Vanishing Women

Just a few weeks ago, I was lamenting in this column that my teenage son was having trouble recognizing me in photographs. Apparently, he confessed, he had never ‘actually looked’ at me before. Hurtful as this was, I have forgiven him and moved on. (Well, almost, although I have banned him from using my car for a couple of weeks. After all, if he isn’t exactly sure who I am, he shouldn’t be borrowing my car, should he? Stranger Danger and all that…)

Well anyway, I am beginning to discover that this apparent invisibility is not only confined to me. In fact, forty-something women across the country are probably nodding their heads furiously as they read these words. They know what it’s like to become suddenly inconsequential.

Where once we pulled admiring glances, we now find people peering around us to check out the young beauty behind us. Where once a smile could facilitate queue-jumping, today we just head for the back of the line resignedly. Where once we might have smiled and waved when a car horn tooted at us, today we quickly check that our skirt isn’t tucked into the back of our knickers. And where once people would marvel and say “Gosh, you don’t look (insert approaching middle-age number)!” now they just nod and mutter, ‘Mmm. Yes. Those wrinkle creams really are such a waste of money, aren’t they?”

A heightened appreciation of this phenomenon came the other night when dining out with a group of girls (the more mature variety) and being totally ignored by the waiter for the first half hour. I swear we could have tap-danced naked on the table and he wouldn’t have given us more than a cursory glance. (Although doubtless there would have been some complaints from the other tables — something about putting them off their food — which might have brought the good man sooner).

Well, anyway, we discussed this matter of being unobserved, my invisible friends and me, and agreed it is becoming more and more noticeable. It seems they too have been suffering the curse of being overlooked, dismissed and ignored. And not just by their spouses, kids, bosses and pets either! They noted a distinct lack of interest from everywhere.

We Baby-Boomers, it seems, are, well … plain boring, to the younger set. Apparently we don’t deserve to dress groovily, be well fed or even have our views heard. In fact, if we had any dignity at all, we probably should just cover up, pay up and shut up!

But like every other hurdle our generation has ever encountered, there is little chance of us capitulating to the scourge of mature-age-invisibility. We wanted sexual freedom — we got it. We wanted no-fault-divorce — we got it. We wanted to be rock stars forever — we got it. (Well, okay, it was actually Mick Jagger who got it, but there’s no way we are going to tell him he’s too old because that means we’re old too!)

Yes, we BBs like a challenge and we will rise to it. We have been changing things from the sixties and we aren’t about to stop now.

So, what can we do to change this trend towards obscurity?

Act up. Misbehave. Break the law. Don’t pay your bills and definitely don’t lend your car, money or cooking skills to anyone under thirty.

Would we still be invisible then?

I don’t think so, Tim.