Declining to Decline

Cultural Combat and the Politics of the Midlife

Author: Margaret Morganroth Gullette
ISBN: 9780813917214

"In Declining to Decline: Cultural Combat and the Politics of the Midlife, Margaret Morganroth Gullette argues that aging in America is a culturally constructed disease with an adolescent exposure and a midlife onset. Targeting men as well as women, our culture pressures us to shed youthful attributes and optimism about the future. This, she says, constitutes the "middle crisis" of our time - not a private psychological condition but a collective problem. Even our reactions have been channeled: buying remedies, telling stories of self-hating nostalgia, feeling envy of youth, alienation from the elderly, and fearing fifty. Gullette asks us to open our eyes to this manipulation and to resist it." "This controversial call to arms is part autobiography, part cultural commentary, part theory, and part passion. In moving, skeptical, funny stories Gullette reflects on her childhood revenge fantasies, her political anguish, the early diagnosis of her arthritis, the rifts between midlife mother

Publisher: University Press of Virginia
Publish Date: 1997

Subjects: Social Science / Gerontology

This book is available in the following Community Centers: Women's Center (Location: Mid-life/Older Women)