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.

And you will get a pension. No one has taken tha away, just at an older age, like all of us. The money to find any compensation for a lower age for pensions can only come from one place. Current workers.

You make excellent points, some I hadn’t even thought about in the context of being a woman in society for this generation. It’s not just about whether these women knew about the impending changes, it’s about whether they had the ability to sufficiently prepare for those years and I think in many cases, the answer is no. I’m 46 by the way, and feel extremely fortunate to be a woman of my generation with many opportunities available to me. I don’t think the same applies to the waspi women.

My mum was a single parent who struggled to work for many years due to childcare responsibilities and her mental health. Around maybe 15-20 years ago she was actually advised by an agency working for the government (I can't remember the name but was well-known at the time- a private company the government had outsourced some of the job centre's activities to, they were supposed to support people back to work) that she'd be able to claim state pension at 60. In fact she had to wait to 65. She actually questioned at the time what she was being told as she had heard about changes in the news, but they were adamant they were correct. So it's not even always a case or not being informed, but of being completely misadvised by representatives of the government themselves who should have been trusted to know

Perhaps the generation after that who will retire at 75 may feel bitter about the privilege of those who were able to retire at 68.

When I went to university, 8% of women went.
Many didn't have that privilege and were in full time work from 16.

Yes but there were a lot of things they have found money for - like a pay rise of 15% over 3 years for train drivers who are already highly paid and can be on £60,000 within a few years.

The average annual increase planned in Labour's budget was larger than every spending review since 1998 except for 2002.

Women are bottom of the pile though when it comes to this government it seems, not sure they even know what one is.

People on here seem to despise the elderly, sure that they're all secretly loaded. My mum is working 2 jobs in her 70's to keep the 2 bed house she's lived in all her life.

If you knew about the pension changes then no need to claim for the money, but people should stop saying that it shouldn't be paid out just because they knew.

It's for the people who didn't know.

That happened to me, working in a nationalised industry in the 80s. I already had children, but the man ‘had a family to support’. I was just working for fun of course!

I have mixed feelings about the WASPI women, not everyone was savvy about future changes. I’m older and like many of my age got a reduced state pension at 60. SAHMs weren’t given NI credits back then, we were supposed to rely on our DHs. That didn't always work out too well either. I understand, as with the Winter Fuel Allowance the reasoning that the well off don’t need these payments. However, the cut off being Pension Credit is too low. Often those just above that level earned no more, but tried to make provision for their old age, and have been penalised. If everyone got a decent state pension, then those add ons would not be needed.

I would assume that the most vulnerable women who might not have been capable of maintaining a basic understanding of current affairs etc will be entitled to pension credits in any case, and possibly other benefits as well. So the impact of this might not be as great in any case.

For the vast majority of women, it must surely have been common knowledge.

The changes to State Pension Age were announced in 1993 when the “WASPI” were aged at most 43. Where do you get 11 years’ notice from?

Your 40 years of “knowledge” that you would be able to retire at age 60 wasn’t actually knowledge but ignorance. And I think that’s what’s so frustrating about this for many of us - surely the sexism comes from those who say they were just poor, stupid women and couldn’t possibly know about important financial things that affected them.

Look at the six test cases the Ombudsman considered. One retired “irreversibly” at age 47, another was expecting the State pension to pay for her Buy-To-Let property, … . Any wonder the public are pretty unsympathetic to the cause?

It's for the people who didn't know.

Except it’s not, because they’d be making a payment to every woman in that age bracket, whether they knew or not, whether they need it or not.

I am 73 and didn't vote for brexit, but the people who did, weren't doing it for spite, they were tricked by the same ruling classes who have been manipulating our lives in their favour for hundreds of years.
Only briefly after WW2 was there a government which worked to improve the lives of ordinary people. Since about 2010, things have been changing and it is shocking to those of us brought up in the 50s.

What is the relevance of this question? Is it so that you can decide whether the OP is deserving of sympathy or not, depending on their answer?

I'm have 7 years to go until retirement but having not married but having DC, for the last 20 years I've been aware of how much I have put away for my private pension and have checked my contributions for the state pension. I am totally on top of when and how much I will get.
My mother on the other hand 'left all that' to my father to sort. She has no private pension, a reduced state pension and is reliant on his income. She sees him as provider and never took an interest in planning for her retirement. Although she was able to retire at 60, she hadn't involved herself in financial planning at all. Many of her friends were like this too.

I agree. I’m 45 so not affected but the general mood to it is horrible - but that’s how this country is getting. Horrible

Yes I expect they will. But are those who are being made to retire at 68 asking for the younger ones to pay them.compensation out of their taxes?

Came here to say something like this, you’ve nailed it better than I could.

It's quite common to 'other' different generations and make them a scapegoat for current issues. It is just disappointing that this is women against women. Playing straight into the arms of the patriarchal narrative that governs our lives. Still.

Oh for heaven's sake.

OP made an interesting, impassioned argument and that's your response?

Same with equal pay claims where women who've been underpaid for years are blamed for bankrupting local authorities etc. Women, especially older women, don't deserve justice, and discrimination against and contempt for them is perfectly acceptable. It's warped.

And it really isn't a "privilege" now you're expected to have a degree just to do an admin type job. A degree that will cost you thousands of pounds and you'll be paying back over your whole working life!
But without one nobody will employ you!

Starmer wants to punish older people

Does he? I though what he was doing was trying to rebalance the burden of supporting the state ao it doesn't just sit on the shoulders of the young?

I'm still wondering why it's considered fair that younger women should work til 67 or 68 to compensate women who wanted to retire at 60 so maybe explain that to me.

I think it's hard to feel sympathy because the current generation will have work until mid 70s and will have no state pension so to speak of.

If people were campaigning for compensation for women with specific barriers that might have made them unaware of the changes, e.g. learning difficulties etc, then I would have sympathy. Otherwise, I think it's entirely reasonable to expect that the general population should have known.