Perceptions

If perception truly is everything, then the old in Amerika are in trouble.

Amerika is a youth obsessed country. It is also a capitalistic consumer oriented country. All the power of capitalism goes into (via advertising, etc.) creating and maintaining this obsession.

Take women as an example. If you are female in Amerika, you must always look 25. You must be slim, long-haired, sexually alluring, preferably blond and dress youthfully. This goes a long way toward answering the question why so many women who are 40+ are so fat, unhappy, depressed and bitchy. Simply put, there is no reasonable way for most of them to meet cultural expectations. Either they let themselves go (fatties abound in the US) or the resort to grotesquenesses to measure up (extreme diet and exercise, plastic surgery, etc.) The can't win so depression abounds.

Most women have known that horrible moment when a young, attractive man looks right through them. They have become culturally invisible. Unless they belong to the tiny class of hairy, man hating, doctrinaire feminists, they are shocked and hurt.

Men suffer from all this too, but not as much. Younger women will sometimes actually see value in an older man. Rarely, but sometimes. And cultural invisibility come later for men. Corvettes and condos help. Still, the same moment will arrive and so will the hurt and shock.

This is not as simple as all men are pigs or all women are bitches. In fact, the perception that we don't exist is created by the capitalist media and advertisers. What we do is buy into it.

I will explore other non male/female perceptions about the old in future texts.

So a question: in France you see lovely older women dressed alluringly (but not like 20 year olds) who are slim, can run in high-heels over cobble stones and exude sexuality. You often see them with younger men, who are clearly entranced. Why there and not here?

Mike