25 years ago Mary Pipher changed how many people looked at adolescent girls with her book Reviving Ophelia. Now Pipher turns her attention to another generation, older women, in her new book Women Rowing North: Navigating Life’s Currents and Flourishing As We Age.
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Women Rowing North Maeve Conran
“Almost nobody my age wants to say their old. When I said I’m writing a book about older women, my friends invariably said either ‘you’re not old’ pointing to me, or I’m not old.”
Pipher says that western society sees ageing as a negative thing, which causes people to reject the later part of life. “Old is such a negative word in our culture… Woman want to distance from that cultural script about old women and say ‘my felt experience of being an older woman is very different than that’.”
In Women Rowing North, Pipher argues that older women tend to be happier. She shares techniques to cultivate joy and says the ability to accommodate change is key, as is creating a community of individuals with whom to communicate and deflect the isolation that too often comes with age.
Mary Pipher will speak about her new book Women Rowing North Wednesday evening at the BookBar in Denver and Thursday evening at the Boulder Book Store.
