Women Age & The Unspoken Expiration Date

It has been almost six years since I moved to Spain.

I have always been drawn to historically vibrant cultures, and after my long career building a business in the States, I developed an even more profound appreciation for cultures where “LIVING… BETTER YET SIMPLE-LIVING” is the centerpiece of their lifestyle.

BUT What I thought I saw and didn’t know, until moving here, was how genuinely FREE I would feel living here as a woman-in-mid-life.

Long before the craziness of 2016 Presidential Election, I felt I didn’t belong in my home country any longer.

Living in American, you learned that if you worked hard, you can create and have whatever life you wanted, what we call the American Dream. But what I didn’t know was that the American Dream had an expiration date.

What I mean

…is I didn’t know how captive mainstream Americans and I were to the marketing in America.

The U.S is good at producing pop-culture, trends, what’s new, and innovative. We value this to stay vital, vibrant and relevant in the world’s marketplace.

The downside is that it has excluded its largest group of inhabitants by only caring to promote “those ideas” and to those it deems worthy to buy them.

Our economic exploration for the “next-great-thing” has had a trickle-down effect on what our society values. Having kind of Ponce de Leon effect of only assessing youth (more clearly said here.)

Believing that to find and create the next-great-thing you have to be young. Then assuming that to sell the next-great-thing, in the US marketplace, you also have to be young.

Or Look Young.  (In this department, marketers have done well by default in the massive, booming aesthetic beauty market.)

_____

Marketers are the first to tell you where to focus if you want to grow your brand and value in the U.S. and it is not the Baby Boomers.

In a May 2016 Article for Forbes, Contributor Avi Dan says:

Baby boomers are poised to be half the US population by the end of the next year 2017 and control 70% of the nation’s disposable income. However, they are neglected by many marketers. The University of Michigan shows that marketing campaigns targeting boomers are twice as likely to be successful than those targeting millenniums but yet they are ignored.

As Mr. Dan puts it, many of the marketers are stuck on the outdated idea of aging. To add insult to injury, many marketers feel that advertising to boomers may stigmatize their brands.

So what are the healthy, energized, ambitious, confident, ready to live life to the maximum, made in the U.S.A. to do?

First, let me say…

I love the United States I feel blessed to have been born there and love everything that I’ve gained from being an American. The United States has given me confidence as a woman in the workplace and its safety to educate myself where in so many other countries these two things are impossible.

So what is the deal?  We understand the evil and limiting nature of being racist, classist, and sexist; so why is ageism acceptable?  Didn’t we learn from the recent election that when we leave groups of people out, they eventually rebel?   Are we going to continually swing the pendulum from one group of disenchanted to another each election season or can we move on?   I think we should take the hint and start being more creative with choosing candidates and solutions that are more inclusive… but I digress.

 Now if it were just “Public Opinion” I could maybe weather through, 

After all, I have become thick-skinned from the years of being a woman in business.  Hiding by dressing like a man to be taken seriously in my early career days.  Later to endure the come-on-talk, the occasional put-downs, and the inappropriate touching:  So I’m not without the experience of perseverance.

BUT why should I?

Honestly the last (two) straws that pushed me over the edge are the Food/ Drug and Healthcare Systems in the U.S.  Thier slow willingness to change or put into place health supporting policies are too much.  They are not structured to promote well-being or handle my occasional hospital needs without bankruptcy.

Did you know that it is possible to live somewhere where denial or inclusion of health care is not a topic of frustration?  None of the elderly in my Spanish boyfriend’s village discuss or worry about losing their healthcare.  Nor do they know anyone who has been financial ruin because they had a severe or terminal illness.

I love my country, but it apparently doesn’t want me.  

I don’t believe I’m in a minority, who wants to participate in the economy, and who’s interested in staying healthy by eating “real food” and have access to affordable healthcare for those rare occasions.  Or who wants equal treatment and be respected in the job place.

 

I think we can do better.

_____

There is a good chance we will all be living a lot longer and healthier than our parents, maybe another 30-50 years.  That is a long time to be hanging around idle and not respected or supported to participate.  What a waste let alone not a sustainable model for any country’s economic or wellbeing.  

So what can we do?  We can know.  

Let’s Move Past our guilt, shame and this obsession of creating equality and just BE EQUAL.  Every group’s interests considered all at the same time.  It will take compromise and communication.   We can start at the local level… and move up!

We can start by recognizing it when we see it and with our dollars and our words not accept it.  

What I have found is when we talk about it, knowing in our core, what is right and what is wrong –we create change.  

Some have mentioned this effect as scientific, the observer effect ….. I am not sure.   In Yoga, it fits nicely into of the idea of wanting a bodhisattva life.  I believe it all gets down to– if you’re going to make a change on the planet, start with yourself.  

Either way, once you know something you can’t un-know it.  Then it is up to you to decide what you want to do.

For now, my choice is to live here in Spain, where I don’t feel those old pressures of being labeled.   And I will write about it.

Maybe I feel that freedom here because of my lack of the language that filters what I understand.   Maybe living here with one foot in my home country and one foot in Spain allows me more space.  Perhaps it’s in the publicity I see where they use older Fashion Models in their campaigns where we in America would never think of doing so; that I feel seen and appreciated.

Or it could be the multi-generational families I see together in the streets and restaurants enjoying each other’s company that gives me a sense of how the process of life has value in all its stages.

I don’t know.

But what I do know is that I feel I have more space to create, be involved and valued.  So this will be my place for now.

Have you experienced age discrimination as a woman?  What is your plan to stay vital and healthy as you age?  Any wise words for other women who might follow in your footsteps?