Helen Garner on the insults of age

[DancelikeEmmaGoldman]

Do yourself a favour, read this excellent piece by Helen Garner. It made me feel like standing up and cheering.

www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2015/may/1430402400/helen-garner/insults-age

Great peice. I've been taking similar action for some years now since I stopped giving a shit. Top tip. Don't wait till you are 71, it's way too much fun to leave that long.

Who the hell goes around asking complete strangers how their shopping was?
I found it very pleasing. I have spent many years looking forwards to being old so that I can be bolshy without any comeuppance.

I am liking the loss of giving a fuck. A lot. I wish had done it a lot younger.

'feminine passivity'

such a delight when you let it go and so surprising to males when you do I've found

I can't get access without registering and don't want to - so am ordering her book from the library which contains this essay. I like her writing on the whole. She wrote a great insight into a horrific murder of 3 sons by their father called This House of Grief – The Story of a Murder Trial (2014). She was reported as present in courts during the seven years that the case took to be finally decided.

She wrote some awesome books and a quite strange one called The First Stone about some sexual assault complaints at a Melbourne Uni in the 90s - which I only read recently. It was very disturbing as she seemed to collude with the abuser. What struck me were the parallels between her stance and that of Greer - both Melbourne Uni women of similar ages I think, both of whom seem to emphasise the perceived difference between "real sexual violence" and sexual assault" towards women - deeming the latter as mostly trivial.

I also think she didn't really get the stalking and sadistic nature of the son-killer in the former book above (he refused help to try and rescue his children and insisted he was driven to their mother's (his ex) so he could tell her they were dead

And yes I don't give a fuck anymore - fuck em all I say...

Well, my sister and I are 71, in fact 72 this year and frankly we haven't given a damn about what we say and think for some years now. It is astonishingly liberating to be old. (or young old)!
Sticking one's head above the parapet is also easier once you are retired although I did that anyway when I was working.
Worrying you might lose your job because you speak the plain truth is totally outrageous and should be condemned but sadly isn't. This fight for women's freedom to speak on a subject that is of intrinsic importance to them is vital despite the slings and arrows thrown at us. In praise of being old!

What I'm most looking forward to is running my stick along the public railings.

and wearing purple gloves..

With a red hat of course!

I find it interesting that although age is a protected characteristic, it's not one of the ones covered by hate crimes.

It's funny. My mum was moaning that she'll be 70 this year. I told her: "Fabulous. Now you can be as rude to people as you like."
Her response: "You've been getting some early practice in at that for years."

She's not wrong.

My mother and I are very different.

She wrote some awesome books and a quite strange one called The First Stone about some sexual assault complaints at a Melbourne Uni in the 90s - which I only read recently. It was very disturbing as she seemed to collude with the abuser

I read the piece (it came up in a secret FB group I'm part of), and thought - wow, she's back on form!

This is the Garner of Monkey Grip and Honour and Other People's Children (if that book doesn't move you to tears, you have a heart of stone ...) The First Stone was really weird - I think she was reacting to the start of the "snowflake" trend in universities, where students' "feelings" have to take priority over their learning. And it's weird because she starts the book with an anecdote about being sexually abused by a masseur - about which she says she was confused & bewildered. Hmmmm

But this new piece is cracking! It took me till my mid-50s to stop giving much of a fuck about what other people think - I'm still far more timid than I wish to be, but I think that what I've experienced is that sense of women "coming into their power" - I just wish we could bottle it, and give it to all the 12 year old girls in the world.

At the risk of being patronising & ageist, I am just shocked that Garner is 71 - I read her books in hot Sydney summers when I was 20 ...