Attention from men : what's wrong with being invisible?

[Watdidusay]

Inspired by another post - I am curious.

I see so many posts mentioning becoming invisible as you get older.

I always feel somewhat invisible anyway! That's normal to me. I don't think I'm particularly unattractive or anything, but I don't have men staring at me when I walk into a restaurant.

Am I missing something? Is behaviour towards me going to change one day soon and I'm suddenly going to understand what everyone meant?

Looking for sharing of experiences.

If you feel invisible generally, I think you will continue to feel invisible. Or perhaps something will change and will you become visible.

What you do with, or how you feel about your visibility is a different question. Some women feel like they don’t exist unless they exist to men. Some women find it pleasant but no more. Some find it a confidence boost. Some find it a distraction. Some find it lecherous. Some, validating or affirming. To each her own.

I think if you dont get it then you were always somewhat invisible to the male gaze in that head turning sense.

You won't miss what you never had.

The promised invisibility vanishes in short order if you are inconveniencing them in some way I can tell you! Ie existing in the gym, refusing to step out of their way in the street, etc.

Try being a solo western woman visiting an Islamic country and walking through the older part of the city. If you wear normal western clothes every head turns. However if you wear hijab (as I did) you become invisible. and blend into the crowd. Invisibility can also be a powerful thing.

If you were invisible when younger then there will be no difference.

Im guessing this is about my thread!

Being invisible to everyone (or at least to not be seen as a person beyond my fatness) when I was obese for a few years was awful

Becoming invisible to men through aging has been LUSH. I love that I can exist in public spaces with my also aging friends without being interrupted by men, and then having to chose whether to humour them so they'll go away peacefully, eventually, hopefully, and hopefully not be too encouraged by our politeness, or whether to take a blunter approach and nip it in the bud, and risk that becoming nasty.

I already loved my female friends, but being older and freer to be left alone by men has made it much more re enjoyable. When we were young and noticeable to men, we would be constantly interrupted if we spent time together in public. And not necessarily because we were being hit on, that's only one of the reasons that men notice young women, they also notice young women because young women are socialised to be "nice", and they expect you will hold the baby, or entertain the boresome uncle etc.

I'm unhappy that I've for some reason lost some of that invisibility that I've been enjoying the last decade or two, but I have a whole other thread a out that.

They act like you appeared in a puff of magical smoke if you don't move out of their way first. Like it's an affront that they were forced to acknowledge that you exist on their physical plane.

I'm told on t'other thread that this is all in my mind though.

I always have a wry smile when I read the posts complaining about becoming invisible. What these women mean by being invisible is that they used to get served first at a bar when they were 4th in line, now they get served 4th. Oh well.

Nope

It means we can go up to a half empty bar and if a man then approaches the bar too, they get on with ordering their drinks at the other end, and we order our drink at our end, and go back to our table to resume our conversation with our friends

Vs, standing at a half empty bar and having that uneasy sense that someone is coming to stand right beside you despite the whole length of the bar being free. You want to "read the room" and turn to see who is in your personal space, but have to think twice because eye contact = encouragement. It's assessing whether replying to his question will be too encouraging, Vs whether not replying will anger him. It's declining help carrying your round of drinks back to your friends while he jokes about "do you think I'm going to spike your drinks or something?" (Err maybe, had crossed my mind). It's deciding whether to laugh that off to keep his ego happy, or not, and get abuse or vile comments about how he wouldn't fuck you anyway aimed at your back, while you walk back to your table, shaken, on edge, and looking out for where he is now out of the corner of your eye. Now you've long forgotten what you and your friends were chatting about before you went to the bar.

The only reason we cared about being served first rather than last, was to get back to the safety of the group.

I don’t think either of us are the type that posts OPs on MN bewailing about how we have become “invisible” (reading between the lines- no longer getting male attention) as we have aged. Sounds like both of us are quite happy with our status quo.

I don’t miss the male gaze at all. It does bug me if it means I’m ignored or looked over.

This sounds like a normal occurrence! It's always been this way for me. I might just be ugly 😂

It's not on a scale of objective attractiveness IMO

The formula you're assessed on is something along the lines of usefulness times likeliness to comply divided by difficulty and position/privilege?

Idk

It's not a matter of objective beauty or not anyways

You could be beautiful but there be something about you that says "an effort to manipulate' 🤷

I am middle age and don't feel ''invisible''.

Maybe that is because I don't depend on the male gaze to validate me.

I guess some women believe the propaganda that their only value is based on their youth and physical appearance.

Instead I think it is important to know how to stand up for yourself and demand to be heard and respected rather than just seen.

I have always been very plain and the invisibility (and lack of anyone caring about how much attention I pay to my appearance) has been great. It has levelled the playing field for me.

But the residual feelings from having men literally talk past me to my more attractive friend, to resigning myself to walking home alone after an evening out have stayed with me. It's like always being the last one chosen for a team and everyone sighing when they realise that they are going to HAVE to have you on their team - that scars you and remains in the back of your psyche forever.

I think the problem is that it's difficult for women to get attention just as human beings deserving of respect - for attractive women this is masked when young because they get attention as sex objects, even if this isn't the same and can be problematic.

It isnt about men. Im not interested in men. Its about the whole of society.
Once you start getting older all of a sudden you become something else. In my job I have to work 10 times harder to get the recognition I used to get for just turning up for work in the morning.
Nobody is interested in my opinion.
People speak to me differently as if Im hard of hearing. Im only 64. Im still working.
But somehow my value has dropped.

This! So funny. 🤣. They also assume you owe them conversation. On many a day some man will invade my day uninvited. I’m nearly 60. Yesterday it was those drunk types on a bench - one said ‘afternoon’ as I walked past. It’s not nice walking past anyway but there is an inherent assumption that they can speak to you - I’m sure it’s to do with physical power being exerted as we have to be naturally fearful of what men are capable of n they weald this by interacting when uninvited.

I’m finding this difficult. I make a point of using ai every day n building things with it. The intersectional bias I experience is tough. Worse though - I am now partially deaf. I have three degrees tho and my brain is often wasted. But part of that is lost confidence as I have suffered a lot of ill treatment by men which has taken all my efforts to survive.

There have been countless threads on MN about being invisible, getting attention, no longer getting attention etc Almost invariably these are in connection with whether men notice or don't notice women.

My feeling is nobody should be invisible n our society. That everybody deserves courtesy and acknowledgement of their existence as a human being. There is something far wrong in the way we are bringing up and educating our children if they have the opinion that once someone gets to a certain age they are invisible and dont deserve normal acknowledgement and courtesies.

In my real life it's not just men that treat me, as an older woman, as invisible. It's quite a broad range of people . And often younger women are guilty of this and have a really disdainful attitude to older women.Contrast how I notice most older men are acknowledged and given a degree of respect not afforded to older women.

I think we should be looking at our general levels of behaviour to each other and also the way that youth is venerated in our society and a woman actually ageing is on a par with committing a crime.

I was always a looker, no false modesty for me. I dressed in an unassuming way, never interested in showing off, but I had a pretty face and a good figure. But it brought a lot of unwanted male attention, some of it criminal. As I have aged I have become invisible to men and now I feel I can unclench in a public space. I feel free. I don’t want their attention, and now they don’t want mine! One of the bonuses of age. It’s a sad one though, the majority of life being spent in dread at getting hassled.

Good god can we not want to be visible / seen / respected and not want to be leered on by letchy men?

i am a wheelchair user. I either get treated like I have appeared in a puff of smoke from thin air or massively inappropriate comments from gross men. Sigh

I was very visible from the age of 12 or 13 when older men cat called, shouted at and even grabbed me in public. It was truly horrific. Even when I was wearing a school uniform.

The interest continued at a more age appropriate and less terrifying (and illegal!) way in my 20s and into my 30s but then it completely stopped in my late 40s.

I’m now late 50s and a common example is - I was walking straight down a pavement for about 10 minutes yesterday and 3 different men walked either across me or straight at me and bumped into me as if I was literally invisible.

It’s bizarre. It would be nice just to be visible in the way that other men are to them. Not to perve and shout at and not to ignore and block if I don’t scurry out of the way.

I'm a bit surprised that I have not experienced anything other than this! I have always been walked directly into by men as though I don't exist.
Oddly I have never really felt invisible at work.

I'm more confused now than anything else.

Invisible to the male gaze- bring it on.

Invisible to the point you're ignored? Not greeted politely anymore? Having your opinion dismissed? That kind of Invisible wouldn't be very nice at all. So I think it depends what you mean by Invisible.