power, privilege, and everyday life.
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39 posts tagged age
I am a 62-year-old female associate professor who has been teaching with technology at a state university since 2002. Most young people under 25 working retail check-out think I need them to explain how to use the card-reader screen.
I am a female teacher in my late twenties. I am also under five feet tall. I never exactly know what to say when people tell me, “Oh, I thought you were a student!” One of the comments that I hear often is “That [chair, bag, box, etc.] is bigger than you are!” Obviously, it then becomes difficult to feel like an equal professional among my colleagues and superiors.
I’m working at my computer and my medical director, an MD, is standing beside me to show me how to operate a software task. The hum of the computer makes it harder for my hearing aids to distinguish words, plus her mouth is two feet above me. She also has a high-pitched, soft voice. She says a two-word phrase, but I can’t hear it. I say, “What was that?” She repeats it, without changing her words or volume. I say, “Sorry, I didn’t catch that.” Instead of changing her phrase, writing the 2 words down, or showing me on the keyboard, she leans down, puts her mouth to my ear (and my hearing aid) and screams–and I do mean screams– “CLOSE IT!” My head was ringing for the next 10 minutes.
When the President of the Board of Directors of a start-up, non-profit, public health NGO calls the office line, I answer.
Him:: Can we expect to see you at tonight’s event?
Me:: Yes.
Him:: I’m sure you’re going to get dressed up very nicely.
Before the conversation ends, he asks me to relabel 50 business cards, because he forgot to grab some before boarding the train. I not only *dressed up very nicely* for the event, but was the only staff member to work the event-in below-freezing temperatures to boot.
Here’s to being the only 20-something year old female in the work place.
Stranger:: What do you do?
Me:: I'm a professor.
Stranger:: You're way too young to be a professor. You look like a student.
I'm in my 30s and I dress more professionally than my colleagues. But I'm also petite and female. My male partner, who has the same age and occupation, is never told that he doesn't look like a professor. It sends me the message that I'm an imposter, merely play-acting at being a serious scholar or authority figure. Made me feel like no one will take me seriously despite my accomplishments.
During an age discrimination trial, the judge made a comment in front of the jury while the 60 year old lawyer was adjusting the jury’s electronic evidence viewer. After the 60 year old lawyer finished successfully adjusting the computer viewer, the judge (in his 40’s) quipped “Oh, I guess they can teach old dogs new tricks.”
“Are you sure you’re old enough to work here?”
Asked repeatedly to me, a 25-year-old female, by a middle-aged man whose wife I was assisting after her eye test. I didn’t have the experience of some of my ex-colleagues, but I was still considered by my ex-boss to be a good dispenser, and even though the patient was a bit fussy, her prescription and the type of glasses she wore were well within the scope of what I did every day. I knew he was a dickhead and just kept answering with a short, “yes,” but I still felt angry at the assumption that I was incompetent purely because I’m a woman who happens to look younger than her age. And people try to tell me that there’s no need for feminism because sexism doesn’t exist in Australia anymore…
I feel like the only queer characters I see in media are rich, attractive, young, white males. Do I not count? Makes me feel unlovable.
“Is this a good thing?”
My boss, after I told her I was pregnant. I’m 30 years old and not married. Made me feel about 14 years old.
I work at a restaurant, and while my (male) boss thanks all of us by saying “thanks kid,” the women also get “thanks hun” and “thanks dear.” Dude, I’m not your daughter or your girlfriend. You can just say thank you or compliment my good work.
“Hey ladies - do you want to be successful at work? Here’s the secret - marry a man who is twenty years older than you!”
The news.
A song I’m listening to refers to a group of people who are all the same age as “men and girls.”
As a child I play with Legos and Erector Sets but am told I should be a teacher when I grow up. As a teenager I help my grandfather repair trucks and work on construction around the house along with a male neighbor. When I make mistakes I am ridiculed as stupid and for thinking like a girl. When the male neighbor makes the same mistakes, he’s forgiven for not knowing what he hasn’t been taught, and told to learn from what went wrong. Made me feel powerless, angry. Like my interests meant less than the gender role I had been assigned.
My doctor diagnoses me with vaginismus, which is a condition which can make penetrative sex painful or difficult. She explains that it isn’t so bad because I am ‘too young to be having sex anyways’ and that one day 'my husband will understand.’ I really want to be able to have sex, and I don’t appreciate the assumption that I like men or that I desire marriage just because I am female. I wonder whether the same comments would have been made towards a teenage boy. Made me feel judged, kicked while down, misunderstood.
I am in a pharmacy and need something for sports injury. When I tell the assistant that she laughs and so does her colleague. I am 59 years of age and female.