Susanne Schmidt (Author)
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.
...More
Article
Susanne Schmidt;
(2018)
The Anti-Feminist Reconstruction of the Midlife Crisis: Popular Psychology, Journalism and Social Science in 1970s USA
(/isis/citation/CBB699307947/)
Book
Neufeld, Michael J.;
(2013)
Spacefarers: Images of Astronauts and Cosmonauts in the Heroic Era of Spaceflight
(/isis/citation/CBB001201283/)
Article
Agata Ignaciuk;
(2020)
No Man’s Land? Gendering Contraception in Family Planning Advice Literature in State-Socialist Poland (1950s–1980s)
(/isis/citation/CBB998240820/)
Article
Na Sil Heo;
(2022)
Racialising Baby Boys: Racial and Gender Politics in Infant Formula Advertisements in Cold War Korea, 1950s–1960s
(/isis/citation/CBB288057486/)
Article
Watkins, Elizabeth Siegel;
(2008)
Medicine, Masculinity, and the Disappearance of Male Menopause in the 1950s
(/isis/citation/CBB000930669/)
Article
Tiago Moreira;
(2019)
Anticipatory measure: Alex Comfort, experimental gerontology and the measurement of senescence
(/isis/citation/CBB609012152/)
Article
Houck, Judith A.;
(2003)
“What Do These Women Want?” Feminist Responses to Feminine Forever, 1963--1980
(/isis/citation/CBB000630194/)
Thesis
Robertson, Beth A.;
(2013)
In the Laboratory of the Spirits: Gender, Embodiment and the Scientific Quest for Life Beyond the Grave 1918--1939
(/isis/citation/CBB001567456/)
Book
Kenneth Cohen;
(2020)
They Will Have Their Game: Sporting Culture and the Making of the Early American Republic
(/isis/citation/CBB062422855/)
Thesis
Padurano, Dominique;
(2007)
Making American Men: Charles Atlas and the Business of Bodies, 1892--1945
(/isis/citation/CBB001561356/)
Book
Rachel E. Walker;
(2022)
Beauty and the Brain: The Science of Human Nature in Early America
(/isis/citation/CBB487226567/)
Book
Marek Tamm;
Peter Burke;
(2018)
Debating New Approaches to History
(/isis/citation/CBB400076497/)
Chapter
Katarina Kärnebro;
(2013)
The Emergence of Men’s Studies in Educational Research: Experiences From the Swedish Case
(/isis/citation/CBB518609637/)
Article
Alexandra Rutherford;
(2017)
Surveying Rape: Feminist Social Science and the Ontological Politics of Sexual Assault
(/isis/citation/CBB019486910/)
Article
Moreira, Tiago;
Palladino, Paolo;
(2011)
“Population Laboratories” or “Laboratory Populations”? Making Sense of the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging, 1965--1987
(/isis/citation/CBB001024017/)
Article
Nicholson, Ian;
(2011)
“Shocking” Masculinity: Stanley Milgram, “Obedience to Authority,” and the “Crisis of Manhood” in Cold War America
(/isis/citation/CBB001034549/)
Article
Laura M. Carpenter;
(2020)
If You Prick Us: Masculinity and Circumcision Pain in the United States and Canada, 1960–2000
(/isis/citation/CBB219337276/)
Book
Kathleen Bachynski;
(2019)
No Game for Boys to Play: The History of Youth Football and the Origins of a Public Health Crisis
(/isis/citation/CBB430651680/)
Article
Woodhouse, Keith M.;
(2009)
The Politics of Ecology: Environmentalism and Liberalism in the 1960s
(/isis/citation/CBB001032522/)
Article
Alexandra Rutherford;
(2017)
“Making better use of U.S. women” Psychology, Sex Roles, and Womanpower in post-WWII America
(/isis/citation/CBB508833050/)
Be the first to comment!