On Women Turning 70: Honoring the Voices of Wisdom

"About this issue of aging, I want to make a terribly important point. People decide to get old. I've seen them do it. It's as if they've said 'Right, that's it, now I'm going to get old.' Then they become old. Why they do this, I don't know. Maybe they like to be depAndent. But I do think it's terribly important that people not make that inner decision. Because then they sit around and they're old. It's easy not to do it, in fact. It's not about staying young but about not getting old." --Doris Lessing On Women Turning 70 is a celebration-of success, love, relationships, self-of life. Its sixteen intimate portraits of women in their seventies are a testament to women everywhere that life can and must be lived to its fullest. The artists, social activists, actors, scientists, journalists, academics, poets, and novelists we meet are wise, vital, and impertinent, and all are disarmingly honest. Through their stories, these vibrant women share a depth of wisdom and knowledge acquired after more than seventy years of experience and living. And they haven't stopped living yet. Liz Smith, the acclaimed newspaperwoman, achieved her extraordinary success just as she was about to retire. Leah Friedman started work on her Ph.D. the year before she turned seventy. Harvard professor Elinor Gadon claims to have more energy than women forty years her junior. Betty Friedan, the mother of the feminist movement, keeps her spirit and curiosity alive by trying something new every week. Artist Betye Saar remarks on her colorfully dyed hair, "If I want my hair purple, it's purple." Sociologist Lee Robbins fell in love and married again when she was seventy-five. Just as were her previous best-selling books on women turning forty, fifty, and sixty, this newest addition to the decade series of books from Cathleen Rountree is proof that aging is a passionate, powerful, and transformative process to be honored and celebrated. We are reminded that age is not