Great Second Acts: In Praise of Older Women

As the “Me Too” movement takes center stage, one should realize that the concept is nothing new, and the women in Great Second Acts didn’t even think of pitting themselves against men to achieve their goals. They just got on with whatever was taking them into the history books. Marlene Wagman-Geller gathered together the stories of noteworthy women who kept on going long after they reached “a certain age.” Mother Teresa, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Madeleine Albright, and Golda Meier are familiar even to the young, but a couple of steps behind stand a line of politicians, social activists, artists, and artistes all worthy of our admiration.

How to order them and their contributions? Perhaps an unfair question, as the fields they represent are so diverse, whether it’s late-in-life painter Grandma Moses or Shirley Temple, remembered as a child and later an ambassador, Judge Judy keeping daytime TV alive, or Mary Kay, whose pink Cadillac signaled a chance to look beautiful together from a phalanx of women who have no need to be identified by their gender.

Their race, nationality, religion and personal lifestyles vary, but
few come from such dire backgrounds as Mabs Mobley, the shabby old comedy actress whose personal life, an absolute contradiction, begs special respect and affection.

Despite the pleasure of meeting such a cohort, the book has undeniable setbacks. Chapter titles give no indication of their subject, and opening paragraphs seem to have wandered in by happenstance. Nonetheless, looking on the bright side as one and all of the women have done, readers can marvel at the
achievements of the women who staunchly forged ahead, role models for today’s younger generations.