Invisible Women

Car showrooms seem to be the only places we are not ignored in, every time we go looking for a car they seem to have endless patience while I hum and hah about upholstery colour etc. When we buy the car there is always a large bouquet for me, there are some who recognise the value of the grey pound.

It's very funny when we go to restaurants in Italy because they ALWAYS talk to the man. My Italian is poor but my husband's is much worse, so he spends all his time turning to me for a translation. I then give the order to the waiter who immediately asks my husband about the next course! The trouble is that it makes me look bad because I haven't managed to hook a proper man who could speak decent Italian so I slide even further down the social scale.

I travel alone in all kinds of countries and sometimes get asked by a taxi driver or waiter 'Where is your man?'. I put on a very sad face and say 'I lost him'.
I don't mind doing the little old lady bit if it is useful - like getting people to lift my suitcase onto a train. I never feel patronised - whether or not the other person intends to be patronising!
I think that when you stop wearing make-up and allow your hair to go white, you are giving off a signal to some people that says you are just not interested in attracting men, which is certainly true in my case.

And mine! (Hope Pete from Lils bars not looking)

Mine too. I've never worn make-up, ever. Hey, maybe that's why I've never felt been invisible. In shops I find the opposite really – assistants offering assistance that I don't want. Where I do want assistance, I just ask for it. Nobody has refused so far.

Can't say the no make-up technique worked in not attracting men though . But, as I once said to my dad when he criticised as 'not very feminine' my wearing of some of my older brother's clothes when I was fifteen: "I don't have to try to be feminine. I'm feminine by definition."

I didn't feel patronised either! Even in my wildest feminist excesses enthusiasms I never snarled at men who held open doors or offered to carry things and I always encouraged my DS and now encourage my DSG always to offer a helping hand. I was a bit taken aback when someone offered to help me fill in a form the other day but, hey! it made them feel good and didn't do me any harm.

I was amused when the audiologist here asked me if I wanted my daughter to accompany me for my hearing test! Considering I had been living alone in a remote Alpine village for several years, and managed to get myself over to NZ safely, I couldn't think what would be intimidating about driving to Richmond, which is about 20 mins away. Still, I am sure he meant well.
As I also open doors for people and used to give up my seat for anybody who seemed to need one more that I did (I rarely use public transport now), I certainly don't feel offended if anyone is equally considerate to me. Some people seem to look for offence!

When I was working and turned 50 I noticed I was becoming invisible. I even wrote a letter to the editor of a magazine about it, and it got published.

But now I am 68 it happens less and I don't really know why. Since I was 50 I have been to university, so perhaps doing that and graduating gave me more confidence, and it shows. I don't wear make up as I have dark hair and dark eyes, so i can get way with it. I do dye my hair though - not quite ready to be partly grey. Sometimes I dress boringly, in slacks and top. But when I wear something like a black top, long bright necklace and a long-ish skirt I get noticed more.

Australians tend to be polite, so a queue at a counter usually results in people being served in order.

Sometimes my strong Yorkshire accent gets me noticed too.

I have light brown hair, with some white/grey/silver since my early thirties, increasing yearly; I have pale eyes and pale skin; I usually dress casually, not trying to impress, just what I'm comfortable in. I "get away with it" .

Being noticed (not invisible) is about confidence and bearing, not superficial looks. It's about having a certain look in your eye that says don't mess with me. It's about speaking up for yourself and asking questiions. It's about looking interesting and interested. Talking as if superficial looks (beauty/attractiveness) are what makes the difference is very anti-feminist and defeatist, I think. I do wish people wouldn't do it.

This is old now, but I think it still holds true:

"Heilbrun (1991) dared to name midlife invisibility, celebrate it, and define it. She called it the "magic circle of invisibility [through which one passes] into the land of new accomplishment and new passion" (p. 27)—hardly the self-esteem problem defined by Sheehy (1991).

"To get to that new place," Heilbrun (1991) declared:

a woman must pass through the state of invisibility. You will be mysteriously unseen. You will not be noticed immediately upon your entrance in a store, a party, a meeting. You will move invisible for a time, to learn to see, and to forget being seen. As you grow slowly visible in the new life you have chosen, you will be heard more and seen less. Your voice will ramify; your body will become the home of a new spirit."

Perhaps some of us are fortunate never to feel that state of invisibility, but many others feel it more strongly. It seems to me the important thing is to deal with it as well as one can and develop a new sense of identity in older age. I think that can be very liberating.

Bags I think that must be why the car salesmen gave me so much attention. That and the fact that I am the one who has done all the online research and know more about them than DH who just wants one that looks pretty! How times have changed!

I don't think I've grown into invisibility with age, and on the whole it doesn't cross my mind whether I'm invisible or not. I do know I choose to behave quietly at times and happily so, but that's not invisibility. It's all about one's behaviour/ countenance, isn't it?

There is a lot in what you say bags but I do wear makeup and not because I am looking for a mate or want to attract that kind of attention. Those of us who have a certain kind of colouring find that we look more awake, more healthy and more alert with a spot of makeup. It is more cheering when you see yourself in the mirror.
I seem to remember there was some research about women with lipstick getting more notice taken of what they say in meetings. Subtle aspects of non verbal communication - if you look awake, healthy and alert people will be more interested in what you have to say.
I will be chairing an AGM of about 80 people on Wednesday (let joy be unconfined) and I will put on a bit more make up, not to give me confidence but to make my face more visible and engaging for those in the audience.

I have no concerns about invisibility these days, having been treated dismissively as a newly married woman in the early 70s, before the Sex Discrimination Act came in. That fired me up for life and no-one messes with me now. Having said that, I choose privacy and like to be ignored in shops till I want some attention.

Like Greatnan I have been asked where my husband is, when looking at cars in showrooms, and my stock reply was 'I hope he's with some other woman - it took me years to shake him off!'

I think butty has it spot on: there are those of us to whom it never occurs to wonder whether we are visible or not because if we want to be invisible we are and we want to be visible we are.

jess, my DDs used to ask me if I was wearing lipstick even though I wasn't. Maybe there's a "look as if you're wearing lipstick" look . Seems to work anyhow

Maybe you have naturally red and shiny lips bags - you are also a big younger than some of us I think .

No, they're more of a pinky maroon most of the time and not shiny. I'm not that much younger than you and I often look peelywally. I just don't care because that's how I've always looked and I've never felt any need to comply with others' concept of beauty. I don't regard my looks as a disadvantage, possibly because I've never lacked attention when I wanted it. It must be to do with what butty calls countenance. That, and 'carriage'. I was a dancer. Maybe that helps – just having a certain confidence of movement. Just guessing now....

Whatever it is, Bags, I wish I had some of it!

As it happens, I just looked in the bathroom mirror on a loo visit, and I reckon it's probably the paleness of my lips that made the DDs ask!! Someone said recently that I seem happy in my own skin which, they thought, is a difficult thing to achieve [shruggingshoulders]. If that is what it is, then it clearly works. How to achieve it? No idea! But there have always been a lot of encouraging people in my life .

No car salesman has ever asked me where my husband is. What does that say about me? However, what about the assistant in M&S who told me that if I had someone who could look on the internet I might be able to find what I wanted? Huh! She was left in no doubt that I was well able to look on the internet myself.

I agree that your general demeanour and bearing are probably more important than how 'pretty' you are. I have thick white hair and a permanent slight tan so I look well without make-up. My sister, who is 76, won't answer the door without the full monty, but she has always had a very sallow complexion and does look really ill without make up. I don't think scarlet false nails look too good on very gnarled hands though (not that I would dare to say it to her!) She still gets men trying to flirt with her and I know she enjoys the attention, even though she has no wish for a partner.

I was quite surprised when teaching to find that some of my colleagues who could cope with large classes of exuberant teenagers were very shy when it came to talking to parents or speaking at meetings. I always found teaching /lecturing was something like show business and thoroughly enjoyed the limelight.

I remember once going into a store that was packed with sayurday shoppers, I was trying to get assistance and was ignored time and again. I took matters into my own hands, pretended to slip on an invisable spill and my god the assistants came out of the woodwork I was sat on a chair, my shopping list was done for me and I was put into a taxi home which was a 11 mile journey if I had caught the bus. Majic.

you're right about teachers greatnan Often not v confident talking to adults

When I had to attend parents' evenings (as a parent), I sometimes felt a bit shy of approaching teachers, so it probably works both ways.