Hags

£20.00

What is about about women in their forties and beyond that seems to enrage – almost everyone? In the last few years, as identity politics has taken hold, middle-aged women have found themselves talked and written about as morally inferior beings, the face of bigotry, entitlement and selfishness, to be ignored, pitied or abused. ‘Hags’ asks the question why these women are treated with such active disdain. Each chapter takes a different theme – care work, beauty, violence, political organization, sex – and explores it in relation to middle-aged women’s beliefs, bodies and choices. Victoria Smith traces the attitudes she describes back to the same anxieties about older women that drove early modern witch hunts, and explores the very specific reasons why this type of misogyny is so powerful today.

Backorder Notice MessageJan 01, 1970

SKU: 9780349726960 Category: Tag:

Description

‘Rich, complex and witty’ ROSE GEORGE, SPECTATOR

‘Devastating and clever’ BEL MOONEY, DAILY MAIL

‘Could not be more necessary’ RACHEL COOKE, OBSERVER

What is about women in their forties and beyond that seems to enrage almost everyone?

In the last few years, as identity politics have taken hold, middle-aged women have found themselves talked and written about as morally inferior beings: the face of bigotry, entitlement and selfishness, to be ignored, pitied or abused.

In Hags, Victoria Smith asks why these women are treated with such active disdain. Each chapter takes a different theme – care work, beauty, violence, political organization, sex – and explores it in relation to middle-aged women’s beliefs, bodies, histories and choices. Smith traces the attitudes she describes through history, and explores the very specific reasons why this type of misogyny is so very now. The result is a book that is absorbing, insightful, witty and bang on time.

Additional information

Weight 584 g
Dimensions 236 × 162 × 36 mm
Author

Publisher

Imprint

Cover

Hardback

Pages

360

Language

English

Edition
Dewey

305.2442 (edition:23)

Readership

College – higher education / Code: F