Aging Well Women

Embracing Age: How Catholic Nuns Became Models of Aging Well examines a community of individuals whose aging trajectories contrast mainstream American experiences. In mainstream American society, aging is presented as a “problem”, a state to be avoided as long as possible, a state that threatens one’s ability to maintain independence, autonomy, control over one’s surroundings. Aging “well” (or avoiding aging) has become a 21st-century American preoccupation.

The menopause for many women is a daunting time of change, of unexpected health challenges, of rollercoaster emotions and unprecedented shifts in how we feel physically and emotionally. But we emerge wiser than before, and stronger than we know. For many, the years immediately post-menopause bring other seismic changes too - empty nests, re-evaluated careers, losses and gains as individual as we are. The decade that takes us from our early 50s to early 60s is a time for us to take stock, to power ahead, to decide who we are and how we want to live as we face the future.