"boomer" thread

[Maireas]

You've hidden this evening's offensive, ageist thread, stereotyping "boomers". Will this be deleted? Can we have a robust response to ageism on MN?

I don't know how you can possibly assert that a generation "pulled up the bridge" when it was nothing to do with us, and when we have children and grandchildren whom we would wish to be treated equally!

What on earth were we supposed to do?!!

Vote for different politicians? Pressure for different policies? Not keep supporting politicians who sold off all the national infrastructure and gold and fucked the economy and implemented extortionate student loans and abolished grammar schools and did nothing about our energy security, spaffed all the money from North Sea oil, sold all the Council houses, and knew damn well that as a large cohort with growing life expentancy there was no way the state could afford to fund your pensions and healthcare through a ponzi scheme but did nothing to pressure politicians to fix that even though it was foreseen for several decades?

Who elected them?

I fully recognise that my generation got dealt some aces, post war health care, full employment, free tertiary education, lower house prices etc , it was something we didn’t ask for, and no, it will never happen again. But at the same time, as women, we also got dealt some stinking shit hands such as sexism - both domestic and workplace , unequal pay, poor maternity care and benefits, poor understanding of womens health care generally, dismissal of domestic abuse as something that outside agencies shouldn’t interfere in etc etc etc and many of us have spent a lot of our energy trying to ensure that our daughters and their daughters haven’t had to fight those battles quite so hard

Lol. Women's healthcare is still a shitshow. Domestic abuse is still often ignored. As a millenial I was told a full grown man beating me up as a teenager was a "domestic issue". I don't think you achieve what you think you did. It has been the cohort who have come up behind you who are stamping out this kind of stuff much more vocirferously - the so-called "snowflakes".

Probably a plant by the Dailyhate.

This. The inability to recognize that economically Boomers had it so so so much better than millennials or Gen Z is what leads to this. It is objective fact that Boomers had and have had huge structural advantages. We SHOULD be able to debate things like the removal of the triple lock on pension, means testing on pensioner benefits etc as well as elderly social care and yes web assisted dying without people shouting about ageism.

And the response “well it was nothing to do with us, blame the government” or “well I had it tough too” always strikes me as the demographic equivalent of NAMALT. It’s like coming on to a domestic violence thread and talking about men’s higher suicide rates. Total whataboutery.

That of course is separate to all the nasty personal comments about Karens which are disgusting and should be taken down.

Has your 'side' won all the elections you've voted in?

I hope my future grandkids don't blame me for the (often tiny shred of a majority) election and referendum outcomes I didn't vote for.

Totally agree. The sexist crap that we put up with at work and fought was unreal.
They also forget that we were the 'turnaround' generation; our parents did not put us first... it wasn't done then and never had been. But we did put our children first as has the subsequent generation. So we were never first.

The people who actually bothered to go out and vote presumably?
IPSOS MORI: turnout in 2019 General Election ranged from 47% among 18 to 24-year‑olds up to 74% among over-65s.
Maybe start there….

On this, my Mum (born in the 50s) not only raised me (whilst working full time a lot of it), she also helped with childcare for my 2nd. Then she took on looking after my Nan who is 98 and still going strong. She has NEVER had a break from caring since she was mid 20s.

Each generation have their different struggles. All of them valid.

You are hilariously ignorant, and incoherent. Speaking of the Baby Boomers worldwide, who lobbied for, and fought for, and achieved Rape Crisis Centers, Women's Refuges, safe and legal abortions, single mothers' pensions, and a woman's right to open a bank account in her own name; who fought for equal pay for women; who marched against the Vietnam war; who rallied en masse for peace; who started the environmental movement; who invented punk rock; who were the brains and coders behind the very devices you spew your fury onto?

I did see that thread but I find most ageism on here is towards Gen Z. They're selfish, deluded, conceited, clueless....

@Maireas But we weren't doing any of those things. We were all being SAHMs servicing our husbands and sons. No job, no education.....

Lol. Women's healthcare is still a shitshow. Domestic abuse is still often ignored. As a millenial I was told a full grown man beating me up as a teenager was a "domestic issue". I don't think you achieve what you think you did. It has been the cohort who have come up behind you who are stamping out this kind of stuff much more vocirferously - the so-called "snowflakes".

Domestic abuse is still often ignored.

Domestic abuse was overwhelmingly ALWAYS ignored for the boomer generation.

I don't think you achieve what you think you did. It has been the cohort who have come up behind you who are stamping out this kind of stuff much more vocirferously

The cohort coming up behind the people you're referring to are Gen-X, so not sure you really have a good grasp here. Also, are you really so ignorant of late 60s/early 70s feminist activism?

@greenhydrangea Good post.

The irony. I come on here and find posts displaying exactly what we were complaining about and trotting out all the old cliches as if they're original.

It's like threads about racism, or disability or even the threads where people are asked not to tell infertile people to "just adopt" - loads of posters will come on and assert their absolute right to be cunts because its more important to them than actually paying attention to what people are saying and being thoughtful about it.

What a crass, messy, generalising post.

loads of posters will come on and assert their absolute right to be cunts because its more important to them than actually paying attention to what people are saying and being thoughtful about it

I've noticed that a lot of people don't actually look at where they're posting/read the OP post - they just fire off a response. The posts I'm talking about being an example. We're here complaining about ageism on the site and lo and behold, someone comes along and provides us with a textbook example of what we're complaining about and reinforcing the complaint.

Bit of an own goal there. 😃

To be honest I can understand the anger of younger people too. They have been disenfranchised. I find myself halfway between Slug's views and the views of others on the thread - which is probably a fairly normal place to be. It would just be nice to have proper conversations about things without it descending into 'OMG you Karens, just die already and gimme your house!'

I’ve had a post deleted for calling someone out on their ageism in Style and Beauty. I will continue to call it out.

You're wrong. Baby boomer is a neutral term with no negative connotation. And has been in standard usage for decades. Boomer is an offensive insult and has been recognised as such by many regulatory bodies.

Don't be part of the problem.

I've never voted Conservative in my life. Take your offensive generalisation and stuff it.

Or small children.

That laptop thread was awful. I mean how dare a 2 YEAR OLD reach out and merely touch a laptop belonging to somebody else 🙄

Had that been an elderly person with dementia touching it, what would the responses have been? Still ‘they should be keeping their hands to themselves’?

This is the point of why ageism in all its forms should be treated as absolutely unacceptable.
To attribute unproven facts about a certain generation (i.e. all people born over an 18 years old time span) and demonise them on the basis of what you think you know about them is callous and rude.

Surely you understand the abstract ‘you’? 🙄

Your opinion is of no consequence to me.