I canāt believe all the wisdom in these posts above. you GO. I am so in love with all yāall.
There is so much women are not only not taught, but flat-out LIED TO about aging. Even within fandom, a space that is very much women-driven, occasionally you come across someone trying to pressure older women to bow out because our mere presence makes some people uncomfy (and sometimes byĀ āolderā they mean over 30, never mind the 40+, 50+, 60+ women speaking up here).
Because we are not taught to respect older women as sexual beings, as beings with our own interests, our own passions, our own weaknesses, and our own right to take up space and be fully present even though we are no longer sexually desirable (to SOME) and might not be willing or interested in taking up aĀ āmom/grandmomā role.
When I was in my 20s I was doing a lot of music writing and one of my biggest role models who I sort of knew personally was Deena Weinstein, who was doing exceptional work on metal culture - very little studied in academia at that time - and she was doing it as a (at the time) very rare visibly middle-aged woman at metal shows banging her head off to Cannibal Corpse. (She is not ādetached.ā Sheās in the mosh pit. She loves the fuck out of it, and it shows.) Lots of people were lining up to tell her in one way or another she ought to be āacting her age,ā whatever the fuck thatās supposed to mean. I looked up to her as the giant badass she is.
A few things they donāt tell you about aging, that I know at 48 (and I know to some people here, Iām still a baby, and thatās OK)
1. Menopause is real and for some people perimenopause takes years. Holy shit. Itās as big an upheaval as puberty - but, like puberty, itās not a disaster itās just a shift. Respect it but donāt fear it. Most of all, donāt fear talking about it honestly.
2. Being sexually invisible to strange men is a fucking blessing, especially if you take public transit every day. What a gift to actually be able to read in peace most of the time. Donāt dread this!
3. Judgmental opinions of trivial people become a lot more obvious for what they are, over time.Ā
4. Your interest in sex might decrease. OR IT MIGHT NOT. IT MIGHT EVEN INCREASE. In a culture that is horrified by the sexuality of older women, consider who is served by the assumption that loss of libido is a thing that always happens. (Or that it should.)
5. You ARE still the same person you were at 17, at 24, at 39, etc. Youāre just a little bit MORE that same person.Ā
6. You have the right to discuss and write about any age youāve passed through. You own your experiences and you can do with them as you will, creatively. You have been a child, a teenager, a young adult, a middle-aged person - you have memories that you are always entitled to draw upon, for any reason at any time.
jacobvanloon
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