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Female Boomers as conscientious objectors
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As a leading-edge lady Baby Boomer born in the early 1950s, I live to discuss, analyze and wax poetic on all that goes into being une femme d’une certaine age (a woman of indeterminate age) in the 21st century.
Barack Obama has nothing on the postwar era women when it comes to change, so let’s back up a bit. After World War II, women who had tasted life outside dishes, laundry and scraped knees by working in the new industrial military effort were profusely thanked for the service they gave to their country in a time of need. Then they were summarily told to get back where they belonged so that men could once again dominate the income-producing world.
Some women went happily while others would never be the same again, trying to perpetually penetrate the glass ceiling so long put into place by the nation’s male breadwinners. Many of us were spawned from that great generation, but our mothers knew all too well that our lives would not be mirror images of their own.
In the 1960s, hemlines went up and bras came off for a while (until we realized we looked so much better with them on) signaling our break from convention. We began to engorge the ranks of those going off to college. Older relatives may have joked that we were only getting higher education to procure our “MRS” degrees. But we knew great change was at hand and that an education would somehow give us an edge in the decades to come.
Many of us did what we were programmed to do even as late as the 1970s and early 1980s, settling on a “Mr. Right” or even a “Mr. Right Now” in order to outpace our biological clocks. At least half of us were unwittingly headed for divorce while a good percentage of those that stayed married did so to preserve the family unit. True, some got lucky the first time around, finding soul mates and lifetime companions as well, making them the success stories used in marriage studies for years to come.
What we Boomers, unlike many of our mothers have discovered however, is that to age is not to “give in” to what is expected of us any longer. It’s not about the angst of growing older; it is, rather about celebrating a time when our confidence grows, gaining a more solid sense of who we are.
Within the pages of her little book, Raging Gracefully, editor Jennifer “Gin” Sander, compiled a collection of stories (including one of my own), as it says on the cover: about smart women on life, love and coming into your own. This, like many other female-empowering books on our nation’s bookshelves, tells tales of wisdom borne of the uniquely feminine experience.
And while we refuse to ignore both the internal benefits and external assistance of a good wrinkle cream, a strategic shot of Restalyne, or a boob lift along the way, we will do what suits our fancies and or/our budgets no matter how others see us.
When we see images of famous women in their 50s, 60s and beyond these days, we no longer see the matrons depicted in old Hollywood movies with rounded bellies, orthopedic shoes, and modest dresses. We see knockout women like Sophia Loren, Lauren Hutton, Helen Mirren, Sally Field, Raquel Welch, and Jacqueline Smith, who unashamedly have no fear about showing off every asset as well as their well-earned laughs lines. We hear about middle-aged women competing in the Olympics, running marathons in their 80s and redefining what it looks and sounds like to be grandmothers and great grandmothers.
As Sander defiantly says in her book’s introduction, “Red hats and purple dresses? Oh please, ladies! We can rage more gracefully that that! I’m counting on a well-cut black dress and a very dry martini to see me through the next few decades.”
I couldn’t agree more.
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