Sexism and ageism often seem to be both sides of the same coin. They show how much easier it is to see lump people into categories that rob them of their individuality. If I understand this failed jest correctly, women who wear granny pants also sit in rocking chairs crocheting granny squares or staring vacantly into space until such a time as when
they are called to meet their maker.Just how close to reality is the image of the crocheting granny? I If one takes into consideration the gender-pay gap in United State where women's earnings are 77.4 percent of men's--these are 2010 figures--chances are that only a small number of women past childbearing age are to busy trying to survive to indulge in infinite leisure. The popular perception is a distortion based on age-gender bias. It accounts for the popular notion that older men look distinguished while older women look extinguished. Again, maybe this perception seems to be linked to sexuality. Most elderly man can father a child, most older woman, cannot. If worth is reduced to the ability to reproduce, what of the men women who are unable to do so? To equate human worth with the viability to the viability of eggs and sperm is as intelligent as saying that rabbits are superior to elephants.
I find it utterly discouraging to think of humanity as nothing but a blob rushing to reproduce, but that is the message I get from labels meant to diminish older women. What is the explanation for the pervasiveness of age-gender stereotypes in a so-called civilised nation? What are parents teaching their children, that grandma is a doddering old fool in funny pants? How do families who would not countenance racist jokes allow their offspring to think of older women as objects of derision? I wish I knew the answer to these questions as much as I wish I knew what sort of underpants Streep, Morrison, Angelou, Ginsburg, Steinem and Clinton wear. I just turned sixty five and I would like a similar pair.
This is wonderful.
ReplyDeleteA few thoughts, in no particular order:
1. The flip side of this coin -- perhaps -- is the expression "put on your big girl panties, and deal with it." In this case, women are considered not actual adults, but as some kind mentally stunted children who aren't mature enough to wear "big girl panties." (I *loathe* this expression.)
2. The twenty-something hipsters I work with tend to wear what's now called "boy shorts" which are -- to my eyes, both unflattering and weirdly reminiscent of girdles (a garment I associate with a previous generation, my own grannies, actually). What the current twenty-something disparagingly call "granny panties" are actually bikini-style underpants.
3. I suppose bikini underwear is hugely conservative, if one has only worn thongs.
4. There's a fascinating diving line, which seems to cut along the lines of age and class, that divides the thong wearers from those who cannot bring themselves to wear thongs. The former think these garments are supremely comfortable and sensible, while the latter think "ick."
5. For the last fifteen years or so, female college students (at least those who work in professional summer theater) profess a peculiar aversion to the word "panty." This word actually makes their skin scrawl.
6. So does the word "moist." Go figure.
7. I actually do not spend much time pondering the undergarments of my coworkers. But clothes *do* say a lot about culture...