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Margaret Morganroth Gullette
Declining to Decline:
Cultural Combat and the Politics of the Midlife
Margaret Morganroth Gullette. Declining to Decline: Cultural Combat and the Politics of the Midlife. Charlottesville: U of Virginia Press, 1997.
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In Declining to Decline, Margaret Morganroth Gullette argues that in America aging is a culturally constructed disease with an adolescent exposure and a midlife onset. Targeting men as well as women, our culture pressures us to shed youthful attributes and optimism about the future. This, she says, constitutes the "midlife crisis" of our time- not a private psychological condition but a collective problem. Even our reactions have been channeled: buying remedies, telling stories of self-hating nostalgia, feeling envy of youth, alienation from the elderly, and fear of fifty.
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Chosen as the best feminist book on American popular culture by the American Culture/Popular Culture Associations. Winner of the 1998 Emily Toth Award.
"An ambitious book I wish all committed feminists could give their friends."
— Celia Morris, Women's Review of Books
"[...] Gullette's work is essential reading for all who wish to understand the origins of the transformation of midlife in our times and the possibility of real changes in attitudes to ageing—personal and social—under postmodern global capitalism."
— Mike Hepworth. Ageing and Society
"Declining to Decline may come to be seen as the Sexual Politics of midlife aging studies."
— MarciaDeihl, Harvard Review
"That rare treasure: an offering across disciplinary borders that is genuinely useful."
— Abigail J. Stewart, Contemporary Psychology
"Well suited for general reading and for experts [...] whose focus is interdisciplinary and forward looking."
— Choice.
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