The Invisible Woman
I began lifting weights and going to the gym at 19-years-old. I’ve never considered myself an athlete, but I’ve always been physically active. Therefore, I can tell you with certainty that when I visited the local gym in my 20s and 30s, I didn’t need random men at the gym “helping me” set up equipment that I either already knew how to use, and I had no problem reading the instructions on new machines. At that time in history, they never asked if they could help me if they thought I was struggling with something. Men would just rush in with bravado and, in some cases, take the weights away from me to assist whether I wanted it or not. Fast forward to this time last year, now in my late forties, and I arrived at the gym and greeted the young man at the front desk, scanning my key card for admission. “Good morning!” I said with probably far too much enthusiasm for 6:45 am.
He ignored me. He kept staring at his computer and working. I assumed he couldn’t hear me, so I repeated myself, a little louder this time. Finally, he relented, “Good morning,” he offered under his breath, never looking up from the screen.
This annoyed me.
The next morning, I arrived again, wearing very bright red workout gear and offering a cheerful “good morning.” It happened again. Because I’m, well, me, I assumed he was hard of hearing, and repeated myself … louder. This time, he jumped slightly, looked up from his computer, and greeted me. He began greeting me each time thereafter … along with the other women who’d followed behind me. In my neck of the woods, most of us are 40-something and older.
If I’m being honest, I prefer being ignored to the unwanted, and sometimes aggressive attention I received in my younger years. But the sad reality is, many older women are feeling invisible. How does one go from having too much attention, to not being seen … at all?
We live in a society that glorifies youthfulness, and older women are encouraged to buy age-defying cosmetics to scrub away those wrinkles, get plastic surgery and behave and look as young as possible, and then are mocked if their surgery looks “fake,” or if they are “trying too hard” to appear young. I keep seeing social media posts with titles such as “Women over 35, stop wearing … [XYZ].” There’s a list of dos and don’ts for how we are supposed to behave. In a recent study conducted by the Media Diversity and Social Change Initiative, leading men surpass leading women 3:1 in academy award-winning movies, and women over 40 are absent in all main roles. Fortunately, this is changing, but you are still far more likely to see an older actor with his female love interest being about 20 years his junior.
I considered creating a meditation for insight timer on embracing aging and resting in the acceptance of aging, and the wisdom it brings … if you let it. As I researched aging meditations for women, what I found were a litany of anti-aging meditations to help you “appear younger.” Of course, we don’t want to age prematurely. We want to stay as healthy as possible, but trying to reverse aging is rarely about becoming physically healthier, more often about looking the part.
I found exactly one video, a Meditation for Embracing Growing Older, and then created my own Honoring the Aging Process on Insight Timer.
I guess my message for older women is, don’t let yourself internalize those ageist messages. They don’t represent you, your beauty, nor your wisdom. You are not invisible, not to the people who matter. It may take society a bit more time to catch up, but it will get there.
Optional Action Item: Listen to one of the meditations in the links above, and make sure that when you look in the mirror, you say something nice about the person staring back at you.
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