Posted by Lilly from D007173.N1.Vanderbilt.Edu (129.59.7.173) on Thursday, November 28, 2002 at 11:08PM :
In Reply to: 1st article on marketing posted by Lilly from D007173.N1.Vanderbilt.Edu (129.59.7.173) on Thursday, November 28, 2002 at 11:02PM :
Interesting bit about the phenomenon we see here in the States - women in their 20's-40's acting & dressing like teenagers, quite obviously craving youth again. The basis of "Sex & the City". Women are marketed youth - a desire is created & nurtured in them in which they crave the trappings of youth (hence the Botox & plastic surgery crazes), only replacing one cultural construct for another. They are merely being shunted into purchasing these things instead of buying the household tools women were (similarly) told to buy, via similar marketing strategies, in the 1950's. There is no liberation in this. Marketing is never conducive to liberation, anyway, no matter who it is geared toward.
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middle youth (noun)
The age, now generally considered to be from the late 20s to the early 40s, when a person is too old to be a youth and too young to be middle-aged; the state of mind of people in this age group who resist the usual trappings of encroaching middle age.
"Unlike some people, I know I will someday be ol ... ol ... less young than I am now. In fact I already know I'm no longer a kid. I cheerfully admit that I am well into my middle youth." -- Laura Adair, "Talkin' Bout My Generation," The San Francisco Chronicle, January 2, 2001
See Also: adultescent, andropause, middlescence
Backgrounder
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This term became very popular in Britain in late 1997 and has remained largely a British phenomenon. The first use of the term came earlier that year, and provides a possible clue to the origin of the term -- the PR campaign of a new women's magazine called Red:
"If you haven't heard of Red then you haven't been reading the papers, or looking at posters or watching the TV news or going to the cinema or ... well, if you haven't heard of Red then, basically, you shouldn't be working in PR. It's the biggest-spending women's launch since Marie Claire some 13 years ago and it's targeting a whole new concept in women -- 'middle youth'."
--Stephen Armstrong, "Media Profile: Putting the sisters on Red alert - Kathryn Brown, editor, Red," PR Week, January 23, 1997
-- Lilly
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