The casting and fate of "older" women in nineteenth-century American plays

Abstract

In this study I apply feminist theory and age theory to the analyze the representations of older women in nineteenth-century American plays. Reading the play scripts against contemporary sources drawn from medical treatises, advice manuals, literature, lithographs, newspapers, diaries and letters, I suggest that the convergence of sexism and ageism evident in the plays reflects an ongoing attempt to regulate female sexuality and to stabilize gender/power relations in the rapidly changing social world of mid-nineteenth-century America---a time when women's demands for legal, economic, educational, and sexual rights were beginning to gain ground.