¶ … Gleanings: Readings at the Intersection of Culture and Faith Women, Midlife, and Leadership.

In Gleanings: Readings at the Intersection of Culture and Faith, Catherine Wallace suggests that several factors in contemporary society combine to make midlife a pivotal period in the lives of women today, much more so than in previous generations. First, Wallace points out that increases in human health and life expectancy in the last century have added so much time to the average life span that it amounts to the equivalent of an entire second adulthood. For example, she recalls her thoughts at her son's college graduation that she is thirty years older than her son but that much younger than her mother, who is herself, active and vibrant in her eighties.

Second, Wallace argues that simultaneous social changes in the way that women are perceived and in the rights and norms that typically shape their adult lives have radically changed the nature of opportunities available to many women in their second half of adult life that were largely unavailable to them in their first half of adult life. She explains that many women approaching midlife today never had a real opportunity to define their lives autonomously during their first adulthood or to explore and develop many of their talents...

In that regard, she cites explanations about how contemporary psychological theorists describe psychological growth in adulthood
Finally, Wallace concludes that midlife is a tremendous opportunity for many women and that it will typically be defined by their search for meaning in life incorporating all of those factors in conjunction with external influence from social norms in the community and from the spiritual guidance available from their religious beliefs and values. In that regard, religion and social values may play a much stronger role during the second adulthood, partly because of the practical freedoms available without the constraints of parental responsibilities and of the oppressive elements and assumptions pertaining to women in society that played such a significant role in the choices pertaining to life direction and purpose during the first adulthood. More importantly, whereas interpretations of religious concepts may have been used to constrain the…