Tired of Being Invisible?
What we can do about aging, losing our looks and being ignored.
Visiting Tel Aviv in 1985 I was unnerved by the sexual aggressiveness of the men. My brother-in-law, who was a psychoanalyst, had been invited to Israel by a patient who credited him with curing a severe depression. The man was a coffee plantation owner and was having a building dedicated to him at Tel Aviv University, and some excellent tours had been set up for our family. My sister and their two young children were going and I was invited.
One night in the hotel lobby, particularly uneasy with the open stares of the Israeli men, I said as much to my brother-in-law. (Note: I was not a gorgeous, voluptuous, Barbie doll of a young woman, but I was noticeable, apparently, as a tall, slender, light-haired woman.) In Israel — and Italy, where I’d been two years before — the men stared hungrily at me, and although I was accustomed to unwanted male attention in America, it usually involved slightly less visible drool.
On that night in the hotel lobby in 1985 my brother-in-law gave a small smile and said, “Wait’ll they stop staring at you. That’ll be worse.” And I clearly remember the moment, some years later, when my sister said to me that, as a matronly, middle-aged woman, she had become invisible.
Decades later, my second husband and I moved to Florida. Although he has lots of family a couple of towns away, we knew no one in the town where we chose our home. What a luxury it was for me to go to the grocery store wearing no make-up and some inelegant outfit just one step up from pajamas, knowing I wouldn’t run into anyone I knew! I was enjoying being far less visible than I had been in New York.
But as the years went by, and I got to know more and more people here, and I got older and older and started wearing make-up to the grocery store — and sunglasses to hide my tired, old eyes — I realized one day that I had become invisible anyway, although I am still about six feet tall, minus the shrinkage of age, and that’s without the high heels I like to wear upon occasion.
Many of us suffer through aging, of course. The first time we are called, “Ma’am,” or not asked to show ID, and the startling experience of seeing nieces and nephews for the first time in a while and finding ourselves dwarfed by their newly adult height, our mortality rears it’s head.
But then there are advantages to growing old, such as senior discounts and the noticeable lack of men leaning out their car windows — or stopping their construction work — and shouting obscene, sexual comments at us. We do not miss that. It always made us nervous.
The painful part is being marginalized and dismissed by various, (albeit not all,) members of the younger generations, who would surely include us more in their lives if we didn’t have crepey upper arms and hardly any eyelashes, symbolizing the end of our usefulness, or interestingness. These days, if we want to have relationships with the youth of our families, we often have to uphold both ends, always initiating Happy Birthdays, Happy Holidays, Happy Life Events, etcetera, without the reciprocal initiation, because they don’t even know when our birthdays are. Energized by our morning coffee, we reach out enthusiastically to initiate contact. Sometimes there is a fleeting response, sometimes a very long interlude before any response comes and sometimes no response at all. We’re not invited. We come last, floating somewhere out on the periphery with our sparse eyebrows and nasolabial folds (mouth wrinkles).
Do you remember being celebrated, feeling loved and acknowledged, your opinions respected or at least listened to? And now, when you walk through a crowded aisle, realizing that no heads turn, and when you sit at a table with a group you must raise your voice or interrupt someone rudely to get any notice?
A few years ago I announced to a small, local, women’s gathering that I now have low self-esteem. One new friend cried out in surprise, “But you’re a beautiful, dynamic woman!” I didn’t know it when I was young, and I don’t feel it now. Now I am almost no more. Now I am a shadow. So I have gone into hiding, which is less agonizing.
Daily, those of us who are invisible work on accepting our invisibility and moving on. We believe we’ve made progress and then, boom! Along it comes to haunt us once again. We take it personally, it causes us ongoing anguish and a sense of injustice, and then we think it must be our fault, the youngsters just don’t like us, and we deserve it. The more inconsequential we feel, the more we withdraw, until we are living almost hermetic lives. So, no wonder nobody cares what we have to say! We are vanishing.
If you are an introvert or suffer Social Anxiety Disorder, there are advantages to being invisible. If you have lived, when you were comparatively young, in a place where you were highly visible and then you move, as you walk reluctantly toward your senior years, to a place where no one knows you, it can be a respite, a vacation, a chance to save money by not shopping for make-up or new clothes because you can wear your bathrobe to the grocery store. But eventually being ignored can get tiresome.
There are different kinds of invisibility, depending upon where you live. In some countries, of course, you are invisible from birth because you are a woman. In others, like America, you can be highly visible just because you fulfill a certain standard of beauty, (which currently includes, but is not limited to, having artifically grey hair). But watch out, because then you’re invisible when you age and/or lose your looks. You have indeed passed your Sell By date. Ouch.
So, what do we do if we don’t enjoy this diminishment, and we want to remain vital and beautiful, even though we are now elderly? Should we just accept this time in our lives gracefully? Many women seem to. Some women seem to age with uninterrupted grace from being granddaughters to being grandmothers. But some of us, not so much. Should we stand up and shout, like the scene from the film, Broadcast News, when Peter Finch’s character hollers out his window into the night, “I’m mad as Hell and I’m not going to take it any more!”
We are, after all, living history! We have amazing stories to tell! We may look worn on the outside, but we can still be beautiful on the inside. We can make substantial — and lively — contributions to the conversation, to our communities and to the world!
So, I say, stand up and shout! Let’s not get mowed over, bypassed and cast aside. Let’s lean out our windows and holler, “Just because I am old doesn’t mean I am useless!” Or something even more inspired and captivating. You decide.
Speaking of being more visible, Sarah’s Profile will soon be expanded, so please check back!
