Fascinating, and a great read. Personally, I wish overall that Collins had devoted more ink to 20th and 21st centuries, and less to those preceding. Anecdotes about first ladies Eleanor Roosevelt and Betty Ford were wonderful and enlightening. ( )

Great look at feminist American history with lots of interesting facts and historical figures. ( )

Gail Collins marches the reader through women's history in the United States from colonial times to the present, with particular attention to older women (the definition of "middle age" has changed with life expectancy), and always with her wonderfully dry, understated sense of humor. Clearly, it has been a long fight and it remains unfinished.

Quotes

The Colonies

...an important rule in American history: when there aren't enough people, outsiders who wouldn't normally get a chance to shine are suddenly in demand. (10)

The 1800s Arrive

The Revolution had brought a spirit of out-with-the-old that extended to more than governments. (31)

...motherhood was glorified to make up for all the other things that had been cut out of [women's] portfolio. (31)

Perhaps the moral here is that if you have money, you can afford to ignore social rules. [Eliza Jumel, widow of Aaron Burr] (40)

Mid-1800s

That was the catch: the world might be willing to accept older women taking greater roles in public life. But nobody thought they should dodge the responsibility of caring for aged relatives. So a lot of gifted, ambitious women wound up getting stuck....[Louisa May] Alcott wrote in her diary that she would "never live my own life." (58)

1920s

The attitude toward the unmarried is one of the critical markers that determine how well women of any age will fare in society....Another marker is whether women who do get married can also have careers. (124)

1970s

"the media are still male-dominated, with the male ego as the retina" (Caryl Rivers, NYT) (250)

1980s

...men had almost all the advantages, except for longevity and self-sufficiency. [retirement communities] (257)

The 21st Century

"men are judging women by beauty more than women are judging men by looks. And the standard of beauty is a youth-based beauty." (Paula England, NYU sociology professor, 293)

Onward and Upward

...due to a Supreme Court ruling in 2000...state employers do not have to pay damages to people they've discriminated against on the basis of age. (308)

When women fought for a future in which age didn't matter, nobody talked much about whether there would be enough room at the top for everybody who deserved to be there. (314)

But this is still America, and wherever there's money, there's eventually going to be attention. [Marketing attention to Boomer women vs. 20-something males, 320) ( )

This was ok but not great. Collins does a survey of how "older" women have been treated by society and how they've viewed themselves from colonial times to the present. As with any book trying to cast such a wide net, she only touches the surface of the issues. Really, once she got to about the 1950s I lost interest. There wasn't enough depth to tell me anything I didn't already know. I was also annoyed that her focus was almost exclusively on women in politics or entertainment.

This was sort of a gag gift from a friend of mine. We are both in our 40s now and joke about the start of aging. So it was fun, but I wouldn't really recommend it. ( )