Female Midlife Crisis? it's about TIME

Here is the May 10, 2005 DentalPlans.com: review of TIME article on female midlife crisis. I need to locate this TIME article.

Among the growing ranks of female entrepreneurs are many who have sensed a massive MidLife Marketing Opportunity, TIME’s Nancy Gibbs reports in this week’s cover story which examines how women are handling their midlife crises. More and more people see not a midlife crisis but a challenge—even an opportunity, observes Deborah Carr, a sociology professor at Rutgers University. “How are they going to spend the second half of their life? They know they’re going to have lots of healthy years, so I think it’s a period of making choices to live out one’s dreams that got put on the shelf during younger years.” Unlike their mothers and unlike the men in their lives, this cohort of women is creating a new model for what midlife might look like. “To the extent there is any midlife crisis, to women it does not come as an enormous surprise,” says Tace Hedrick, a University of Florida associate professor of women’s studies. “Men wake up at 45 and realize, ‘I’m not 18 anymore.’ But women, their biological clock is ticking. They are constantly reminded that they are aging.” The regular reminders of fertility are replaced by the insistent signals of menopause. Anthropologists say male status is typically tied to money and power, which explains why the standard male midlife crisis is triggered by a career crack-up. Women’s turmoil often reflects events in their personal lives as well as the accumulated stress of years of ladder climbing, multitasking and barrier breaking.
TIME’s cover package includes a story by TIME Science Writer Christine Gorman on menopause, which is in the midst of a makeover. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) plans to issue a scientific consensus statement soon that will urge women and their doctors to stop thinking of menopause—technically, the year after the last menstrual cycle—as some kind of disease. TIME Editor at Large Claudia Wallis contributes a viewpoint essay explaining her own midlife crisis, which she has no time for and thus, hasn’t had one. Life coach Jane Glenn Haas, founder of the nonprofit group WomanSage, offers women six tips of advice based on her experience. She says women should empower themselves to know that they are in charge of their lives, the should do their research before making a big change, talk to an accountant and analyze their financial situation, reward themselves with a makeover to boost esteem, and be selfish putting themselves first. Bruce Handy and Glynis Sweeny contribute a cartoon looking at why men feel they own the midlife crisis. The entire cover package is available on TIME.com.