Wednesday, April 8, 2015

Older Woman Tells Off Younger Women at The Guardian

This is so fab. From the comments section of an article at The Guardian. Older woman telling off younger women:
profetic 10 Jun 2012 17:27
SICK, SICK, SICK of the patronising of those of us deemed too 'elderly'. Lay off us please and retreat to an area in which we may be able to give you internet guidelines on how to suck eggs, or will forward that instruction to your iphone or ipad. 
Listen - many of us, possibly most of us, don't fit in to your meeja fixations on naming us as 'elderly' and thereby squeezing us into some kind of youtubeism of 'poor souls' and 'thank God we're not at that point yet' and 'they're as needy as teenagers and in need of serious help' or 'they're all demented'.  
STOP IT! We actually hate your assumptions, and despise your attacks on us - because really, that's what they amount to. Think you care? Think you know my generation? Think you can judge our mental health and our meaningless BMI? Think you can make pronouncements on saggy flesh and eyebags, and that that means anything? 
Most of us fought for your generation, Karen. We fought and marched for equal pay. We marched for CND. We marched against the Vietnam war. We stood shoulder to shoulder with our black sisters and brothers, and with our gay friends. We, my generation, forced governments to take notice of what we cared about. We changed laws. We meant something to our children, even as we became the first generation of divorced women and single parents. We are women who can't, frankly, be assed about our asses. Not important. 
So what exactly are you doing to change the world? Putting us in an 'epidemic' box invented by some kids who were brought up by us, and now choose to make us into stereotypes? 
Grow up. Learn something. The issues raised here are pretty damned pointless and only mean something to those who have nothing better to get their airheads round. 
I did my PhD at the age of 61. Until then, and after that, I was/am a journalist and writer, still embedded in what my youth taught me, and what my valued age continues to tell me. And if it's about 'retirement' 'wrinkles' and Rumsey, we may as well all go to Switzerland and have our life ended peacefully in a way it never began. We were war/rationing/bombsite babies. We were born fighting, not reading Heat and the Scum. 
Just stop this condescending trip into what's ailing us. Look at what we showed you. Look at how you haven't lived up to our example. Look at how you can't be bothered. 
You embarrass my generation of women who had to fight for better than a neck cream. 
http://discussion.theguardian.com/comment-permalink/16554934