2004-08-15
Se det sköna hos äldre kvinnor!
Amerikanska seniorsajten för kvinnor - Seniorwomen.com - har många kulturella inslag. T ex en artikel av Suzette Haden Elgin från år 2000 som blivit en klassiker: "Why Are Old Women Older Than Old Men and How Can We Fix That?"
...."We have to start modeling - for young people and children all around us - the behavior that goes with treasuring and admiring old women instead of rejecting them. We have to publicly admire old women, and I don't mean Sophia Loren when I use that phrase. We have to say of old women who look their age, "Look at that woman, how beautiful she is!" We have to learn to say "What lovely wrinkles and lines she has .... what a wonderful texture her skin has!" We have to delete from our speech forever such sentences as "She must have been gorgeous when she was young!" and "Don't let the way she looks fool you - she's very sharp." We have to openly and publicly admire the physical characteristics of normal female aging, so that a new generation won't grow up believing that they are the identifying characteristics of human ugliness. We have to stop treating the phrase "old woman" as if it were an obscenity and start using it positively. We ourselves - we women who are growing old or are already old - have to flatly refuse to support the negative image of old women by devoting our money and energies to a struggle to look young. As long as we support it, it will flourish; it's time we gave that up."
...."We have to start modeling - for young people and children all around us - the behavior that goes with treasuring and admiring old women instead of rejecting them. We have to publicly admire old women, and I don't mean Sophia Loren when I use that phrase. We have to say of old women who look their age, "Look at that woman, how beautiful she is!" We have to learn to say "What lovely wrinkles and lines she has .... what a wonderful texture her skin has!" We have to delete from our speech forever such sentences as "She must have been gorgeous when she was young!" and "Don't let the way she looks fool you - she's very sharp." We have to openly and publicly admire the physical characteristics of normal female aging, so that a new generation won't grow up believing that they are the identifying characteristics of human ugliness. We have to stop treating the phrase "old woman" as if it were an obscenity and start using it positively. We ourselves - we women who are growing old or are already old - have to flatly refuse to support the negative image of old women by devoting our money and energies to a struggle to look young. As long as we support it, it will flourish; it's time we gave that up."
