Book ID: CBB761025564

Midlife Crisis: The Feminist Origins of a Chauvinist Cliché (2020)

unapi

Susanne Schmidt (Author)


University of Chicago Press


Publication Date: 2020
Physical Details: 280
Language: English

The phrase “midlife crisis” today conjures up images of male indulgence and irresponsibility—an affluent, middle-aged man speeding off in a red sports car with a woman half his age—but before it become a gendered cliché, it gained traction as a feminist concept. Journalist Gail Sheehy used the term to describe a midlife period when both men and women might reassess their choices and seek a change in life. Sheehy’s definition challenged the double standard of middle age—where aging is advantageous to men and detrimental to women—by viewing midlife as an opportunity rather than a crisis. Widely popular in the United States and internationally, the term was quickly appropriated by psychological and psychiatric experts and redefined as a male-centered, masculinist concept. The first book-length history of this controversial concept, Susanne Schmidt’s Midlife Crisis recounts the surprising origin story of the midlife debate and traces its movement from popular culture into academia. Schmidt’s engaging narrative telling of the feminist construction—and ensuing antifeminist backlash—of the midlife crisis illuminates a lost legacy of feminist thought, shedding important new light on the history of gender and American social science in the 1970s and beyond.

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Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB761025564/

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Authors & Contributors
Moreira, Tiago
Heo, Na Sil
Katarina Kärnebro
Susanne Schmidt
Rachel E. Walker
Kenneth Cohen
Concepts
Feminism
Masculinity
Gender
Popular culture
Social sciences
Aging
Time Periods
20th century, late
21st century
19th century
20th century, early
18th century
20th century
Places
United States
South Korea
Sweden
Russia
Poland
Canada
Institutions
Mass-Observation
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