Invisible Women

I recently injured my leg and had to resort to using a wheelchair for a couple of weeks and then I felt invisible. Shop assistants asked my husband what I wanted. I politely but firmly pointed out that it was my leg that was not working, my brain and speech were fully functional and that I was the customer. We also experienced people not moving aside, and agree with Ella and Greatnan stand firm and maybe they will learn some manners or get there toes run over by a wheelchair ouch!

I agree with Ella - why did they move aside? I would have just stood still and forced them to move.

I would have just kept on pushing it towards them! One of my pet hates is people that never move to one side, or acknowledge that you have moved for them!

While I was walking with a relative and pushing her son who had severe disabilities in his wheelchair, I could see a couple in their fifties approaching us. I expected that they would move to the side of the path but they just kept on walking. I had to move the wheelchair to the side of the path out of their way because they had no intention of moving for us. My cousin said it happened to her all the time, people seemingly not noticing that it was easier for them to let her pass and not have to move the wheelchair off the footpath. I guess they didn't see there was a wheelchair coming towards them.

Agreed. People don't want to be accused of staring so they don't look at all. Keep the fairy lights on your scooter, galen – preferably flashing when you want attention.

I think you might have hit on the truth, Galen - people are embarrassed because they have to look down at you, physically, in your scooter and also because they sometimes don't know whether they should mention it or not.

I'm told I come over with a ' commanding presence!' so why! When I'm on my mobility scooter do I become invisible?
Is it just because I'm now lower down? I normally stand at about 5' 7" !
Or is it because the obviously disabled are an embarrassment and therefore ignored?

And I thought I was the only person who told off stroppy strange teenagers! I don't know if I would now on a train or bus in England - too many tales of good Samaritans being stabbed.

Greatnan you are probably right about confidence and demeanour stopping invisibility. Maybe that's why I became less invisible after proving myself at university.

I'm always the one to stand up and say 'stop it' when young ones are being a nuisance on the commuter train. I'm not invisible then! Mind you, the Yorkshire accent, to Australian ears, sounds very tough.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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 .

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

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....

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

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

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!'

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 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?

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!

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.

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.