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Guess Who's 60 Now?
Happy Birthday Meryl, Vera, Sissy, and Anna! These beautiful, brilliant, accomplished women are putting the “sex” back into sexagenarian.
Meryl Streep just turned 60 last weekend, and Vera Wang’s seventh decade begins next week. Bonnie Raitt and Sissy Spacek and Anna Wintour and Jessica Lange will soon follow. But these elderly geezers are not exactly going gently into that good night; instead, they have gone from zero to 60 with engines roaring. Streep just picked up an honorary degree from Princeton, Lange starred in the HBO hit Grey Gardens, Wang is about to twirl on Dancing With the Stars.
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Like them, I can remember the days when 60 was very, very old, the days when women over 30 were expected to retire from the arena of good looks and slinky clothes, and women over 50 were rarely found in good jobs if they had managed to get them in the first place. The new 60-year-olds are a bunch of high-jumping, glamorous-looking, Grammy-winning, curvaceous and sexy ….um…..grandmothers.
Sixty-year-old women have seen it all—the sexual revolution, the political revolution, the Cuban revolution—they have gone from women’s lib to women’s rights to civil rights.
These bodacious adventurers have lived through some of the most interesting times in history. Sixty-year-old women have seen it all—the sexual revolution, the political revolution, the Cuban revolution—they have gone from women’s lib to women’s rights to civil rights—when they were young, all women were expected to get married and be supported by their men. Now look! They wept when JFK was assassinated and sang in the mud at Woodstock. They protested the Vietnam War, and their daughters joined the army and fought in Kuwait. They mourned the dead of 9/11 and celebrated the inauguration of President Barack Obama. But these are the women who broke the mold, who showed the way to being a new kind of woman and blazed the path to a new kind of old.
Power is an aphrodisiac, Henry Kissinger famously said, but it is clearly also a great skin cream. These women glow with a confidence that comes from accomplishment, from experience, and from having beaten the old odds. Sixty is the age of looking back with satisfaction and forward with delight—a delight compounded by the fact that after having lived a lifetime there is much more life to live. Happy birthday, girls!
Susan Cheever is the author of numerous works of fiction and nonfiction including American Bloomsbury, My Name is Bill, Note Found in a Bottle, As Good as I Could Be, Home Before Dark, and Treetops. She is a Guggenheim Fellow, a director of the Corporation of Yaddo, and a member of the Author’s Guild. Cheever teaches at the Bennington Writing Seminars and at the New School.
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Susan Cheever is the author of numerous works of fiction and nonfiction including American Bloomsbury, My Name is Bill, Note Found in a Bottle, As Good as I Could Be, Home Before Dark, and Treetops. She is a Guggenheim Fellow, a director of the Corporation of Yaddo, and a member of the Author’s Guild. Cheever teaches at the Bennington Writing Seminars and at the New School.
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Susan Cheever is the author of numerous works of fiction and nonfiction including American Bloomsbury, My Name is Bill, Note Found in a Bottle, As Good as I Could Be, Home Before Dark, and Treetops. She is a Guggenheim Fellow, a director of the Corporation of Yaddo, and a member of the Author’s Guild. Cheever teaches at the Bennington Writing Seminars and at the New School.
Old Is the New Sexy
Susan Cheever is the author of numerous works of fiction and nonfiction including American Bloomsbury, My Name is Bill, Note Found in a Bottle, As Good as I Could Be, Home Before Dark, and Treetops. She is a Guggenheim Fellow, a director of the Corporation of Yaddo, and a member of the Author’s Guild. Cheever teaches at the Bennington Writing Seminars and at the New School.
Thank You for this article. I just turned 60 this week and I was feeling pretty old. But after reading your article I am feeling so much better. Yes, we were there for it all. From getting tear gassed at the pentagon to rolling in the mud at Woodstock. I couldn't have asked for a better life and look forward to seeing what else will come up. Who knows? Did we ever think we would see a black president? We hoped but we didn't believe it would happen in our life time. A women president? Now I know it can still happen in my life time.
Thanks for making me feel special today.
Sarah
Thanks, Susan. As I turn 60 next week, at least I know I'm in very good company.
Thanks for a great article. Recently there have been many articles about women in their 50's which is great, but having celebrated my 55th yesterday, I am happy we are recognizing the beauty and accomplishments of women in their 60's, and then 70's!! I don't feel old, and I love the fact that I've experienced everything that has happened in my lifetime, each decade has been astounding, politics, culture, etc. I feel luckier than the younger generations.......
I love that I'm in such good company. It makes the impending day seem a little less potent. It's fun that we don't look or act like our mothers and we're still thinking and doing great things. Thanks for reminding me 60 will be great.
Most women already agree with the truths that women over 40 can be sexy, and that sexiness has more to do with simply being young and conventionally pretty. But, we'll know it has become a reality when men write these articles, when the media stops propping up the new 22 year old sex goddess, when women over 40 in Hollywood start getting more romantic lead roles, and are the objects of the leading man's affections. (We still have the 50 year old man lusting after the 26 year old woman.) Look at Cameron Diaz. She is still in her thirties and has already crossed into playing the mother role in her new movie. And the mother of a pre-teen! If a woman over 40 being sexy is considered too much of a stretch, it's equally too much of a stretch to accept that someone like Cameron Diaz should now start playing the mother role. And, she is not the only 30 something actress this has happened to. It's obvious men are still calling the shots when it comes to how women are portrayed.
But, hey, I'm not a total wet blanket here! I DO think we're making progress!
Since when does Hollywood define women or anyone else? I personally have had enough of Hollywood's nonsense, where if you play a serious, intelligent and accomplished person, people assume this is who you are. Our culture is much bigger than Hollywood, its players and its wannabes. I once heard, "If you didn't know how old you were, how old would you think you are?" Today's women of 60-something years are the vanguard of the Baby Boomers. Rightly or wrongly, being at the It Age has followed us since we were noisy kids in college. For some reason that escapes me, despite being one, Baby Boomers will probably to a large extent define society into the grave. But Hollywood? Who cares?
I don't think beauty has an expiration date. A beautiful woman at 20 who takes care of herself, both body and mind... will only be more beautiful 40 years later.
wtf cares?
My mom just turned 60. She's a very successful CPA and the CFO of a midsized corporation. It seems like nothing special these days, but when she graduated from college all of the accounting jobs were listed in the "Men Only" section of the classifieds.
It blows my mind that there ever was "Men Only" section for job ads, but those were the obstacles that she trampled down so I could have more opportunities. Huzzah for women in their 60s!
It's not hard to look sexy at 60 with all the surgery, stylists, and trainers. Most people in their 60s don't look 33...and seems funny to embrace and celebrate "aging" when you've done everything BUT age *laughs* Still, I guess I wouldn't refuse to get a few things sanded/tweaked when I'm older (if I didn't have to pay for it and it was 100% safe)
I agree with joe-in-the-room, "who cares"! Ladies, stop obsessing about your age and go out and live your life.
Thank you Susan! I loved this. As someone born in 1964 who cringes w/Sarah Palin as the most visual female representation for of my birth year (just for the moment I hope, go Sandra Bullock) it was a great pleasure to see an elegant, talented array of women who have 15 years on show us all how it's done with grace.
Thank you.
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