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His comment shocked her. He meant well, she says. But
his patronizing comment was typical of society’s
views on old women. “He wasn’t seeing me
as this political woman, but as a woman with white hair
who was about to keel over. People really say bizarre
things to you when you’re 70 or older.”
Ageist comments were nothing new for Rich. She had
started hearing them in her 60s. So, she, with two friends,
Mannie Garza and Janice Keaffaber, decided to do something
about it. They founded the Old Women’s Project
(OWP) <www.oldwomensproject.org>, a San Diego
based, non-membership group working to change attitudes
about old women and raise consciousness about women
and ageism.
“We wanted to use various kinds of actions to
make visible the fact that old women are directly and
personally impacted by all issues of social justice
… actions that would combat the ageist attitudes
that ignore, trivialize and demean us,” Rich says.
“There is incredible contempt out there for old
women, when we’re visible at all.”
Visibility is a challenge women face most of their
lives. But when they start aging—sometimes as
early as their 50s—they get a double whammy of
negligence and stereotypes. Women are portrayed as either
selfless grandmotherly women, who bake, or as crabby,
mean old witches, Rich says.
These opposing stereotypes are common among groups
that are marginalized, she adds. “It’s like
on one hand, Mexican-Americans are really lazy. Or,
they’re willing to do any kind of work that Anglos
would never do.”
But why is aging a woman’s issue at all? After
all, everyone ages. For many reasons, say the experts.
Today, women live longer than men; still earn less income
than men; are primary caregivers and as a result, are
out of the workforce, losing pensions and retirement
savings; and often are widowed. All play key roles in
how women experience the aging process.
And most experts agree that there is no “one
old woman”— one aging size does not fit
all. A woman’s lifelong circumstances often dictate
how she experiences growing older, as does her attitude.
There are positives and negatives to aging and today’s
woman, if anything, is seeking new definitions and images
of how she ages.
The Ups and Downs of Aging
At the turn of the 20th century, most women lived
to be only 48. Today, many women will live to be 85,
if not older, and live an average of five years longer
than men. Some of that longevity is a good news-bad
news scenario.
On the down side, if a woman is widowed and doesn’t
plan ahead, she may end up living in poverty. Today,
75 percent of the elderly poor in the United States
alone are women. And the poverty rate of women is highest
among those over age 65.
In part, women suffer poverty because of two major
factors: pay inequity and care giving responsibilities,
says Laurie Young, Ph.D., executive director of the
Older Women’s League (OWL) <www.owl-national.org>
in Washington, D.C. Even though it’s been 40 years
since the Equal Pay Act was passed, women still earn
only 73 cents to the dollar that a man earns, she explains.
That number drops to 52 cents to the dollar for women
of color.
Second, women are still the majority of informal caregivers
in society, caring for sick parents and spouses, among
others. On average, a woman loses 11 to 14 years out
of the workplace, Young says. Because of those care
giving duties, women take jobs that give the most flexibility,
often part-time or low-wage jobs without pensions.
“The real truth is that women are providing
a huge uncompensated labor force in this country and
suffering the consequences, not just financially, but
in terms of their own health,” Young explains.
“Put all those pieces together—the years
women are out of the workforce completely, not investing,
not earning Social Security credits—and that’s
a recipe for women not faring well at all.”
On the plus side, as women live longer today, those
who have the means to do so, are taking better care
of themselves. They have access to health care that
their mothers or grandmothers didn’t. They are
eating more healthfully and exercising. And they also
“look” younger by design with hair, clothes
and makeup.
In a 2002 poll conducted by the Program on Women and
Aging at Brandeis University in Massachusetts, one woman
put it this way: “As a woman in today’s
age, I have access to a lot more things to keep myself
healthy. I don’t have to worry about stereotypes
and I can be my own person. And generally, I’m
healthier than my grandmother and even my mother at
my age, and I’m delighted.”
Speaking Out
When Nancy O’Reilly, Psy.D., of Springfield,
Missouri, was about to turn 50, she wanted to learn
more about women and the aging process. But when she
began researching, she found little or nothing of worth,
a telling fact in itself.
“At that point, everything out there was cute,
or how to stay young and beautiful and there was a lot
of humor talking about women and aging,” she says.
“I felt insulted; it was not helping me.”
So O’Reilly started informal surveys. Eventually,
she gathered comments from 1,000 women, ages 18 to 70-plus,
specifically asking them about their preceptions of
aging. Many women were relieved. No one had ever asked
them before how it felt to grow older.
As a result of her work, the five-year WomenSpeak
research project was born <www.womenspeak.com>
as well as a book in progress titled: You
Don’t Scare Me: WomenSpeak About Growing Older.
The clinical psychologist discovered that half the
sample surveyed feared getting older. Health problems
were the concern most often cited by women. Invisibility
was another, starting with women in the 50s age group.
O’Reilly says, “Women were saying, ‘I
had the feeling that 10 years ago people noticed me.
Now I know when I come into a room, I become invisible.’”
The other half of O’Reilly’s survey, however,
viewed aging as positive. As women grew older, they
realized they had more experience, knowledge, character
and self-esteem. They also knew what they wanted in
relationships, including companionship, stability and
understanding. “And more women wanted to be more
involved in the spiritual community,” O’Reilly
says.
Younger women surveyed also sought advice from their
older counterparts, O’Reilly discovered. They
wanted mentors to help them, not only with professional
programs and goals, but with life skills.
As to what younger women should be doing now to prepare
for their older years, O’Reilly recommends they
become more aware and knowledgeable about their health
and their bodies. “They also can learn a lot from
older women about relationships in general. And finances
are key. Women should get a business background, no
matter their field, and start investing early.”
Is Aging All That Bad?
Marital status, or lack thereof, also impacts women
as they age. Married women do better in some respects,
says Young of OWL, because they have the benefit of
their spouses’ savings and income. But when their
spouses die, women’s incomes drop dramatically.
“The most women at risk are those over 70 or
75 who are widowed, single, or divorced and faced today
with incredibly inflated costs for health care and prescription
drugs, because most women over 65 are managing more
than one chronic illness,” Young says.
Results from Brandeis’ poll back that up. According
to that survey by the Program on Women and Aging, married
women are significantly more likely to report aging
“better than expected” than previously married
(widowed or divorced) and never-married women.
“The findings challenge the stereotype that
aging is an unpleasant experience. Yet, we still have
to be concerned about the plight of women who aren’t
married, more of whom say aging is worse than expected,”
says Phyllis Mutschler, the program’s director.
Women who reported aging as a positive experience
stated that they had more freedom and time; took life
in stride; were more confident; had less stress because
their children were raised and out of the house; and
had financial stability and more money than expected.
One woman stated: “I expected to be dead a long
time ago but I’m still living. I’m healthier
than I expected to be at 81.”
On the other hand, women who said aging was a negative
experience pointed to health issues, inability to do
what they used to do, the high cost of health care and
drugs, financial insecurity, isolation, loneliness and
depression. One woman shared: “I am divorced.
I used to have two incomes, but now, I have to try to
make it on a female’s income, which is a lot smaller
than a man’s. Plus I have to do all the maintenance
on the house by myself.”
The bottom line of the study, Mutschler adds, is that
married or not, women had satisfying lives as they aged
if they had four things: good health, financial stability,
independence, and if they were active or involved in
various activities.
Women and Aging Worldwide
If women in the U.S. and developed nations have difficulties
with aging, women in other countries, especially in
the Third World, fare even worse. By 2025, it is estimated
there will be 1.2 billion people over age 60 in the
world, the majority of them women.
While Britain, the U.S., Australia and Canada have
had more than 100 years to deal with increased longevity
issues, Brazil, for example, has only had 20-30 years
to deal with the same rate of growth, and with fewer
resources.
Some countries and policy makers set 60 as a benchmark,
but age is a relative concept and varies from country
to country and place to place. Regardless of what constitutes
“old,” women, always the poorest of the
poor, bear the brunt of aging.
In Third World countries, half of all women live on
less than $2 a day, according to HelpAge International
<www.helpage.org>, based in London. Lower education
levels and their need to combine work with child care
means they work for lower wages. Land and property laws
also favor men. So, as poor women age, their poverty
deepens.
“Poorer women in Chile, Peru and Bolivia have
problems accessing benefits for various reasons,”
says Faith Mall of HelpAge. “They include not
having correct documentation stating their age. In addition,
literacy levels are low amongst poorer women.”
In countries like Japan, families and societies consider
caring for the elderly to be a woman’s job, and
particularly the duty of the eldest son’s wife,
according to the Women’s Association for the Better
Aging Society based throughout Japan. Again, this impacts
women who must leave the workforce and aren’t
able to save for their own retirement years.
Whether in the U.S. or other countries, old women
often find themselves in the same circumstances they
have experienced most of their lives. If they were poor,
in ill health and overworked while young, those conditions
likely stay the same or worsen as they age.
Many contend that to improve the quality of women’s
lives, especially in Third World countries, policies
should start in youth and at middle age, providing women
with education, jobs, the ability to buy land, and access
to better nutrition and health care.
HelpAge points to women like Dona Victoria of La Paz,
Bolivia, who had nothing in her later years of life.
After raising 10 children, surviving her husband’s
death and going blind, she was forced to live on $235
a year. Before she died at 92 in 2003, she had saved
$156 for her funeral.
As Rich of the OWP says, “There’s a lot
of talk of respect of elders in other cultures, and
to a certain extent, that’s true. But in many
cultures the respect that the woman gets is borrowed
from the respect the old man gets. It’s not in
her own right. If she becomes a widow, sometimes her
status changes dramatically.” |