Secret Paths: Women in the New Midlife

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W. W. Norton & Company, Jan 7, 1997 - Self-Help - 348 pages
Drawing on detailed interviews with women in their forties and fifties, Apter finds that women in midlife undergo a series of changes through which they develop a newly powerful sense of their own identity. She sees midlife as a time when women gain greater control over their decisions and a strengthened sense of their potential. While other writers have seen midlife for women as a time dominated by biological changes associated with menopause, Apter looks at midlife passage through women's psychology. She debunks the myths associated with women's fear of aging and decreased attractiveness. Though this once was thought to cause anxiety and depression, Apter finds that women deliberately negotiate an acceptance of who they are physically, and resist cultural images that marginalize them. While "midlife crisis" for some men is associated with a last-ditch attempt to hold on to their youth, for women it is an attempt to refocus their energies for the future.
 

Contents

Acknowledgments
7
Introduction Crisis of a New Breed
17
Redefining Beauty
49
Changing
78
Plans
112
Expanding Horizons
150
Menopause
201
the Way Ahead
218
Adult
270
Passing It On
301
Epilogue
315
Notes
321
References
339
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About the author (1997)

Terri Apter is a writer, psychologist, and retired Fellow of Newnham College, Cambridge. Her ten books include The Sister Knot, Difficult Mothers, and What Do You Want from Me? She lives in Cambridge, England.

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