"Read this book, ladies, and let’s get very, very busy."
"In Our Prime is a highly evocative—and necessary—work that exposes the invasive roots of ageism in today’s world. A call-to-action for wise women of all ages, it demands that no woman be viewed as an irrelevant ‘has-been.’ With unassailable documentation, Douglas invites women into an honest, stark review of historical and current issues that affect every female’s optimal well-being. Douglas illuminates the need for today’s women to intensify their engagement in creating standards that rise above sexism and ageism."
"Susan Douglas’s fierce, funny, engaging book sent me off to Google Maggie Kuhn, the over-fifty warrior who challenged negative ideas about older women at the dawn of Second Wave feminism. Douglas thinks older women are due to rise up again—arm in arm with sisters across the generational divide—and I am ready to storm the barricades with them. I was alarmed by Douglas’s startling-yet-nonhyperbolic depictions of gendered ageism—as well as real threats to Medicare and Social Security. In Our Prime is not just for older women—or exclusively for women. In droll, lively, exhaustively documented prose, it exposes the threat that market fundamentalism poses to people across the economic spectrum."
"A skilled and stirring call… to confront the ‘double helix of ageism and sexism.’"
"Susan J. Douglas has managed to combine an unstinting but often hilarious media critique with a social analysis of feminism that is as astute as it is inspirational. There’s simply no other feminist writer who is able to take our culture apart with such good humor."
"In this rollicking, riveting celebration of lifespan feminism, Douglas critiques the gendered ageism of Big Pharma, cosmetics-pushers, and Hollywood, savages mansplaining statistics, and urges boomer women to take to the barricades to safeguard the nation’s social and financial safety net. In Our Prime is personal, powerful, and persuasive. A must-read."
"A feminist intervention, a call to reclaim women’s aging as a social movement and harness their voices, experience, and wisdom toward social change…forward-thinking and hopeful."
Bitch Media - Andi Zeisler
"Douglas, a master at powerfully marshaling anecdotes, statistics, and words, asks women to push back and support each other."
"[It is] impossible to deny the political, economic and cultural potential of what Douglas describes as an incipient demographic revolution…Douglas has performed a valuable service."
New York Times - Leslie Bennets
"With humor and aplomb, Douglas makes a convincing case for how to end the war on older women and reinvent what aging can mean."
BookPage - Priscilla Kipp
"Susan Douglas’s hilarious and deeply intelligent book chronicles how older women are rejecting sexist ageism. Required reading for those of us who are 50 or older —and everyone who (with any luck) someday will be. An informative and sharp call to arms, In Our Prime just may help bring the revolution we all need."
"In Our Prime is a masterful takedown of gendered ageism."
Associated Press - Molly Sprayregen
12/01/2019
Sounding a clarion call for the empowerment of women, Douglas (communications, Univ. of Michigan; Where the Girls Are ) blasts the media and cosmetics industry for portraying women over 50 as has-beens, stating that, in fact, feminist boomers are reinventing older age and building up the social infrastructure of child care, eldercare, and public schools. Douglas proposes a model for "intergenerational bridge groups," in which women share their stories, confront their challenges, identify areas of their lives that need improvement, and band together to make a difference, a task for which they are uniquely qualified. VERDICT Smart, savvy, and informed, Douglas is the perfect guide for women who are sick of the rampant sexism and ageism in our society and are ready to do something about it.
2019-11-05
Douglas (Communication Studies/Univ. of Michigan; Enlightened Sexism: The Seductive Message That Feminism's Work Is Done , 2010, etc.) melds history, advocacy, and media criticism as she calls for a counteroffensive against America's "war on older women." With alternately insightful and overfamiliar arguments, the author makes the case for a new wave of feminist activism to challenge the "gendered ageism" that sidelines women of her boomer cohort or implies that they're all "supposed to go plant peonies and play peekaboo" with grandchildren. In the book's best sections, Douglas smartly analyzes portrayals of older women in popular culture, including movies and TV shows like Book Club and The Golden Girls . While images have diversified, the media often depict older women only to exploit them as sales targets or foster what marketers call "aspirational aging." Even AARP magazine has been "moving down the age chain" and once featured then-49-year-old Brad Pitt saying, "Personally, I like aging." As the author notes, "come back to me in thirty years, buster. And as a woman, with no health insurance." Douglas also lands well-placed jabs at "anti-aging" cosmetics and diseasemongering pharmaceutical ads built on the "infantilizing strategy of using cartoons." Unfortunately, the author gives too little attention, too late in the book, to the issue that polls repeatedly have identified as the No. 1 concern of older women—health care—and claims as feminist issues some concerns that don't affect women exclusively, such as Medicare. Elsewhere, she offers a to-do list with timeworn tasks such as forming discussion groups, "kind of an update on [1970s] consciousness-raising," and holds up, as a model of engagement, the late Gray Panthers founder Maggie Kuhn, who in her 70s successfully lobbied Congress against the mandatory retirement age of 65. Women of any age can learn from trailblazers like Kuhn, but those seeking a fresher and more urgent battle cry will find it in books like Jennifer Block's recent Everything Below the Waist (2019).
Your mother's feminism, sent back to the front lines with refurbished weapons.
