In this landmark work, Betty Friedan — author of The Feminine Mystique — turns her attention to what she calls the “age mystique”: the cultural insistence that growing older is only decline. Drawing on years of research and hundreds of interviews, she argues that the later decades can be a period of continued growth, purpose, and new freedom rather than a slow fade. Friedan dismantles stereotypes about work, sexuality, and care in old age, insisting that vitality after sixty is not the exception but the possibility. A foundational text for anyone rethinking what age can mean.
