Suzanne Braun Levine has just released a new book in the States called 50 is the new Fifty, which encourages the thought that life is just terrific for women in their fifties and sixties so long as they don’t waste time trying to look and act as if they were a whole lot younger.
She states on her website that “The assumption is that youth-or at least younger- is the ideal state and that, given a choice, no women in her right mind would relinquish it. I have found the opposite to be true. Many of us delight in rejecting that backward looking mindset of Fifty is the new 30”. Here at The Women’s Room we can certainly see the sense of this thinking after having seen too many pictures of a truly terrifying looking Madonna seemingly going backwards (visually) with her age.
Levine has some very glamourous support in the form of Jane Fonda, Isabella Rossellini and Gloria Steinman who are discussing the book at the bookstore Barnes & Noble in New York today (one for our American readers). Gloria Steinman came up with one of our favourite quotes on being older when she was told by a reporter just after her 40th birthday that she didn’t look her age, “This is what 40 looks like” Steinman replied “we’ve been lying for so long, who knew?” The event is hosted by our new favourite magazine More, which we mentioned in a previous posting.
We haven’t read this book as it is only available in the States currently, but we like the idea that we should chill a little over the pressures of always looking younger. Sure we should still take care of ourselves, love our clothes and want to look and feel great, but that does not mean we have to emulate youth. Why bother? We’ve got so much else to get on with and enjoy without chasing the impossible.
We’re always banging on about how this generation of women is redefining what it is to be an older woman at The Women’s Room and it’s not about looking backwards towards what’s been and is never coming back, it’s about appreciating today and breaking a few rules going forward.
Ms Levine’s website is a good substitute for the lack of book availabilty for our non US readers (and “hello!” to our readers in Argentina and Ukraine, by the way) so take a browse and get inspired. (We loved Isabella Rossellini’s Green Porn film by the way).
Suzanne Braun Levine 50 is the New Fifty
