Impact Sheehy’s books are popular works that
have had a powerful impact on many people.
Readers often define their lives through these
books. InNew Passages, Sheehy mapped out an opti-
mistic new frontier for her readers—a second adult-
hood in midlife. According to Sheehy, men and
women who embrace this second adulthood can
progress through new passages of meaning, playful-
ness, and creativity.
Sheehy is a sought-after lecturer who reports the
results of her investigations and observations of
women and men in different phases of their lives. In
addition, she speaks on women’s health issues and
lectures on how companies can survive global com-
petition with a “Winning with Women” strategy.
Further Reading
“Gail Sheehy 1937- , American Nonfiction
Writer, Journalist, Biographer, and Novelist.”Con-
temporar y Literar y Criticism171 (2003): 323-358.
Kaplan, Fred. “Gail Sheehy’s Guide to Manopause:
The Author Tackles Male Anxiety in an Era of
Gender-Role Uncertainty.”Boston Globe, May 14,
1998, p. E1.
“New Passages: Author Gail Sheehy Hails the Advent
of a Second Adulthood.”U.S. News & World Re-
port, June 12, 1995, 148.
Ski Hunter
See also Amazon.com; Audiobooks; Book clubs;
Clinton, Hillary Rodham; Employment in the
United States; Health care; Hobbies and recreation;
Income and wages in the United States; Internet;
Journalism; Life coaching; Marriage and divorce;
Psychology; Religion and spirituality in the United
States; Soccer moms; Women’s rights.
Shepard, Matthew
Identification Gay college student murdered
because of his sexual orientation
Born December 1, 1976; Casper, Wyoming
Died October 12, 1998; Fort Collins, Colorado
Shepard’s murder raised the public’s awareness of hate
crimes against gays and lesbians and led to demands for
state and federal hate crime laws.
When Matthew Shepard met Russell Henderson
and Aaron McKinney at the Fireside Lounge in
Laramie, Wyoming, on the night of October 6-7,
1998, he thought he was meeting two fellow gays. He
was wrong. He left the bar with the men, who later
pistol-whipped him and tied him to a fence, leaving
him for dead. By the time a passing cyclist found
him, he was beyond help, and he died in a Fort Col-
lins, Colorado, hospital on October 12.
After police found evidence in the perpetrators’
truck connecting them to the crime, Henderson
and McKinney were arrested. Without question
their attack was motivated by homophobia. They
chose Shepard because of his sexual orientation,
hoping to rob him and later deciding to try to bur-
glarize his home. However, the pair could not be
charged with a hate crime, as no state or federal stat-
ute allowed for such a charge.
In 1999, Henderson pleaded guilty (thereby
avoiding the death penalty) and was sentenced to
two consecutive life terms. McKinney pleaded not
guilty but was convicted easily, and the prosecution
initially wanted to seek the death penalty. However,
Matthew Shepard’s mother, Judy, interceded and
asked prosecutors to work a plea bargain that would
allow McKinney to keep his life. McKinney agreed to
sacrifice any right to appeal the trial and to serve two
consecutive life sentences without possibility of pa-
role.
Impact Media attention surrounding the tragedy
had a huge effect on the public. Celebrities de-
nounced the crime, and Shepard was memorialized
in films and music. However, at least one group,
Kansas’s Westboro Baptist Church, claimed that
Shepard’s death was justified based on his sexual ori-
entation. The group’s very public stance, which in-
cluded picketing Shepard’s funeral and his attack-
ers’ trials, only demonstrated the need for more
inclusive hate crime legislation. President Bill
Clinton even called for Congress to draft stronger
hate crime legislation. Change, however, has been
slow to come. In 2007, both the House of Represen-
tatives and the Senate passed a version of a hate
crime bill inclusive of crimes against homosexuals,
dubbed the Matthew Shepard Act. However, Presi-
dent George W. Bush suggested that he would veto
the bill if it reached him.
Further Reading
Loffreda, Beth.Losing Matt Shepard: Life and Politics
in the Aftermath of Anti-Gay Murder. New York: Co-
lumbia University Press, 2000.The Nineties in America Shepard, Matthew 769