In Full Flower: Aging Women, Power, and Sexuality - Hardcover

Banner, Lois W.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0394579437 ISBN 13: 9780394579436

Publisher: Knopf, 1992

Synopsis

An examination of mature women and their relationships with each other and with men explores the roots of Western attitudes and stereotypes about aging women beginning with ancient myths and rituals. Tour.

About this title

From Kirkus Reviews:

A somewhat unfocused but heavily researched volume on the images and roles of aging women from Neanderthal times to the present. Banner (History/USC) calls this work a ``meditation'' rather than a conventional history, hoping it will provoke discussion and further investigation of the experiences of aging women. Her interest piqued by her own relationship with a younger man, she began a study of older woman/younger man pairings through history. Here, she is soon all over the lot, beginning with a lengthy deconstruction of Sunset Boulevard (aging film star/young screenwriter), then cutting to ancient Mediterranean civilizations in which older goddesses were known to dally with young men. Progressing unevenly through history, she visits at length with Sappho, Eleanor of Aquitaine, the Wife of Bath, Colette, and others--all of whom married or loved younger men. Banner's zigzag course is often distracting but in the end reveals an undulating historical line on which aging women are alternately sought after for their material or spiritual resources or are rejected because of their ``uncontrollable sexual urges'' (the uterus was once believed to be connected to the brain and menopause to drive women mad with desire) and propensities to witchcraft. Medical science began to get the biology right little more than a century ago, but that didn't prevent menopausal women from being considered fools or fishwives for the better part of the 1900's. A concise review of present-day attitudes about older women reveals confusion at best and, at worst, a shocking if faint tendency to consider aging women as witches or madwomen. In search of contemporary ``models for aging,'' Banner applauds black women as depicted in the works of Toni Morrison and Alice Walker. Banner achieves her goal--she certainly has provided launch pads for dozens of researchers and writers. And perhaps one of those will do a more successful job of picking up the threads and weaving a tapestry than she has done. (Illustrations--24--not seen.) -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Publishers Weekly:

This is a masterwork of scholarship and a milestone in our understanding of how Western civilization has demeaned the older woman. Banner ( American Beauty ) shows how, from antiquity on, stereotypes have restricted the power that knowledge and experience should naturally confer on older women. Like an archeologist, the author sifts through myth, literature and history--her Rosetta stone, the film Sunset Boulevard. About a faded movie star portrayed by silent-screen star Gloria Swanson, the movie contains manifest and latent cultural messages, lies and truth about older women. With this as model Banner scrutinizes text and subtext of the Odyssey ; the legends of Helen of Troy, Adonis and Sappho; and the story of the Wife of Bath. She also examines the life and work of Margaret Fuller and Colette. Other themes covered are menopause, older women and young men duos; Mother Goose and the Old Maid card game get a close look too. Banner turns to African American women for positive middle-aged and elder role models in a study that helps set the historical record straight. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Knopf
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 0394579437
• ISBN 13: 9780394579436
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 422