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Is 29 'Over-the-Hill for Women?'

Retired Executive Challenges New Study

Darlene Quinn, a former retail executive who forged a new career as a novelist when she was in her 70s, is distressed by the new study that concluded women feel like they're getting old when they're a mere 29, while men don't feel their age until they're 58.

A quarter of women surveyed in the study, done by funeral company Avalon Funeral Plans, said they felt like they were over-the-hill when they found their first gray hairs, while men said age didn't sink in with them until their sex lives were affected. Quinn believes that the secret to feeling young is to ignore the media and plot your own path.

"I keep hearing this phrase 'over the hill,' but I've never experienced it," said Quinn, author of a story of intrigue in the retail fashion business, "Webs of Power" (www.darlenequinn.net), and its recently released sequel "Twisted Webs." "I was 49 when I resigned as an executive with Bullocks Wilshire's department store chain, and I didn't feel old then, and I certainly don't feel old now. However, I can see how some women could feel that way, particularly with how the media portrays women in film and TV shows. They are all either young and pretty or old and infirmed. In the movies, there is no middle age, so I can see why many women would feel like 29 is over-the-hill. If you're a woman in Hollywood, and you're over 40, it's almost like you don't exist until you're old enough to play someone's grandmother."

In fact, as far as Quinn is concerned, 70 is the new 40.

"Today's 70 equates to the 40s of years gone by, in dress as well as actions," she added. "As long as there are no major health issues, there is no need to get old, and certainly no reason to feel old."

About Darlene Quinn

Darlene Quinn is an author and journalist from Long Beach, California. Her first novel, "Webs of Power" (winner of the 2009 Indie National Excellence Award for Fiction) -- and its recently released sequel "Twisted Webs" -- is about the backroom wheelings, dealings and double-dealings behind the scenes of a national retail chain, based primarily on real-life people and companies Quinn encountered during her career in the retail industry.