our red carpet face, but to drop that and be comfortable—it takes a great master like Peter to get you to do that," Mirren explained at the press conference today. "It's an incredible honor to be included," Uma Thurman added, debuting a new brunette 'do, "I have two daughters, and a son, I think it's equally important for men to see their mother aging and being herself. Human empowerment has been opened up."
During the press conference, the conversation turned to how to help empower girls of today's generation— and how Lindbergh's work challenges the standard of beauty we see in magazines. Lindbergh feels his role is to free women from the idea of eternal youth and perfection. Nicole Kidman spoke of the difficulties in raising young girls, and boys, "The advice my mother gave me was to never let anyone break your spirit. But also the importance of building of confidence— how does somebody view something as a mole hill rather than a mountain? I'm very interested in adversity, and how you survive that. All the women in this calendar, we're women of all different facets. The calendar is physical, so what are you building inside? It's about the journey." Lindbergh and his subjects all hope to spark the cultural conversation on what real beauty looks like. "Look at this Pirelli calendar," Mirren said, "the reality is we live, we love, we continue, that's the role of women. It is very difficult, for young girls nowadays, incredibly challenging. The only way we can help them along the way is to say, life goes on a long time. You will be many things in your lifetime."
http://www.harpersbazaar.com/fashion/photography/news/a19100/nicole-kidman-uma-thurman-julianne-more-unretouched-pirelli-calendar-2017/
I Am (an Older) Woman. Hear Me Roar.
ReplyDeleteNancy Pelosi, Glenn Close, Susan Zirinsky of CBS: The news has been filled with powerful women over 60.
By Jessica Bennett
Jan. 8, 2019
When Susan Zirinsky takes over CBS News in March, she will be the first woman…also be the oldest person to assume the role, at 66.
Her appointment was announced just days after Nancy Pelosi, 78, was re-elected Speaker of the House of Representatives — making her the most powerful elected woman in United States history — and Representative Maxine Waters became the first woman and African-American to lead the Financial Services Committee, at age 80.
News of Ms. Zirinsky’s ascension broke on the same evening that 71-year-old Glenn Close bested four younger women to win the Golden Globe for best actress.
It seems that older women, long invisible or shunted aside, are experiencing an unfamiliar sensation: power.
There are more women over 50 in this country today than at any other point in history, according to data from the United States Census Bureau. Those women are healthier, are working longer and have more income than previous generations.
…Men, of course, have led major organizations well into their seventh and even eighth decades, retaining their power and prominence. But the #MeToo movement has toppled some high-profile males, from 77-year-old Charlie Rose to Les Moonves, 69, who was ousted as head of CBS after multiple allegations of sexual misconduct, creating unexpected openings for the elevation of women.
…Susan Douglas, a professor of communication studies at the University of Michigan who is writing a book on the power of older women, said “a demographic revolution” was occurring — both in the number of women who are working into their 60s and 70s and in the perception, in the wake of #MeToo, of their expertise and value…
In 2016, the average life span of women in the United States was 81.1, compared with men’s 76.1. Nearly a third of women aged 65 to 69 are now working, up from 15 percent in the late 1980s, according to recent analyses by the Harvard economists Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz. Some 18 percent of women aged 70 to 74 work, up from 8 percent.
Interestingly, working longer is more common among women with higher education and savings — while those who are not working are more likely to have poor health and low savings and to be dependent on Social Security.
Christiane Amanpour, 60,…who replaced Mr. Rose on PBS last year and turns 61 this week. “…I’m 60 and a whole other chapter of my life is opening.’”
…a 2017 study from the University of Southern California found that just 2.6 percent of the speaking roles in 25 films nominated for best picture were women older than 60
…Katie Couric, the longtime news anchor, who celebrated her 62nd birthday this week…
Older women have long been expected to “fade into the background,” as the scholar Joan C. Williams put it — considered so far past their sexual prime that they were almost invisible.
…In her book, “The Beauty Bias,” Deborah Rhode, a Stanford law professor, explained that while silver hair and furrowed brows made aging men look “distinguished,” aging women risked marginalization or ridicule for their efforts to pass as young.
…according to one analysis, by Time, male actors hit their professional peak at 46, while female actors top out at 30.
And while more people over 65 — almost 20 percent — are still working than at any other point since the 1960s, according to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, even when America’s jobless rate was close to full employment it was women over 50 who were having the hardest time finding work.
…“What the women’s movement did was develop generations of strong women,” said Representative Donna Shalala, Democrat of Florida, who became the oldest freshman in her House class when she took office a little over a month before her 78th birthday…
“I’ve embraced every birthday … what’s the alternative, bitch and moan?” Gayle King, 64, a co-anchor of “CBS This Morning,”…
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/08/style/women-age-glenn-close.html
Tree Scientist Inspires Next Generation ... Through Barbie
ReplyDeleteOctober 18, 2019
Madeline K. Sofia, Maia Stern, Becky Harlan
When Nalini Nadkarni was a young scientist in the 1980s, she wanted to study the canopy – the part of the trees just above the forest floor to the very top branches.
But back then, people hadn't figured out a good way to easily reach the canopy so it was difficult to conduct research in the tree tops. And Nadkarni's graduate school advisors didn't really think studying the canopy was worthwhile. "…
They couldn't have been more wrong. Over the course of her career, Nadkarni's work has illuminated the unique and complex world of the forest canopy.
She helped shape our understanding of canopy soils — a type of soil that forms on the tree trunks and branches. The soil is made up of dead canopy plants and animals that decompose in place. The rich soil supports canopy-dwelling plants, insects and microorganisms that live their entire life cycles in the treetops. If the canopy soil falls to the forest floor, the soil joins the nutrient cycles of the whole forest.
She also discovered that some trees are able to grow above-ground roots from their branches and trunks. Much like below ground roots, the aerial roots can transport water and nutrients into the tree.
During Nadkarni's early work as an ecologist she began to realize something else: There weren't many women conducting canopy research.
Nadkarni was determined to change this. In the early 2000s, she and her lab colleagues came up with the idea of TreeTop Barbie, a canopy researcher version of the popular Barbie doll that could be marketed to young girls.
She pitched the idea to Mattel, the company that makes Barbie. "When I proposed this idea they said, 'We're not interested. That has no meaning to us," says Nadkarni. "We make our own Barbies."
Nadkarni decided to make them herself anyway. She thrifted old Barbies; commissioned a tailor to make the clothes for TreeTop Barbie; and she created a TreeTop Barbie field guide to canopy plants. Nadkarni sold the dolls at cost and brought TreeTop Barbie to conferences and lectures.
Her efforts landed her in the pages of The New York Times, and word eventually got back to Mattel. The owners of Barbie wanted her to shut down TreeTop Barbie due to brand infringement.
Nadkarni pushed back.
"Well you know, I know a number of journalists who would be really interested in knowing that Mattel is trying to shut down a small, brown woman who's trying to inspire young girls to go into science," she recalls telling Mattel.
Mattel relented. The company allowed her to continue her small-scale operation. By Nadkarni's count, she sold about 400 dolls over the years.
Then in 2018, more than a decade after Nadkarni started TreeTop Barbie, she got an unbelievable phone call. National Geographic had partnered with Mattel to make a series of Barbies focused on exploration and science. And they wanted Nadkarni to be an advisor.
…Nadkarni knows that everyone might not approve of her working with Barbie. Barbie's role in creating an unrealistic standard of beauty for young women has been debated. Nadkarni has also wrestled with how she feels about it.
"My sense is yes she's a plastic doll. Yes she's configured in all the ways that we should not be thinking of how women should be shaped," says Nadkarni. "But the fact that now there are these explorer Barbies that are being role models for little girls so that they can literally see themselves as a nature photographer, or an astrophysicist, or an entomologist or you know a tree climber... It's never perfect. But I think it's a step forward."
https://www.npr.org/2019/09/22/762385293/video-tree-scientist-inspires-next-generation-through-barbie
NYT columnist who gives ‘women of a certain age’ their due coming to S.F.
ReplyDeleteBY PATRICIA CORRIGAN | OCTOBER 21, 2019
When it comes to women of a certain age making the most of life, Gail Collins’ credentials are impeccable. A political columnist for the New York Times, Collins, 73, also is the author of three books on the history of women.
Collins will bring some of their stories about aging —and some of her own — to town on Thursday, Oct. 24 when she will speak at the JCC of San Francisco about her new book, “No Stopping Us Now: The Adventures of Older Women in American History.”
…“No Stopping Us Now” pays tribute to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Susan Sontag, Bella Abzug, Betty Friedan and other notable Jewish leaders in thought, word and deed. Funny as well as informative, Collins’ book also honors other older women in America who “figured out how to get around what seemed like fixed social deadlines for being a valuable part of society.”
All women, Collins says, must be grateful for the way those deadlines keep getting pushed back, writing that today, “You can recreate yourself at 65 — go back to college or move to Cambodia or start a commune.”
In an interview with J., Collins suggested that women thriving in their later years is not a recent development. “This whole vision of women moving forward is not new. Early in this country, women knew how to grow food and raise chickens, and this women’s economy brought in money that helped keep the household going,” she said.
You can recreate yourself at 65 — go back to college or move to Cambodia or start a commune.
“Today, women have economic power, too, [and] investments, and that has helped to wipe away the age thing. If you have an economic function, you’re great. Of course, that’s true whether you’re female or male, gay or straight, Catholic or Jewish.”
Collins’ book highlights Mary Fields, the first African American postal worker in the U.S. In the 1880s, Fields delivered mail in Montana, driving a horse and wagon part of the year and strapping on snowshoes when the weather was bad. Collins writes of another Mary as well, recalling that Mary Tyler Moore’s TV character in the 1970s was described by the media of the time as a “30-year-old spinster.”
Anne Pollard also is featured in this book. Pollard is said to have been the first woman to set foot in the new settlement of Boston, in 1630, and she lived for more than a century. Also spotlighted is 98-year-old Betty Reid Soskin, a national park ranger (the nation’s oldest) at the Rosie the Riveter Visitor Center in Richmond, although she’s been off the job since mid-September after suffering a stroke.
Collins, employing a sharp wit, also tracks the history of corsets, the Equal Rights Amendment and hormone-replacement therapy. She describes how women have reimagined the “change of life” for the better. And the book cites many famous feminists past and present.
Collins’ earlier books on related topics include “America’s Women: 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates and Heroines” and “When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present,” and she has also written “As Texas Goes: How the Lone Star State Hijacked the American Agenda” and “Scorpion Tongues: Gossip, Celebrity and American Politics.”
Writing about women in history is “one of the most fun things I’ve done,” she said. “I’d always read about different women’s lives through history. I think that’s interesting. It’s also been interesting to hear from younger women who have grown up empowered. So many didn’t realize that, at one time, our only career options were teacher or mother. Telling stories about the women who challenged that is still a pleasure.”
https://www.jweekly.com/2019/10/21/nyt-columnist-who-gives-women-of-a-certain-age-their-due-coming-to-s-f/
https://www.jccsf.org/events/arts-ideas/ondemand/2019-2020-season/gail-collins/
They survived the Spanish flu, the Depression and the Holocaust
ReplyDeleteGinia Bellafante, New York Times
Tuesday, March 31, 2020
NEW YORK — For most of us, it is almost impossible to comprehend the ferocity and regularity with which life was upended during the first half of the 20th century. Plague and conflict emerged on an epic scale, again and again. Loss and restriction were routine; disaster was its own season.
At 101, Naomi Replansky, a poet and labor activist, has endured all of it. Born in her family’s apartment on East 179th Street in the Bronx in May 1918, her arrival in the world coincided with the outset of the Spanish flu.
…Until a polio vaccine came into use in the 1950s, outbreaks occurred somewhere in the country nearly every spring. Public gatherings were regularly canceled; wealthy people in big cities left for the country.
…Later, when she was 12, her 15-year-old brother developed mastoiditis. In the absence of antibiotics to treat it, he died quickly of what is essentially an ear infection.
Two weekends ago, as New Yorkers were absorbing the enormity of the current crisis, Naomi and her 95-year-old wife, Eva Kollisch, were at home in their one-bedroom apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, listening to Marian Anderson on vinyl. The album was “Spirituals’’ and they were tended to by one of their regular aides.
They were not unsettled.
“Confinement doesn’t bother me,” Naomi wrote me in an email. “My shaky frame can handle more confinement.”
Naomi and Eva were introduced by Grace Paley at a reading of her work in the 1980s. They were well past middle age, long after the tragedies and social disruptions of the previous decades had touched them each with such intimacy. When catastrophe is sequential, it eventually trains its survivors to greet terror with the serenity of the enlightened.
Both Eva and Naomi experienced anti-Semitism at a young age…During her childhood in the Bronx, Naomi was privy to the fascist radio broadcasts of Father Coughlin, which were always emanating from the open windows of East Tremont during the summer. Her grandparents had escaped the pogroms in Russia, coming to America at the turn of the century when the habits of immigrants — considered filthy and ignorant — were continually blamed for the spread of disease.
The first of Eva’s own upheavals came with war…in 1939, she fled via the Kindertransport,…Eva and her brothers were dispersed to different homes while their parents stayed behind. In 1940, the family escaped the Holocaust and reunited in America, landing in Staten Island, New York.
By then Eva’s parents had lost everything…
Throughout their lives, Naomi and Eva have exhibited a kind of fearlessness ably nurtured by misfortune. After she graduated from high school in New York, Eva went to Detroit to work in an auto factory…In the evenings, she was a labor organizer for a Trotskyite group. She hitchhiked across the country.
Naomi graduated from high school at the height of the Depression, in 1934. For years she worked in offices, on assembly lines and as a lathe operator before she summoned the resources to go to the University of California, Los Angeles. She was an early computer programmer. Her first collection of poetry, published in 1952, was nominated for a National Book Award…
Sexism and homophobia made their inevitable intrusions. Eva’s mother thought that she should run a hotel or a beauty parlor. But Eva was fiercely ambitious for a certain kind of urbane, cerebral life. Eventually she became a professor of comparative literature at Sarah Lawrence College. She married two men. She had a son with one of them. She was a lover of Susan Sontag’s.
Until the emergence of the coronavirus, Eva and Naomi were out often. On most days they took long walks…
They find themselves longing for what has been lost more than they dread whatever might come, and they worry more for their “generation,” as Naomi put it, than they do for themselves… https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/They-Survived-the-Spanish-Flu-the-Depression-and-15168387.php