Negative images of older women

They were pussycats, really. If only more companies would go to some trouble to apologise and please their customers

Nelliemoser A catalogue for clothes for ladies of a certain age arrived on my doormat yesterday. Apart from one section of clothes by a specific designer, not a single model in any of the photographs could possibly have been more than about 30 years old. Also, it was quite clear that none of them needed the much boasted about secret panel that flattens the tummy and special design that makes the bum look perky. The catalogue went straight in the recycling.

Women and Home is aimed at our age group I think. Fashion pages always full of 20 something 6ft 2 models. And GH covers - middle aged celebs airbrushed into unrecognisability.
Poor plumbers. We should lay off.
It was not the use of the image, it was the slogan!

I'm finding this discussion interesting, I recently had a banner made for work, one of those pop up ones that you use at conferences etc. Because one of the trustees of our charity is disabled, and has complained in the past that all the images used in promotional stuff usually shows only able bodied people when that's not the reality for a lot of people, I had the young designer 'photo-shop' in two walking sticks on one of the people in the generic group of people depicted in the banner (all in profile, outline only). Two things recently have made me more aware (and I thought I was aware previously): the trustee saying to me 'I won't stop (campaigning) until I am treated just like you' and - the paralympics. When I saw the end result of our efforts with the banner, it just felt so right. I take my able-bodiedness so much for granted. I can't wait for her to see the banner at first outing, I think she may cry.

Well done Grannyknot what a sensible solution.

Good work, grannyknot! [gold star]

grannyknot

grannyknot That shows your compassion with a capital C! Good for you.

Thank you everyone! I just felt I'd finally got it. Sometimes before it would be yeah yeah politically correct and all that.

grannyknot Well Done!
absent I think any tummy flattening panel for me would need the engineering skills of Brunel! You cannot keep compressing "matter" without serious risk of a black hole or a supanova.

Correct me here scientists!

Grannyknot I thought I was aware too until my son started to use a wheelchair, then I discovered that I wasn't

kittylester ouch. And .

Josie That made me want to go and slit my throat.

What is this Mexican wave? All of them.

Why has that ridiculous grinning woman – I know that they are all ridiculous and grinning – tried cooking a lobster without tying its claws. She's old enough to know better and deserves to be badly mauled. I hope the lobster, like Nemo, runs away and escapes to the sea.

Someone, slightly belatedly, seems to have discovered the electric telephone, while the woman with the watermelon and knife must have been photographed just before she cut off three of her fingers.

The only ones I related to were 14, 34, and39

jessM forgive yourself! See what an interesting thread it started.

Cheesy and very american looking , the photos. I suppose I could live with 29,33,30,37,38,39 as they look more like real people and less like ads for an american resort or something.

josie the trouble with using pictures of older persons is that the definition of "elderly people" changes with the viewer. Unless the person in the picture looks a lot older than the person looking at it, the viewer does not regard them as being elderly!

And I see that ubiquitous, laughing, silver-haired couple neither of whom looks a day over 50 is in there....

Look at us lot on the meet photos! We're real!

Ana That's exactly what I find so irritating Why can they not portray real people.
I have a bunch of former colleagues, they are about 70 now. None are of model proportions or looks or style, but they are as funny and lively now as they were 20yrs ago, and don't look a lot older.

I do think that people in these photos should be doing something, not just sitting around in "adored Granny" simpering poses. We are of varied age groups, and varied states of health and mobility, but we have many interests and any sitting around is usually spent on Gransnet or phoning friends.

X-rays? Needles? Getting your blood pressure taken? These make you happy?

What the hell is a bike date and why would anyone over eight want one?

Ha! Another local free paper has crash landed on the mat. Plumber has a new ad of a man screaming with cold.
Only ad with an older woman is the 60 + Chat Line in the sex services bit. This one is grinning !!!!!!