Finding Work After 55! It’s
Easier Than You May Think
Mary Eileen Williams, author
“Land the Job You Love!”
One third of job seekers are now over 55!
How are we doing?
The Transition Network – Celebrating Our
‘Pride of Age’ Birthdays – Four Stories!
By Karin Lippert, 67
July 26, 2011
Are we the most engaged and empowered generation of women over 50 in recorded history? Most days it certainly feels like it. Not only are we 37 million strong, but our generation is the first to truly embrace second adulthood and celebrate our ‘Pride of Age” birthdays.
“The New Male Mystique” and the
Ongoing Work-Family Conflict
By Suzanne Braun Levine
Back in 2000 my first book Father Courage: What Happens When Men Put Family First came out. In it I talked about men who desperately wanted to be more involved with their families and do more of their share at home but were constrained by the workplace culture and the prevailing image of how a Real Man prioritized his work and family. One told me that he was so afraid of getting caught leaving his office at 6:00 p.m. and being thought not committed to his work that he parked in a distant corner of the parking lot. Another told me that when he went to the playground with his baby daughter on a weekday, people assumed one of two things – that he was unemployed (a failure) or a sexual predator.
“EXCLUSIVE: MISSING BETTY FORD”
By Mary Thom
July 14, 2011
The author, editor of the WMC Exclusives, recalls a moment decades ago that encapsulates the power and purpose of the former First Lady, who died last week at the age of 93.
“I’m Not a Feminist But…..”
I was so touched by the note and poem I received from my friend Sean Strub – a feminist in good standing as well as a major AIDS activist – that I want to share it. He found the poem when he was going through his mother’s papers after she died recently. The short story he mentions, The Yellow Wallpaper, is a feminist classic, written in 1892; about a woman who is kept housebound by her husband and slowly goes mad.
Sean’s mother’s aversion to the word “feminist” is an example of the familiar “I’m not a feminist, but……” syndrome – a woman who walks the walk but doesn’t feel comfortable with the talk. It is clear to me – and to her son – that Janey was a feminist in spirit, which is where it counts. — Suzanne Braun Levine
Bathing Suits, Bikinis and Our Bodies!
By Suzanne Braun Levine
Recently I came upon a photograph of myself in my first bikini (it was really a two-piece, compared to what goes as a bikini these days) and I was struck by how good I looked. That thought lasted about two minutes until I realized that when that picture was taken, I thought I looked fat and bulky; I was not happy to be looked at. Then I realized that I feel the same way today. Fat and bulky. Plus, wrinkled and saggy. What a waste, I thought, not feeling good about my body back then. And just as much of a waste feeling ashamed of it now.
Honoring Esther
By Suzanne Braun Levine
Esther M. Broner, who died this month at 83, was a true woman of valor – generous to her friends, nurturing to her children, and devoted to the dignity of women. She wrote 11 books of fiction and non-fiction – all with a mystical subtext, was a philosopher, a witch (the good kind), and a believer in ritual.
“Writing about Me, Ourselves, and You”
By Suzanne Braun Levine,
“Happy Anniversary,
SheWrites.com™!”
Finding material to write about is not always easy. One route is the memoir, which is built on revealing material you know well. Or you can write about something you don’t know well but would like to learn about. I combine the two by weaving some – but not all – of my own life story with answers to the question “What’s going on with women?” I have spent most of my professional life chronicling that transformation of women’s lives at different stages, and the experience has, in turn, inspired and empowered my own. Every time over the past forty years that I posed the question “What’s going on with women?” the answers were different.
Welcome to Summer – “Seeking the
Buddha Nature in a Kayak”
A Summer Poem
By Joyce Ellen Weinstein
Seeking the Buddha Nature in a Kayak
Gliding parallel the shoreline
Nanoseconds of now
SELF- INVENTION – The Bond Among Women of All Generations
By Suzanne Braun Levine
One thing about being an older mother is that you are constantly reminded of the truism that age doesn’t really describe the shape of a person’s life. Nor does our place on the family tree, the generation we are assigned to at birth. When my daughter was born I was 44, old enough to be her grandmother. When she went to school, I was old enough to be her teachers’ (and her friends parents’) mother. At the same time my contemporaries had long since forgotten about coping with babies and young children – they were on to the joys of grandchildren. My most meaningful cohort was other women with children my children’s age, but not my age themselves.