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 have huge sympathy with the WASPI women.

What I object to, however, is the increasingly infuriating narrative that everything is Starmer/ Labour's fault - after 5 months in charge.

Which government was it that brought in changes sooner than was expected and planned for? That's right - that amazing coalition of 2010.

Which government was it that knew full well prison spaces were maxed out and failed to act? That's right, the wonderful Tory government of the past 14 years.

Who broke our NHS? Our schools? Bankrupted our councils and brought us years of 'austerity' for no gain? And let's not forget the Great Brexit Experiment.

Starmer and Labour have been left with a shit legacy, and are finally making all the unpopular decisions that a succession of spineless Tory PMs were too power greedy to face. Leadership isn't a popularity contest, where you give people what they ask for, no matter what the cost. It's about making hard decisions, despite how unpopular it makes you, for the greater good of everyone. The UK cannot afford £10bn. Want someone to blame? Try Cameron and Clegg.

While I'm not directly affected , I'm only just in my sixties - I have to agree on the way everyone under about 35 seems to think we are all absolutely loaded, whining brexiteers. Any other demographic of people sneered at like this would be up in arms, but apparently, we're all living in mortgage free houses muttering about young people and living the life of Riley.
It's absolutely pathetic, and I'm sick of it

Perhaps her home is incredibly important to her, as our homes are to most of us. It's one of the most distressing things that can happen to someone, being forced out if their home.

Maybe. But they seemed very much in favour of this pre election.

Pre the 2019 election, definitely.

It was removed from the 2024 manifesto, and when asked about it specifically, Reeves said "I have not set out any money for that". I think their position was clear.

Yes, a couple of years ago they have said they supported WASPI women, but it was clear from the election campaign that this wouldn't be paid. You can absolutely accuse them of changing their minds. But I don't think you can accuse them of campaigning for the election by saying that this would be paid. If they were planning on paying it, they'd definitely have made a massive deal of it. Instead they pretty clearly removed it from the manifesto and said no money had been planned for it.

The only parties that said in their manifestos that they'd pay it were parties who would never have to actually follow through (Lib Dems, Greens) so can promise whatever they want.

Why?! I'm 64, support the OP and WASPI women, voted Remain and always vote Labour.
What's your point?

This. I was told at one interview that they were going to employ a man rather than me because I might get pregnant. That was not uncommon. It was a given that men got preference for promotion and higher status jobs.

It is a hard ask the generations facing a retirement age of 68 or older to shell out billions to compensate a small group, many of whom suffered no real financial harm, for not being able to retire at 60. You must see that surely?

Sorry @CAJIE but I disagree I remember when my working class mother was informed about the change back in the 90s. She received 3 letters and each came with a leaflet explaining exactly what was happening and what she needed to do, all the tv, radio and newspaper/magazine articles explaining everything in detail, you couldn't avoid hearing about it.
She had more than enough time and knowledge to deal with it by working towards a MW desk job that she could still do in her 60s. I know many women won't have been able to do that and would be like my grany who cleaned toilets until the day she retired with her tiny private pension (so tiny that she still got state pension).
I find it really offensive to say that WC women wouldn't have understood the letters or pensions, all the WC women I know understood it and just kept working.
I could point out that the only women I know who seem to have been caught out by this change were the MC women who never worked or worked in high paying jobs who retired early without thinking about the extra years that they had to self fund until they hit the new retirement age, but that's not because they are MC but because they chose to stick their heads in the sand and ignore it or were so arrogant that they thought they didn't need to think about it, many of the MC women I know beefed up their pensions, made other arrangements or just kept working.
This is not a class issue nor is it something that anyone should be compensated for. 25-35 years is more than enough time to make plans

I'm shocked by the vitriol I've seen against older women who didn't know about the changes. I think it's part of the usual viciousness on Mumsnet towards the less well-off or fortunate.

The complete lack of grasping simple facts such as how difficult it is to keep up with government changes to rules if you're semi-literate, working three jobs, sleep-deprived, homeless, etc. etc. is beyond belief.

Most boomers I know had desperately difficult lives in poverty, homeless as single parents, and are struggling as pensioners now. I don't know where this myth of rich elderly people on cruises comes from.

My working class granny, who worked on a dairy farm most of her life, worked until she was 75, "doing the books" for various small businesses.

That's still a pretty common attitude, just not said openly like that any more.

I get it OP and feel for you and other women in this position

Many of these women started full time work at 16. There was not the same amount of maternity leave or provision.
However, there's not a bottomless well of money, although I always think it can be found for other things.

Well, I have found that it's changed in my 40+ years in the workplace.

What on earth does that have to do with the topic?

@nepkoztarsasag Are you not capable of intelligent debate?

It’s a Council house so it should be given to a family needing the four bedrooms. Why build more council houses for families when houses are being blocked by one person living there. For the pension issue if they compensated those who gave up work earlier than they should compensate those who continued working as well as they weren’t at home so they might have suffered hardship physically/mentally through working.

Good points. I think it's just one of these lazy stereotypes that takes hold. Sometimes people look for others to blame for their predicament, so it could be migrants, those on benefits, older people etc.

Yes! I'm just into gen x. Many of us were never going to earn enough to have good private pensions and relied on council for housing. I am extremely pro social housing!
The presumption that everyone over the age of 50 is bigoted because they are older is prevalent on here too. As if it wasn't today's older generation that campaigned for rights and anti-rascism.

Even into the 80s it wasn't unusual for employers to ask if you had a boyfriend before employing you and schools expectations of many girls wasn't to go past the local factory, shop or if you had half a brain working in the bank.

Being able to retire at 60 was the one thing which was favourable to women as opposed to men. In a world which was and still is in many ways, rigged against us, it was important, and we paid our pension contributions for 40 years in the knowledge that we would be able to retire at 60. We were informed, but 11 years is not long enough to rearrange either expectations or finances, around something which has seemed to be set in stone, and I, for one could not quite believe it. Then it was moved again from 65 to 66. Since then there have been many shocking changes for those of us who were born in the 50s, like no longer being able to access an NHS dentist, and rescue by ambulance/A&E becoming uncertain in our times of need, not to mention leaving our hard won place in the EU.
We didn't have it easy financially, as many seem to think in the 70s and 80s but we thought it was worth the struggle, as we thought we were paying into a system which would care for us in our old age and subsequent ill health. So yes, we did expect compensation for the loss of something we foolishly thought we had paid for, and found to our cost that it had been a very big scam!

What on earth does that have to do with the topic?

The OP was talking about a lack of solidarity from younger women for policies that support working class women over 65. The vast majority of working class women over 65 voted Brexit and Conservative/Reform, against the interests of younger women. Solidarity has to work in both directions.

The money you paid for 40 years has been spent on the pensions of the generations above you. Who were incidentally a lot smaller and shorter lived.

You are now asking a smaller generation, who will retire a lot later to fund you to retire at 60.

Well said. I'm the same age as you. I'm still paying a mortgage, working full time, definitely not loaded and the ignorance of some of these comments is breathtaking.

Work pensions did not become compulsory until 2018 meaning many women have nothing except the state pension. Not loaded, not homeowners. And who knows how they voted with Brexit, or indeed how that is relevant.

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@queenMab99 why wasn’t 11 years long enough to prepare?

Could these ladies not continue to work until 65, like men were expected to do?

Adults are now expected to work until 68 to claim their pensions. Should they be compensated too?

No-one is asking anyone to do anything.
Women who have worked for years should get a pension. Governments have a responsibility to work out how this should happen.
Don't put the blame on older women.