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Original poster

Has anyone read this article by Lucy Cavendish?

59 replies

eavietea · 23/10/2023 12:22

I read it and I can't quite make out what it is she is talking about. On one had she talks about feeling invisible and that she and other women aren't who they used to be and have grown past the roles they used to play in their own lives and society but then it seems to say it's more about how their internal feelings have changed, not caring so much about themselves or anyone, feeling more anxiety, negativity. I can understand all those things but to me what she is really getting at in the article is a bit muddled. I am a bit younger than my 50's but i am peri-menopausal. I just wondered if anyone else had read it and had any thoughts?

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/oct/22/a-call-to-action-to-love-ourselves-how-women-in-their-50s-can-leave-the-shadows

‘A call to action to love ourselves’: how women in their 50s can leave the shadows

As roles and circumstances change, women in their 50s can look inwards and find a deep acceptance of themselves

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/oct/22/a-call-to-action-to-love-ourselves-how-women-in-their-50s-can-leave-the-shadows

OP posts:
PauliesWalnuts · 24/10/2023 10:20

Is she the one who married her builder and we had chapter and verse of that?

Lentilweaver · 24/10/2023 10:32

I think it's always a mistake to cannibalise your life for the papers, and so many women journalists do. Involves constant backtracking.
My husband is the love of my life
My husband annoys me
My husband was a jerk and I have sworn off love forever to love myself
My new boyfriend is the love of my life

MattDamon · 24/10/2023 10:34

PrismGuile · 23/10/2023 19:26

To be honest I’m much younger than her so maybe I don’t understand. But I’ve never seen a 50+ woman reading somewhere and thought she was a ‘remainer woman’. I usually look at the book cover and wonder if it’s good - they could be a Nobel prize winner with 12 kids and I wouldn’t know or care.

To me, what she is saying is that as a journalist she doesn’t know what to write about anymore. Generally it’s 20s (finding yourself, dating), 30s (weddings and babies or no weddings and babies and dating or other peoples wedding and babies and how it affects you), 40s (being a mum or being child free or infertility). In among all the other things like travel, beauty, hobbies, addiction, therapy that make us rounded individuals.

Shes based her USP on being a mum of 4. Now she doesn’t know who she is or what to write about. And she thinks that means everyone else must feel that way too.

im a journalist so maybe I’m biased. But then as a northerner they only ever seemed to use me as a token. For everything else I was ‘too young’ but they let the much posher southern girl 2 years younger than me write it instead).

This is my take. Her whole career has been writing about her kids ( a little too invasively, imo), and to a lesser degree her weight loss, her divorce, dating new guys. Well done on changing careers but if she can't find anything else to write about, she must be dull as dishwater in real life. She owns a holiday home in Greece she lets out part of the year too, so it's not like she's living a tough life.

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MrsDrudge · 24/10/2023 10:35

Typical Guardian - a lot of words to say nothing.

bombastix · 24/10/2023 10:39

Well to be fair to the Guardian she was this witless in the Telegraph and the Times when she wrote for them.

Says something about the UK that this sort of aspirational yet irrelevant writing is able to get into broadsheet newspapers

Validus · 24/10/2023 10:44

On the theme of the book - I would also spend about 10 mins debating whether to ask if the book is any good.

she evidently sees lots of people who view ageing and invisibility as a problem, and not the joyous release that I find it.

i agree. I like the fact that I’m ageing. While I enjoy the present I look forward to my kids growing up and becoming adults. I don’t want to be visible and ‘out there’ anymore. I’d quite like a bit of peace and quiet and some time to potter in the garden.

NigelHarmansNewWife · 24/10/2023 10:47

The first that struck me is why feel the need to fit in? Then the rest of it just waffled on. I don't have kids. Have I ever felt any less of a person or like a didn't fit i.? No. Life would be very dull if we were all the same. There are a hell of a lot of very insecure people out there though who seem to agonise over things which aren't important in the scheme of things instead of getting on with living and doing what they like and what appeals to them.

LizziesTwin · 24/10/2023 10:53

I’ve read enough articles by her to know not to bother to read anything she writes as I’m not going to live long enough not to regret the waste of time.

Winteriscoming12 · 24/10/2023 10:58

To possibly misquote Catherine Tate's Nan, what a load of shit! That could be summed up in one sentence - get a hobby.

One sure way not to feel irrelevant in your 50s is to have a had a baby so late you are still the one applying suncream on the beach and admiring shells (or football cards)! But if you have had the wisdom or luck to have had them sooner, then wave them off to uni, cry a bit (or a lot), and then stop navel gazing, and get traveling, or volunteering, or running marathons, or whatever floats your boat.

That's my two penny's worth as a mid-50s sexual irrelevance (hurrah) anyway.

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