The Wonderful Woman on the Pavement: Middle-Ageism in the Postmodern Economy

In 1994 a handsome woman appeared on television news in the Boston area: poised, energetic, well-groomed, with healthy body language—the kind of midlife woman who looks competent whether she’s selling Tupperware or bonds or simply walking across a street. She said she was forty-five. In feminist eras like our own when ages over forty can be broadly represented as “wonderful,” she was instantly recognizable as one of the wonderful midlife women. There are millions. On television, Patricia was articulate even though her self-confidence had been badly shaken. She was hired by the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination in a sting to test whether a woman her age could get a job in retailing at $6.00 an hour in competition with a younger woman. She and Becky, aged twenty-two, composed one set of four all-white teams matched for education, personal qualities, and (limited) work experience. It was a clear-cut test of the firms’ ageist hiring practices. By ...