Ageism,ignorance, intolerance. class bias on mumsnet re Waspi women

[CAJIE]

I did not honestly expect any compensation though I might have hoped. Iwas aware of this change but did not have the chance to make extra provision for it.I do have a professional pension but will have to wait a while longer for the state pension which is extremely challenging.My plans were changed by covid and I doubt I will be employed again except possibly on poor and temporary contracts or gig economy.Secondary school supply on a daily basis has more or less gone.
However what appals me is the attitudes of many mumsnetters who assume that everyone has the abiity to understand pensions and that the Waspi women should have taken so called control of their situation.Maybe some could but there is a hell of a lot of class bias towards the women in lower paid jobs who perhaps were overwhelmed by struggling to survive and did not understand or read the news or the pension changes were not clearly explained to them.Pensions can be hard to understand and provoke anxiety.This appalling prejudice that all older people are rolling in it and this nice habit of some younger women to be sadly quite misogynistic and ageist towards women who are in poverty is very concerning.All sections of society should thrive even in older age and perhaps you younger women should be challenging society, housing costs, the whole ideology of owning a house and actually trying to build something new rather than bitching about what boomers have and their endless cruises etc.
.You are turning against your sex and the comments are cruel and harsh.You know nothing about these womens lives.
Starmer wants to punish older people and older women are always a good target.Your spite about all the things that boomers are supposed to have and you apparently dont is unpleasant.Women beware women.Very sad and against justice.

I don't remember anyone using a coin slot in the 70s or 80s. We just went into radio rentals and paid.

Exactly this. Education going from free to something that had to be paid for with barely any notice - certainly not enough for families to prepare financially for it. They didn't offer compensation, they just kept putting the costs up to the point that the next generation are struggling to even go at all.

Gen Z are less likely to retire at all, regardless of the state pension age. They'll be working beyond it because they'll still be paying private rents that the state pension will not cover, and have used tens of thousands of pounds that could have gone into a workplace pension contribution to pay off crippling student debt instead. If I was Gen Z and saw that this campaign was spearheaded by someone who wanted the extra money to fund their buy to let portfolio, I'd want to fucking riot. It's not exactly the most sympathetic case, is it?

@owlpineapple I also left school at 16 and worked. I have never had any money from family or any financial help at all since I was 18, except for £800 in inheritance. I have earned every penny I have.
It is hard to be on your own, but you can't change that, so you have to make the best of it. But I think you fail to understand what life was like until the last 20 years. Before the internet getting information was hard. If you did not understand your pension, you could not google and find out information. My pension place would only give advice for people close to retirement. So I had no idea that paying into a private pension meant I would get less state pension.
I am not stupid. But if nobody tells you then you do not go looking for a book in the library about state pensions.

@YouHaveAnArse It was talked about in the press for ages. It was exactly like the state pension age changes. The formal changes had little notice, but it had been around as an idea for absolutely ages.
By the way most people in my generation did not go to university. Free university only really benefitted the middle class. Few working class kids went to university. At my school a tiny number stayed on past 16.

This is exactly how Gen X and older Millennials remember life, btw.

I knew retirement ages for women had changed, and I was barely paying attention at the time to such things what with getting pocket money rather than wages. If I was aware, how uncommunicated could it have been? I'm not asking this to make a point, btw, I'm genuinely curious given that it somehow filtered down to me.

That was exactly why my mum - who's in the WASPI generation, btw - was desperate for me to go. If fees were not heavily means-tested at the time I went it would not have been affordable for that to happen.

It's much worse for younger people - if your parents aren't in a position to contribute, it's near-impossible to afford to go on student finance/part time work alone. And so bright working-class kids get locked out of studying law, medicine, architecture.

It strikes me how good governments are (both Tory and Labour) at convincing working class people that their enemy is other working class people. Divide and rule.
I don’t care if a boomer voted for Brexit, had free university etc, the WASPIs have been treated they way they have because of ageism and sexism.

But I think you fail to understand what life was like until the last 20 years. Before the internet getting information was hard.

Funnily enough I do remember the first 15 years of my life (well, at least 12 of them), and even I remember it being being discussed on the news and in the papers. While I do sympathise to an extent, I don't believe the government should pay out £10bn in compensation on the basis Google didn't exist yet.

I am in my 40s and my theoretical retirement age is 72. I am already in very poor health.

At 72 I will not be able to afford retirement anyway. Nlt that I haven't tried to save but life is just not easy fof all. I will have to work until I die.
I have 0 sympathy for people moaning about learning later in life they need to work until 65. Or 67.

Yes it's awful but if you don't those who come later will suffer even more. So yes, work until 65 being grateful it's not 75.

We have 4 million children living in poverty, we have old people sat on the side of the road for hours after a fall, we have people living in cramped and squalid HMOs. There are so many awful injustices right now that it really rankles when older women in this thread (many of whom are financially fine) try to claim they're somehow at the bottom of the pile. Out of touch much?

You are falling into the 'divide and rule' trap, I'm afraid. You can oppose more than one injustice, you know - it's not an either or situation.

I'm not a WASPI. I have teenagers whose future I fear for - in fact, not just them but their whole generation. I am also acutely aware of poverty rates in children and the appalling state of the NHS for older people and indeed for all ages. I campaign as actively as I can on all these issues.

I'm not begrudging the younger people who get the free childcare which was much more limited when my children were at that stage. I'm not begrudging the (slightly) more generous system for IVF funding available now compared with when I was at that stage and had to pay my own way. I'm not decrying the improvements which have come in re flexible working and parental rights which older parents didn't have. I'm not begrudging the fact that younger women don't generally speaking have to put up with the blatant sexism at work, lack of opportunities because I was female, and sexual harassment at work women oif my age faced on a daily basis when we were young. Instead, I am glad that younger women don't have this crap to deal with to the same extent, and support further protection for them.

As I said in my first post, I'm not sure that across the board compensation for WASPI women was the best option as not all of them have suffered. But some have - be it through lack of awareness of the coming changes, or bad advice re pensions. There are women who only had about two years to prepare for their pension age being delayed by up to six years. That had a huge financial impact for them. .

Why so many younger women refuse to recognise that some older women have been very adversely affected by the way the government handled this issue, and why they would grudge a little bit of compensation to them is beyond me. Why not be more supportive?

Remember, what goes around comes around and there may come a time when you need the support of other women to help you out.

And how many of the people who agree with the decision are personally affected by it, eh?

Answer = none.

Most families of all classes used to have a daily paper and often a local weekly or evening paper as well.

Every decade has been different from the decade that has gone before it.

In the context of the availability of information, it doesn't matter how readily available any I formation is if those reading it do not have the ability to evaluate it and take from it what is salient. If any in this thread go and have a look at the King Charles' health thread started this morning, you will see exactly what I mean. Despite the information that has been made available, posters have literally been making stuff up. It may be their truth but it isn't the truth.

Why so many younger women refuse to recognise that some older women have been very adversely affected by the way the government handled this issue, and why they would grudge a little bit of compensation to them is beyond me. Why not be more supportive?

But it's not just a little bit of compensation though is it. It's £10b. That's 20% of the NHS staff budget. 10% of the schools budget. With that money we could pay 100,000 nurses.

I'm sure more young women would be on board with the idea of a payment that only went to those who were in real financial hardship but that's not what's being asked for.

why they would grudge a little bit of compensation to them is beyond me. Why not be more supportive?

Not sure £10bn can be considered a little bit of compensation. It's almost as much as the amount set aside for victims of the infected blood scandal.

I disagree with decision not to pay compensation. What is strange is the anti-labour rant that goes with it. Tories were in power 14 years. They knew about recommendations and issues with WASPI. They chose not to pay you - loyal Tory voter or not. Just bear that in mind. I would keep fighting for it personally and not give up. Petitions/protest/MP contact/ art projects etc. Fight the power.

Because they have become bitter, believing too many of the lies on social media etc.

The equalisation of pension age was widely covered. But what the ombudsman ruled on was the change so that it affected those close to retirement.
When pension age was first equalised there was a long lead in time so women closer to retirement were not affected. And later on, it was suddenly changed so even women only 2 years from retirement had to wait longer. It was this second change that was not well publicised.

I’m in my late 50s so I hardly think I’m ageist?

I’d love to be able to afford to retire and I do understand how hard it must be to keep working long beyond the age you expected to retire, but it’s your personal responsibility to keep abreast of these issues and keep track of your pension. None of this was secret, it was all publicly available information so I don’t buy the excuse that women didn’t know, though I totally understand the frustration.

The problem with compensation is that the cost will be borne by our children and grandchildren who are facing never being able to afford to own a home, let alone retire. It just can’t be a priority for the country right now.

I’d love to be able to afford to retire and I do understand how hard it must be to keep working long beyond the age you expected to retire, but it’s your personal responsibility to keep abreast of these issues and keep track of your pension.

It was a very different time though in terms of pensions. Final salary schemes were common place and private schemes were less common. We’ve got used to now having an eye on our pension and knowing our state pension age bit when I started working life there was hardly anything about person pension arrangements other than making sure you paid into any occupational scheme where available.

Im not WASPI and don’t think compensation should be paid but I think folk are looking at historical pension arrangements and planning through a modern day lense.

Yeah this. My kids are gen alpha. Absolutely bloody terrifies me what the world will be like for them. So no, can't say I'm feeling concerned for the "waspi" women.

When I see my parents and their siblings and their friends and compare their lives and their 20s, 30s and 40s to my own, and my children, I run fresh out of sympathy for the WASPI group.

And again in 2011 with very little notice. It was a double whammy for women born in the early 1950s with those born in 1954 hit the hardest.

"And later on, it was suddenly changed so even women only 2 years from retirement had to wait longer. It was this second change that was not well publicised."

Honestly I really am failing to see why the notice makes a huge difference really. Surely you just stay working like everyone else has to?
Obviously the closer you think you are the worse it feels when you find out you have longer than you bought but fundamentally you just stay at work?

Don't talk sense.

The reason it matters is some women had left work thinking they would be fine as they only had 2 years till their state pension. I knew someone who did this to do grandchildren care. She was in the shit when pension age changed.