Calling Women Over 40. Well, maybe the New York Post and a few television producers were reading the WVFC blog recently. Today they report;

SINGLE Manhattan women over 40 – start your engines! IiN TV Productions is developing a reality series called “Cougars: NYC,” about five older hotties “living the glamorous life in NYC . . . with men 10-plus years their junior.” Producers have picked three gals so far: R&B singer Mel’isa Morgan, WOR Radio ad exec Dawn Ellison and Shahla Husein, v.p. of a medical sales company – all of whom only date guys in their 20s. A casting call for two more women will be held at a singles mixer at Libations on Ludlow Street Aug. 20. Executive producer Elizabeth Mwanga disputes the negative connotations of the word cougar. “Basically, it’s meant to symbolize empowerment. This isn’t just horny older women chasing younger guys,” she told Page Six.

And now she rises. The Marian Anderson Award, named for the chanteuse famous for breaking the color barrier has been given for 10 years to artists whose lives demonstrated their commitment to both artistry and human rights. Starting with Harry Belafonte in 1998, the award has more recently included Elizabeth Taylor, Danny Glover and Oprah Winfrey. This year, thanks to  a match between the city and the state of Pennsylvania, two artists will each receive the award – including the inspirational Maya Angelou:

Woman of letters Maya Angelou and television pioneer Norman Lear will get the city’s award to recognize artists who promote human rights, Mayor Nutter announced early this afternoon. Angelou and Lear will get their awards – $100,000 each – at a Kimmel Center gala on Nov. 17.

If you’re anywhere near Philadelphia in October, you might want to stop by the Kimmel Center. You might get lucky, and hear her say something like this:

Timing is everything. This week, Dr. Marie Savard, author of  “How to Save Your Own Life,” reflected for ABC News about  all the bewildering, seemingly contradictory evidence about HRT and dementia. “As I have said so often before, for the millions of women going through
menopause, I don’t think there is anything more frustrating than trying
to make sense of all the confusing research on hormones,” Seward writes. The only clear conclusion, she sighed, is a warning to women over 65:

A new study from Kaiser Permanente, presented at last week’s Alzheimer’s Association International Conference on Alzheimer’s Disease in Chicago, reported that women who began hormones at menopause had a 24 percent reduced risk for all forms of dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease. Older women who started hormones at age 65 or so had up to a 46 percent increased risk of dementia.

We already have many good lifestyle and medical treatments that will greatly reduce the risk of osteoporosis and heart disease. As we are also learning at this conference, lifestyle choices that are good for the heart are also good for the brain. Everything from a heart healthy diet, regular physical exercise, omega-3 fatty acids and even caffeine may be just what the brain needs to stay healthy.

And we also learned it is never too late to reap some benefits from a healthy lifestyle. Therefore, no older woman should assume the small risks that come with starting estrogen when there is so much she can do to lower her risk. But what about all the baby-booming women approaching menopause who may be suffering, or the women already in the throes of menopause who want to do everything they can to stay healthy?

A brand that says who you are: Allison at Womenbloom.com reports that meeting with a series of marketing experts got her thinking slightly differently about reinvention:

For us midlifers, knowing your own brand is more important today than it ever has been. The rules have changed and the days of simply showing up, doing your job, and assuming you’ll always have that job if you want it are rapidly disappearing. We are competing for jobs with younger folks and people across the globe. Companies are under a lot of competitive pressure and are laying off. Often, older workers are the first casualties. Many of us want, or need, to work far beyond the traditional retirement age.

In this climate, being passive about your job and looking to your employer to guide you is not nearly enough according to those ‘in the know’. Those who fare best are those who are proactive and think of themselves as their own business even if they are someone else’s employee. It’s about You, Inc.

What are the things I do better than anyone else? What makes me stand out when compared with others? What parts of my work history have I enjoyed the most? What products or services do I ‘sell’ currently? What are the changes in my company/my industry that could affect me/my job? What new ‘products and services’ do I need to add to my repertoire to adapt to those changes? What is the next level of skill sets I need to develop to deliver those ‘products and services’?

Have some fun with this! Imagine you’re You Inc.’s VP of Marketing and, like Oprah, that you want us all to have an instant understanding about you when we think of you. What would it be??

By Chris Lombardi