Ageism should be against Talk Guidelines

I agree that there is a lot of ageism on MN. It is tolerated far too often, in a way that other forms of discrimination are not.

They are not all the same but there are trends. If we dressed some mannequins in clothes owned by 20 year olds and clothes owned by 60 year olds chances are you would be able to tell which outfit was owned by who. I don't know why everyone has to pretend that they don't see these trends?

I don't think that thread was ageist.

Fwiw I've been on Gransnet recently and they were discussing how "younger women" in leopard print were "tarty"

Swings and roundabouts

I'm 70 and I don't want to dress like an old lady.
And I'm not offended by the reference.

But: “X is like Y” doesn’t mean that all Y are the same. Not to anyone sensible anyway.

I didn’t see the thread so maybe it was clearly derogatory in context.

But “dressed like a Pakistani lady” isn’t inherently unacceptable. Not unless you think Pakistani denotes inferior, or that it’s rude to notice that people from different places dress differently. Obviously it’s broad brush but that’s not a hanging offence either.

Yes exactly this! Shouldn’t we all be on the same side?

@spendyspend I'm 66, dd 28. We have different styles. She's quirkier and girlier than I ever was. My mum had true style.

I often report threads on Mumsnet for being ageist. However I’m almost 60 and often say ‘I don’t want to dress like an old woman’. Or similar. I didn’t think the post was ageist. There is enough ageism without worrying about something like this.

Does she at 60 relish being called a “little old lady”?

They? Are they all the same?

Does she dress the same as all other 60 year old women? Do all women your age dress the same?

She didn’t say that. She said she was discriminated because of her age. Not the same thing at all.

Hush Puppies? I am nearly 70 and haven’t seen a pair of those for at least 30 years. Do they even still exist?

I don’t want to look like I’ve borrowed my clothes from a teenager, or from my mum! Even when I have!

Styles vary. Not many people succeed in wearing the clothes more typically worn by a different generation. Helen Mirren absolutely does. My friend who wears very similar outfits absolutely doesn’t.

I think it’s unreasonable to try to stop people generalising. As long as no one is being nasty about another group, I don’t see the issue. It’s not nasty to say that older women tend to wear more sensible shoes that work for sore, older, feet! If you are a granny and are able to wear stilettos, then I envy you.

How the terms < dressing like an old lady > is ageist. Do old ladies walk around with bum cheeks and half boobs showing

Agree OP.

@MyThreeWords interesting but my grandmother probably wore jodhpurs most days. When she'd finished with the horses, she'd put on a dress. She worked until she was 72 - helping to run a farm and the family business.

Mother, at 80, was wearing leather trousers, silk blouses and heels. At almost 90, she's very frail but still has her own style.

Does it though? I don't think MN is moderated properly at all.

They are all for sending teen girls naked pictures to them ffs.

Ageism is rife on here and completely tolerated by @mnhq

You have to be an old lady to look like an old lady.

When you are an old lady (all being well), no outfit will make you look like a teenager.

The idea's ridiculous, isn't it? Kitting myself out in the latest from Asos won't make me look like you and your friends. So how could something from Patra make you look like me and my friends? (We don't wear Patra either, I'm going for the most stereotyped brand I could think of.) Clearly, you don't mean 'like an old lady'. You mean ... well, what exactly? Care to elaborate?

Older people moaning and sneering? Oh come on. You do realise attributing negative characteristics to one particular group is the very definition of discrimination?

What would dressing like you're 70 mean? Explain, please.

Today the local 20-ish women were wearing wide, loose plissé trousers with little crop tops. Every one of them looked fantastic. I also have a pair of these - they don't look like this on me, because I have an out-of-shape, 70-year-old body. I don't wear mine slung low on the hip; they do because they have smooth, flat stomachs.

A toned, fit 70-year-old could wear them like that to good effect. Or couldn't she? What do you think?

How about an overweight 20-something with diastasis recti? If she wears her plissé trousers on the waist, is she dressing like a 70-year-old?

To me, 'dressing like an old lady' means dressing in the styles worn by the women I viewed as 'old' when I was a child. It means something like 'looking like my nana'. That's why we can still use the phrase as we get older: we are referencing whatever styles were common amongst older people in the decades of our childhood and adolescence. Even when I'm 110 years old, I'm not going to be dressed like the old women of the 1970s, so I can still be sniffy about [my image of] old lady dressing

Also, it feels like quite an ironic, self-deprecatory way of talking because it deliberately invokes this sort of childish parody image of an 'old person'. It doesn't feel genuinely hostile or pigeon-holing.

If the OP had said ‘I bought these dungarees and my friend says I dress like a toddler, is she right?’ would you have been so offended?