Midlife Crisis Culture essays

Midlife Crisis Culture essays When I was 25, a male friend of mine was 39, rapidly approaching 40 and he was suffering a midlife crisis. At the age of 25 I had no concept of the meaning of midlife crisis, and I remember him thrusting the book Passages (Sheehy 19 ) at me and he said it would explain it all. I read the book and at the time I thought scathingly what a load of nonsense. A good excuse to wallow around in self pity. However, when I reached the same age and experienced my own midlife crisis, I grabbed Passages (Sheehy 19 ) hoping that this time it might provide me with some answers. However, what I discovered were theories about midlife crisis written in the 1970s which were mostly outdated in the 1990s. The main explanations for experiencing a midlife crisis for women were associated with the ageing body, the empty nest syndrome and being unable to cope after desertion of husbands. (Sheehy 19 , Turner The ageing body seems to occupy a lot of the material written about womens midlife crisis. However this is not something that I believe that I dwelt on. Yes, at times I feel a more tired than I used, no I do not go out drinking and socialising several times a week and yes I do feel a few aches and pains that I did not have before. But it did not depress me and my drastic actions were not a last ditch effort at recapturing my youth. Orenstein ( ) talks about women feeling invisible as their beauty and youth slip away. However I find this concept very shallow. Perhaps not being a great beauty myself, I feel fortunate that I have not experienced this insecurity. The ageing body in relation to menopause is considered to be an explanation for some womens midlife crisis (Coney 19 , Sheehy 19 , Bannister 2000). For some women drastic physical changes are accompanied by intense and unchar ...