It is sad but true that when you are of a certain age you will most likely become an invisible older woman, at least for some amount of time and under some circumstances. Although your friends, family, and colleagues will continue to recognize and appreciate your presence, much of the world-at-large will cease to acknowledge your material body somewhere around the time your second century begins.
Long-distance truckers will stop blasting diesel horns when they pass you on the highway. Young store clerks will glance right over you, or through you, choosing to engage with customers more their own age and especially those of the opposite sex. No matter how well-dressed and attractive you are, no matter how confidently you carry yourself, you’re going to be ignored more often than not when it comes to participating in the casual social interactions that are essential aspects of daily life, interactions such as grocery shopping, picking up clothes at the dry cleaner, checking books out at the library, or buying stamps at the post office.
These slights are at first shocking. Then, as they happen more often, you tend to become numb to them. But don’t let that happen. If you let yourself accept this rude behavior from others, and rudeness is what it is, then you will never become visible again.
Take a deep breath the next time someone ahead of you walks through a shop door and fails to hold the door open for you because, to that person, you are an invisible older woman. Make sure that person hears your uplifting voice say Thank you! as if you really mean it, as if the door really were held open for you. Believe me, that’s a shocker to the rude one. When a postal clerk handles your valued transaction as if it were no more than a bother, step up and say, And how are you today?
Not only will you be erasing your status as an invisible older woman, you will also be teaching younger people something they apparently haven’t learned…respect for all of humankind.