Reply #2: Double sigh [View All]

[Warpy]

perhaps you're unaware of the poem:

"WARNING
When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn't go and doesn't suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick the flowers in other people's gardens . . ."

You can read the whole thing at http://members.tripod.com/~Labyrinth_3/page59.html

Things start to look a little different when you are over 50. For one thing, women suddenly find they become invisible. The poem and the movement are a reaction to that. They're also a way to indicate that yes, we've arrived and no, we don't give a damn what men or younger women think of us. We're done with the pinched lives and enforced morality that crippled us in girlhood and years of matronly motherhood.

Some folks have a real hard time dealing with that. Too bad.