THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, May 14, 1995 TAG: 9505100664
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BY PATRICIA A. ELLER
LENGTH: Medium: 84 lines
LIVES OF OUR OWN
Secrets of Salty Old Women
CAROLINE BIRD
Houghton Mifflin. 338 pp. $21.95.
MY FEAR OF AGING took a nose dive after reading journalist Caroline Bird's Lives of Our Own: Secrets of Salty Old Women, but she might have shot herself in the foot with her whimsical subtitle. As Bird herself reports, few Americans want to be labeled ``old,'' including elderly people.
The ``secrets'' here cover a spectrum of topics, and the most important is one shared by an active 84-year-old: ``You do not grow old. You become old by not growing.''
Bird, author of the classic Born Female and most recently Second Careers: New Ways to Work After Fifty, showcases a diversity of inspiring women. Over 55 and mostly divorced or widowed, they determined what they wanted, set goals, went back to school when necessary and overcame adversity. They ignored the all-American dictum that ``old is ugly.''
Bird's tales suggest that, in the jargon of psychologists, fulfilled older women draw their sense of worth from their self-definition and develop themselves accordingly. Women who tend to age desperately include ``women who have staked their identity on attracting men.'' The supermarket checkout comes to mind with its cruel tabloid photos of Elizabeth Taylor.
But brainy achievers may suffer from misplaced ego, too. Consider this anecdote about the wealthy, still-glamorous editor of Cosmopolitan magazine. Married to a movie mogul who encouraged her to write the 1962 best seller Sex and the Single Girl, 73-year-old Helen Gurley Brown ``was devastated when a Broadway producer ambled up while she was chatting with a pretty young singer and then addressed himself exclusively to the younger woman. . . Brown. . . considered burning the new red Oscar de la Renta dress she was wearing and decided instead to consult a shrink for advice on how to cope with the new situation.''
It may be painful, but poetic justice that Brown fell victim to the youth cult pap she peddled in the pages of Cosmo. When Betty Friedan launched the women's movement in 1963 with The Feminine Mystique, she indicted women's magazines, among others, for conspiring to suppress female aspirations beyond the bedroom and the kitchen.
In Lives of Our Own Bird seeks to identify nontraditional roles that enrich women in maturity. She focuses mainly on women who worked past retirement age - some through necessity.
Those with infirmities overcame them. Some found new loves - including younger men. For all the women, self-empowerment and freedom of choice were key to their contentment. (Mirabile dictu, in that regard older women resemble people in general!)
Bird concedes, however, that her midlife ``pioneers'' do not constitute a representative sample, particularly in income and education. Therefore, in the second half of her book, she reviews ``obstacles that keep most older women down,'' primarily discrimination and exploitation.
Bird cites the huge amount of volunteer work that older women do, saving U.S. organizations billions of dollars annually. Many who cannot find paying work sacrifice the need for extra income to their hunger to be useful. The author comments wryly, ``[I]f working without pay is good for you, why don't we encourage young people to do it?''
Now 80, Bird takes aim, too, at health care, including the practice of overmedicating older women. One study finds that 15 percent of the elderly women admitted to a state hospital were suffering from drug toxicities ``misdiagnosed as senility or mental illness.''
Lives of Our Own is chockablock with ideas and helpful hints. While the author flounders occasionally in unproved generalities and data cited without source, she shatters stereotype by outthinking and outwriting most people half her age.
By shining the spotlight on a fast-growing sector of the population, Bird sparks us to change our attitudes. Women of all ages can profit from this book. As Bird implies, the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
- MEMO: Patricia A. Eller is a demographic and business analyst who lives in
Norfolk. ILLUSTRATION: Jacket design by MICHAELA SULLIVAN
Jacket photo by MARIANNE GONTARZ
by CNB