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Show Over 40? Dn Youb Prime By ALISON GODDARD The forties and fifties can be prime time for a woman -if she makes the most of ' them. "WE MATURE women have wisdom, experience and glamor," says Janet Harris, author of "The Prime of Ms. America." "What keeps us from exploiting it is a feeling of self-consciousness. We ; suffer from low self-image. I Last year, when she began ; writing her book in the sunny fc office of her suburban home, Janet Harris was angry about being over forty. THE DIVORCED mother of two sons (Mike 21 and Clint 18), she knew too many "disposable "dis-posable women" -- mothers who had successfully raised their families only to find they were ending one role without the prospect of another. "I was infuriated at this dreadful waste of human resources," she recalls. Since then she has interviewed inter-viewed many mature women who are living fulfilling, creative lives. They defused her anger - and infused her with a desire to come to terms with her age and investigate me promising possiDimies ui the years ahead. WITH VITAL personalities like Elizabeth Janeway, Viveca Lindfors and Lauren Bacall leading the way, "women can discover their own style and have a distinctiveness distinc-tiveness that younger women don't," she says. A boardmember of the National Na-tional Organization for Women, Janet Harris is convinced con-vinced that women are their own best friends. "Women have an enormous amount to give each other. Instead of viewing other females as competition, we are learning to rely on one another for support." THROUGH consciousness-raising, consciousness-raising, women everywhere are expressing their own feelings about getting a job, losing a husband-even going through menopause. "I found that women take menopause a lot more lightly than society at large," Harris reports. "It's a myth" that women go into an emotional tailspin because they can no longer conceive. Also, they .know that medical treatment is available availa-ble should they need it. "My own doctor," the 41-year-old divorcee notes, "tells me he may prescribe estrogen theiapy when and if I need it for menopausal symptoms." EDUCATION, Janet Harris feels, offers a woman an enormous opportunity to develop herself and get ideas about her life's direction, "not just colleges, but learning learn-ing centers of every sort are attracting women who had to cut short their own schooling when they married." Slender in a sweater and skirt, with a tousled cap of reddish-blond hair "my hairdresser says it looks like I comb it with an eggbeater"), Ms. Harris is now very aware of what it's like to be mature and single in what she calls a "Noah's Ark" society. "WE ARE so marriage-oriented. marriage-oriented. Travel, tax structures struc-tures and certainly social ri-turals ri-turals favor couples. And yet, with the spiralling divorce" rate and the fact that women outlive their husbands by about 12 years there's a built-in single factor. Lots of women are without men," she points out. Whether single (by happenstance hap-penstance or choice), or married, the woman between 40 and 60 is one of 21 million facing four options. The way Janet Harris sees it, she can try to hold on to her youth, plummet into premature old age, become chronically "ill," or grown and develop this new phase of life. "You've got so much going for you," says Janet Harris, "go with what you've got!" |