‘The Debate over “Positive Aging” ‘The museum site punches a big hole through ee vafeady the new truth of ginB>” Pro en people who think they need hope against agin an find itn the form of individual remedies for “getting over ge Sg” exhibit, & WO gl aaa to the “Secrets of Agin every sixty seconds, “Is there anythin i cl aged ae ee rush of “anti-aging” is commer Scie arate ‘tanscendence of decline: botulin parties solu ey: from kayaking to a effects,” all in the rhetoric of “health, js enlargers, toot » “choice,” or “tak belief thatthey make life plans they expect to carry them thee eens nancialy: second chances at work, lifelong oe ee ean g sexuality, and they enjoy sharing adulthood with their hier, fee at various longitudinal materials feminist scholarsin many feldc ave ec jenged notions of decay or static rigidity over the later lives of women sees je ound creativity, cognitive, ethical, and ps ae sychological developments (i reat ts (i uding increased autonomy, assertiveness, political activism), arc, te bed _ maternal women entering the workforce, marked increases n some iatelleceal domains? “Life-course scientist” Janet Giele, quoting historian Joyce Antler, says many women have experienced “feminism as life process.” Benefiting from the civil rights movements, these women earn more than their mothers and more in real dollars than they did at twenty-something, Hope-sponsoring narratives (novels, films, and plays) spin around a group larger than the mopolitan elites: midlife women and men of various races, classes, sexualities, ethnicities. ge as a marker of difference between age classes is getting more salient in popular culture. “Look at the demographic!” now often means age instead of gender or race. Some lined, if gaunt, faces occasionally sell products geared at midlife women, so some of them tell me that age matters less than it used to— not noticing that the ideal age for feminine pulchritude is dropping toward thirteen. Or they take the increasing salience of age to be a good thing, It is called “age consciousness” and is taken to lead to information, mutual toler- ance, respect, and desirable public policies. True, women are still aged by cul- ture younger than men are; there was a lot of midlife downsizing in the 1990s. But the presumption, even among some academic feminists I know, is that pos- itive views of aging—which once had to be imposed on the media, govern- ment, and business by feminist, gerontological, antiracist, antihomophobic en- lightenment and activism—now have stability and momentum, Increased longevity is the clincher. For any trustful Whiggish surveys, the “Face Aging” booth is an awkward and inexplicable anomaly. If decline is “the truth” that science and mainstream gerontology are offering even privileged boys and girls now, how can progress be the truth for anybody older? Yet this is possible. Hypothetically, the very old- est age class—the luckiest members of the “Great Generation’ —could be en- joying a golden age, healthy, wealthy, and wises while the youngest age class is being prepared for far worse. Many things could make that nightmare projec ion come true. (It was envisioned in ageist, generation-war terms by Bruce Sterling in his sci-fi novel Holy Fire.) The privatization of Social Security could render aging-into-retirement for those eight- to fifteen-year-olds a journey “over the hill to the poorhouse”—as it was before the 19308 and stil is for the Poor old, the majority of whom are women." ‘True Secrets of Being Aged by Culture 23