I recently saw April De Angelis?s new play, Jumpy, at the Royal Court: a razor-sharp black comedy about a 50-year-old mother?s mid-life crisis. I laughed like a drain, but it?s still a shame that there?s no greater terror for a woman than hitting the big five-oh. When you?re 43 (as I am), you don?t want to think the whole game will be up in seven short years. Nor do you want to think there are only two choices available: domestic drudge or cougar (a predatory woman who dates younger men).
In the theatre, we laughed in pained recognition as the downtrodden heroine struggled to find her identity as her teenage daughter bloomed. Meanwhile, her ?resting? actress friend squeezed into spray-on jeans, toned her pelvic muscles and terrified every man in sight with her burlesque routine ? although she knew the effort was futile. Every ageing female?s paranoia about the future was voiced when she said: ?Our only chance is to run a country or some vast significant organisation like Sainsbury?s. That?s all that?s going to save us from invisibility. Being a woman and getting old is a disaster.?
If I had a pound for every time I?ve heard such fears expressed, I?d have enough cash for a modest pension. Yet five of my closest friends are 50 or thereabouts, and they are all more radiant, witty and admired than in previous decades. As one Rampling-alike said to me recently, ?If we were French, we wouldn?t declare ourselves invisible ? we?d be too busy having a facial before lunch with an admirer.?
Quite so, which is why I am so pleased about the publication this week of Dangerous Women: A Guide to Modern Life, which celebrates the art of being fabulous and female at 15, 50 and far beyond. The three lustrous authors ? an agent, a poet and a journalist, who are all of an interesting age ? intend their sage and witty volume to promote the glorious French art of being bien dans sa peau.
Under ?A for allure?, they write: ?Allure is an ageless quality that combines sexuality with ancient wisdom, secret confidence, inner depth and the ability to remain still in a busy room.? Better still, in a week where yet another American dating site for the grimly tagged ?cougars? revealed plans to launch over here, I was heartened to read the Dangerous Women on such activities: ?You should be aware that there is nothing more grim to the young than a woman of a certain age trotting about with someone who looks like a nephew or a male au pair.?
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