Krupp speaks of her book as one for women over 40. As if she actually considers herself to be part of this group of women. She's obviously illusional.

I think looking to her for advice on aging would be like asking Zsa Zsa Gabor advice on marriage.

Oh my gosh, I don't know whether to feel so sorry for the silly woman, or intensely irate at her publishers for publishing the book, or pull out my already thinning hair in discouragement... please, Ronni do not mention her book again, please, readers of this blog, don't buy the book, and please to the gods, be merciful to Old Lady Krupp, she obviously has serious issues.

I will put in a reservation for Ms. Krupp here at the Twilight Zone in the year 2035. I think we already have a few like her.

Don't worry, Crabby. You are not alone in your loathing of this mindset. I will not be buying Krupp's book. I wouldn't even if I had seen it in the bookstore without reading your post. I have never bought a book of this type and the last that came anywhere close that I did buy was the only book I threw in the garbage. If I had had access to a dung heap, it would have gone there. What book was that? Mirabelle Morgan's "Total Woman." Both of these books suffer from the same defect. They try to force women to become uni-dimensional creatures: either eternally young or totally dependent on a relationship with a man. In both cases, the woman bears absolutely responsibility for her inevitable failure. It also encourages women to look outside themselves for happiness and self-worth which only makes them unhappy and self-loathing when their efforts fail to achieve their goals.

to waste our later years trying to look "younger", working at looking younger, spending loads of money on these products, is the saddest thing I can think of.....There is so much to do for others as well as ourselves in our later years.....I cannot believe older woman are falling for this crap.....

ARGH!!!!!! I hate people like her! I thought the Women's movement was about freeing us from buying into the Barbie doll thing and being real people and being ourselves. I wonder how her mother feels about this. Again, I feel like we elders dropped the ball in raising our kids or we wouldn't be getting this you-know-what.

P.S. I've never worn fishnets in my life and never will. Since when does looking like a hooker make you look young?

Ms. Krupp must think she is taking women forward when the opposite is true. Girdles? - good Lord, would anyone who wore them want to go back to that torture chamber? Fishnet stockings? I wouldn't have worn them when I was young because I never wanted to look like a hooker. After seeing a pathetic friend trying to delude herself into thinking she looked younger by dying her hair and seeing the gray roots that proved her wrong I determined never to go that route. Such nonsense!

One of the saddest sights I have seen was an interview with the sublime Ginger Rogers, by then probably about 70, face pancaked and 'blonde' hair so bright it made your eyes water.

I also recently saw a documentary about the Bond 'girls' which included interviews with Ursula Andress and Honor Blackman. The first had obviously had multiple meetings with her plastic surgeon, while the second was graceful, still beautiful yet every bit the age everyone knows she is. Age simply is. I have no more desire to get older than anyone else, but it will happen. Pretending otherwise makes not for a happier life - just the opposite since you will be faced with eternal discontent with your lot.

Actors like Judi Dench, Helen Mirren, Diana Rigg all show that age and beauty are not mutually imcompatible. If they can do it and continue to be successful so can the rest of womankind.

I state this as a male of course, on whom the social and economic pressures to remain youthful looking are so much less. From that perspective I can confirm however that the nipped and tucked harridans still pretending to be teenagers are making themselves less attractive - to me anyway - and no amount of self delusional behaviour will change that. So who is this behaviour intended to fool?

There needs to be a brilliant book and/or spokesperson to publically, broadly,and consistently speak against this hatred and fear of growing old.

She obviously hasn't discovered that one of the best things about growing older (aside from still being alive, of course) is not having to worry any more about all that crap. Though I wouldn't mind having my twenty-year-old knees back again . . .

Ms. Krupp should shut up !

I've never (well hardly ever) succumbed to the thinking that I need a whole lot of stuff to hold it all in and then some other stuff to decorate it once it's held in place. I think I look fine just as I am and so do most of us BUT there is that whole multi-billion dollar industry to get us to think that we are not so hot and we need to spend some money to get half way decent.

Her line about looking beautiful and younger being the "ultimate feminist statement" just about made me gag!

Girdles and thongs? I don't think so.

Her entire clip consists of glaring contradictions. She says we (older women) need to stay visible and viable -- not by looking good at our own age, but by looking younger. She says we need to beat the youth obsessed culture. Not by looking good at whatever our own age, but by looking younger. Excuse me, but doesn't this just fuel the youth-obsessed culture rather than beat it? And her quip about granny pants really irked me! I never knew being a granny meant a certain "look" to be avoided. I wonder if she also has categories for daddy pants and mommy pants that she holds in equally poor regard.

Watching that video has made me join the crabby ranks. I just want to whop her up side the head.

I see a lot of women my age - 50 - trying to look like they are still in their 30's. It's mind boggling to say the least to see what happened to all the strides we made in the 60's and 70's. Women today have become obsessed with plastic surgery and looking like sexed up barbie dolls. I cringe anytime my nieces ask for another Bratz doll.

I wonder if the New York Times would be in similar raptures if the book were titled, "How Not to Look Black" or Hispanic, or Muslim, or . . .

Oh. My. God. I gave up makeup in high school because it meant that I could sleep 15 minutes longer. Now I'm supposed to plaster it on? I gave up panty girdles after the first time I wore one in eighth grade. Now I'm supposed to stuff myself into them? I gave up fishnets because they made me look like a young slut. Now I'm supposed to look like an old whore? No thanks. I'll wear my age proudly.

Well, I still like being seen as attractive at age 70.......but it doesn't take makeup, much less Botox.......I'm lucky in that I live in a Mexican village and this is not an ageist society......even young men in their 20's will hail me to talk....why? Well, I think it's because I carry myself as someone open and friendly and interested in the life about me.......little kids respond to this, too......this doesn't mean I haven't had a period of adjusting to the saggy, jowly, wrinkled face in the mirror that somehow outdistanced how old I feel....sometimes I wear cosmetics, sometime not.....it doesn't matter except that I feel a little more polished until I'm outside the house and am just me.....forgetting whether I'm wearing what my grandmother called, "my face."
And a girdle? How, oh how, after so many years of comfort have young and middle aged women been talked into putting them on, much less spending money in order to do so........remember the merry widow strapless bra giving you a bellyache while hoping you're glamorous in your prom dress? Hail the freeingness of old age......
Carolyn