Hags

Why do so many people seem angry at women once they pass forty? Over the past few years, middle-aged women have increasingly been written and spoken about as morally lesser, cast as the public face of prejudice, self-interest and privilege. They are treated as people to dismiss, feel sorry for, or mistreat. Hags takes up the puzzle of this open contempt.

Each chapter focuses on one subject, including unpaid care work, appearance, violence, political activism and sexuality, and examines it through the beliefs, bodies and life decisions of women in midlife. Victoria Smith links the attitudes she describes to the fears about aging women that fed the witch hunts of the early modern period, and she considers the particular reasons this prejudice carries so much force now. The book treats the vilification of hags as a pressing issue.

Smith openly takes on the role of the Karen, so that no one else has to. The book closes on a hopeful note, setting out possible solutions that could improve conditions for all women, whether they are hags already or still on their way to becoming one.