The Secret Powers of Aging Woman
Celebrating women. Crow’s feet writing prompt #2.
The secret powers I refer to aren’t simply a feel-good rallying cry to give older women a self-esteem boost. Rather these powers are based on data demonstrating qualities and traits innate in women or ones developed over their lifetime.
Older women clearly face challenges. They rate lower than men on a variety of well-being scales. For example, women report lower self-perceived health, they live more years in poor health, they report higher rates of depression than men, and suffer a higher incidence of ageism in the labor market. Yet older women have qualities that I believe give them an edge in enjoying their extra years. I call these qualities and traits “secret,” because we don’t hear much about them in the media. The media prefers to focus on what is seen as the downside of living longer—wrinkles, loss of mobility, solitude, dependence and the like.
Women are life expectancy champions
Women are often referred to as the weaker sex despite the fact that their life expectancy is longer than men in almost all human populations. While the life expectancy gap is narrowing, it hasn’t closed. Currently, in developed nations, women are expected to outlive their male counterparts by five years.
