middle-aged feminist

I'm nobody's mother. And frankly, it's ageist only to be seen through this prism.

Sometimes this dismissal of 'middle aged women' gets me mad - but then again sometimes I laugh bitterly and think 'Yes well, you'll learn'.

I’m old. I don’t want to be “respected”. I just want to be considered a normal member of society. And I don’t want my feminism to be viewed through the prism of age.

Hi ouch. I know what you mean and I agree about that. But there are definitely different, non-Western societies where there is far more respect for elders.

I won't be able to find the literature but I recall a thought experiment conducted in different cultures in which people were given the boat dilemma where they had to throw out one person from the boat in order for the others to survive. A selection of people were in the boat: old, young, male female etc. The Western participants were far more likely to throw out an old person on grounds of the good innings argument. The non-Western culture participants were far less likely to do this and were more likely to throw out a young person as less wise or having contributed less to their society.

It was very enlightening as to how old and young people are valued differently in different cultures.

If it wasn’t for the ‘middle aged feminists’ your arrogant younger relative wouldn’t be posting on Facebook as they would be too busy doing all the ‘women’s duties’ that we grew up being expected to do.

I started a thread about this recently after an outrageous demand on 'older' women;
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3143740-Older-women-should-step-aside-says-Laura-Hudson

Divide and rule is an effective strategy. If it didn't work, women would not have bound their daughters feet, or mutilated their genitals, for fear that men would not marry their daughters.

Fair answer banana

There was a great article by a feminist writer saying she shouldn't matter we should be united to tackle the issues together whatever the age.

I wish I could remember who wrote it, does anyone else have a link?

Because many young people have bought the “all the battles have been won” bullshit. And the “How can you call yourself a feminist you wear makeup/sleep with men “ bullshit. And the “burlesque is empowering” bullshit. They don’t realize that rights can be lost as well as won.

I don't know Blind I think every generation challenges their parents opinions.

I think it there is a wider issue that different groups of people aren't listening to others viewpoints and having actual debates.

I think feminists of all ages should be listening to and debating with each other. Both have perspectives that are valuable.

I don't think creating or perpetuating dichotomies as the phrasing of the OP's post does is helpful for anyone.

I'm always a bit (read: surprised and pissed off) that my right-on, virtue signalling teens are passionately keen to demonstrate how much they deplore racism, homophobia and transphobia, with sexism coming at the bottom of that list and ageism absolutely not appearing on it at all. Being dismissive of older people seems to be part of the deal.

I think Brexit is involved, if that doesn't sound ridiculous. At the time of the referendum result there was a lot of talk about how the older generation had shafted the young, and I think it gave ageism a sort of legitimacy.

Because middle aged feminists are more likely to see through bullshit. We see TIMs for what they are, are more aware of the internal misogyny we have grown up with, see sex work as the abuse (of mainly woman & girls) that it is, we have no interest in being ‘nice’ because society expects that of us, we have learnt that our men do not have the right to sex and we’re not failing in our relationships if we say no sex tonight fuck off and let me sleep, etc. We are the ones that give feminists a ‘bad name’ because misogynistic men and women can point at us and use us an example of ‘ugly old women’ in order to excuse crap behaviour towards females.

Many younger women are reluctant to call themselves feminists because they are afraid of being lumped in with ‘the man hating brigade’ because they haven’t realised that these terms are a way of training women to stay out of feminism and remain subservient to men. Thankfully there are many wonderful younger women on Mumsnet that are finding THEIR voice rather than repeating the misogynistic voices they’ve grown up with.

Interesting first post OP. Why do you say middle aged feminists are loathed by society? How do you think that is relevant to a discussion on feminism on this board? What are you hoping to get out of this discussion?

We live in a very youth-centric, ageist society. I think it encourages younger people to be dismissive of the old and their opinions.