Tag Archives: women

Older people, Uncategorized, Women

Older, wiser..and off the radar?

How old does a woman have to be to be categorized as “older”? 50? 70? And if we push females deemed to be “older women”, in “late adulthood” or in “advanced years” into the same group, what common concerns do they share, if any? More importantly, does anyone outside of that demographic notice or care about ageing women? And if they do – what’s being done about the issues they’re concerned about?

While Britain as an ageing society is a constant source of political and public debate, the specific issue of women and ageing isn’t afforded the focus it should, given that women tend to live longer than men. The 2011 census suggests there are about 11 million women over the age of 50 years, about 4 million of which are over 70 years. By 2035 there will be 4 million more females aged 65+ than under 16s.

Like most people, my personal experience – and I speak from the start of my fourth decade – is that the older you get, the younger so-called “older people” seem. As you age, your perceptions of old and young clearly shift. I don’t, for example, class my friends in their 50s as “old” and my own 81-year-old mother-in-law defies stereotypes and expected patterns of behaviour with her far flung travels to South America and her energetic role as a breeder of rare sheep.

The youth/age picture becomes confused still when you think that childhood apparently ends at 12, younger girls are presented (and sometimes present themselves) as much older while older women – think Madonna, Helen Mirren – are variously praised or mocked. And more often than not, the kind of articles I’m thinking of include a particular kind of faux-praise for a woman’s age-defying antics and appearances…you know what I mean – the pieces that comment on a woman’s “confidence” (ie delusion) in “flaunting” (as in “she’s too old to dress/act like that”) her “mature” (read: “wrinkly, untoned”) figure.

A provocative series of essays published today, coinciding with International Women’s Day, highlights policy issues about ageing women, underlining how the contribution to and role of older women in society is overlooked.

The think tank the International Centre for Longevity (ILC-UK) publication Has the sisterhood forgotten older women? contains 38 essays – everything from personal recollections about the role of women in family and society, to thoughts on intimacy and relationships, the invisibility of older women in international development and opinions about the low media profile of older women (see the words of an older female MP on how she is treated by political parties in relation to media work).

The authors include politicians, policy makers, academics and campaigners such as Jane Ashcroft, chief executive of housing and care group Anchor, Sheila Gilmore MP, Michelle Mitchell, chief executive of Age UK, Heléna Herklots from Carers UK and Marina Yannakoudakis MEP.

As well as discussions about how far women in their 50s 60s 70s think of themselves as “old” (answer: they don’t), the collection of writing stresses the dilemma facing older women – while longevity is to be celebrated “there is a risk that women, who often live longer than men, do so at the risk of being caught in the metaphorical mouse trap: alive but with little quality of life”.

The ILC-UK has also today announced it is establishing an Older Women’s Policy and Research Action Alliance to create “a roadmap for future research and policy priorities”. The organisation hopes today’s compedium will spark a new debate on women in an ageing society.

The issue of the challenge for ageing women in care is a particularly strong theme in today’s collection of essays. In the UK, women account for two thirds of community care users over the age of 65, and three quarters of people in residential care.

Baroness Sally Greengross, chief executive of the ILC-UK added: “Women must engage in the debate on social care funding if we are to get a solution which works for all. It is also essential that the caring contributions of older women are not ignored. Future care reform must take account of and not disincentivise the informal care contribution of older women.”

Here are just three edited highlights from among the pieces in today’s publication:

Oh, I didn’t see you there!
Jane Ashcroft, chief executive, Anchor:
“For several years I have been irritated by the propensity of print journalists to tell us the age of any woman in the news, regardless of any relevance to the story, while rarely applying the same approach to men. Why is age a defining characteristic of women?

In 2010, research conducted on behalf of Anchor, the housing and care provider which I lead, analysed one week of TV programmes on the 5 major UK channels (Older Faces Audit, March 2010, Anchor). We found a dramatic under-representation of older people, and especially older women. Across all channels, people over 50 were under–represented. Despite making up 34% of the UK population, representation on the major channels was as low as 12%, with only BBC2 achieving a realistic level of 38%. And amongst TV presenters appearing in the week under review, only 1 in 5 was an older woman.

This supports my view that ageing in men is often seen more positively than in women – many older men are described as wise and experienced, whereas the expression “don’t be such an old woman” is used to convey entirely negative characteristics.

This picture is so different from the reality that I see in my everyday life, that it is tempting to wonder if I live in a parallel universe! Of my 9,000 or so colleagues in Anchor, over 500 are continuing to enjoy their work well past the official “retirement age”.

Behind the scenes, many older women are leading change in communities, organisations and families, contributing their resources and multitude of skills, and leading interesting and rewarding lives. Some older women, like older men, are facing loneliness, loss and poor health. As a society, and for ourselves, don’t we need to recognise every older woman as an individual, and to enable us to do that we need to improve visibility – instead of “oh, I didn’t see you there” can we say “ah, I’ve been looking for you”?

Older women and care: are they invisible to the sisterhood?
Michelle Mitchell, Age UK:
“Despite care having been on the feminist agenda for years, the issue of it in later life has remained shrouded from our viewpoint, as millions struggle in quiet crisis. Yet nowhere are the compound challenges of class, gender and age more evident and nowhere are older women more in need of a voice.”

Older women carers – invisible and ignored?
Heléna Herklots, chief executive, Carers UK:
“Many older women carers grew up during a time when women’s contribution to society was far less recognised than it is today. They now live in a society which too often ignores their contribution as older women carers. We need to challenge this; guard against any prejudices and assumptions we may ourselves have; and work to ensure that older women carers are recognised, respected, and valued – no longer invisible and ignored.”

*Download ILC-UK’s Has the sisterhood forgotten older women? here

Education, Employment, Social exclusion, Substance misuse, Third sector, Women

The project that helps you “be” something

By Liz Naylor of the charity Addaction
By Liz Naylor of the charity Addaction
When I first met Linda, she told me: “When I was growing up I couldn’t imagine being anything”.

I met Linda when I was delivering a training course aimed at former substance misusers who wanted to become “recovery champions” and better support their peers engage in that service.

Although Linda didn’t speak with any great volume, there was something so utterly powerful and authentic in her statement that for a second the room stopped and focussed upon her. It was not a statement of self-pity, or an attempt to claim the title of the bleakest life experience; it was simply a statement of fact – here was a 48-year-old woman who had never thought she would “be” anything.

I would later learn that Linda had “been” sexually abused from an early age by a string of boyfriends that her mother, working as a street sex worker, had brought into the home. She herself had “been” a street sex worker for most of her life. She had “been” trapped in misuse of heroin and crack on and off for the last 25 years. She had “been” the mother of a small child who died due to swallowing Linda’s methadone prescription.

At some point during the day, we were discussing recovery capital and specifically, the idea of people holding different levels of cultural capital. Many participants talked about how when they were young what they had imagined their lives might be – and the kinds of things that had got in the way of these ordinary dreams. I recall that none of the participants had held any particularly grand or unrealistic hopes, just the usual – jobs, children, and a place to call home.

I guess the power of Linda’s statement was that although she had been many things she had never imagined what she might be.

I am proud to work as part of Addaction’s London training team. It’s a small team of three full time workers and one part time volunteer. The major part of our job is delivering something called the Next Project.

This is a 12-week training course providing the necessary skills and training to people who have been affected by substance misuse and, since August 2010, carers or those affected by the substance misuse of someone close to them.

Some might call it a back to employment scheme that really works (imagine that!), which is fine, except quite a lot of the people who do the course have never even officially had a job. We call it a personal development course that supports the participants to make the kind of changes needed to move their lives forward so they can enjoy the kind of lives that meets their human potential.

Rather than work from the assumption that our trainees are “addicts” or “victims” or “burdened with care” – we work from the belief that our trainees are smart enough to be interested in examining their own behavioural patterns. It is, if you like, a psychology course based upon study of self and the personal changes made possible with this knowledge.

We know this works because since 2005 when the Project started to April 2012, 338 people have attended it and 261 have completed it, a success rate of 77%. This has increased to 87% in the last four years as the project has evolved. 9 out of 10 people finishing Next in the last four years have completed qualifications and gone on to further education/training and volunteering. 31% of those that have finished since 2008 are now in full-time employment. This figure increases steadily over time as Next graduates gain experience and confidence from volunteering and further study that enables them to start applying for jobs

The course is purposefully demanding and intense – giving the participants a real sense of achievement when they complete the course. Next is a proven success story, and is heavily oversubscribed, with waiting lists of up to six months. Referral is from the London boroughs (Islington, Greenwich, Wandsworth and Southwalk funding through Terra Firma) that currently fund places, and a place isn’t cheap at £2,500 but the impact of successful completion reaches much further than the individual (Addaction estimates that each person dependent on illegal drugs costs the country around £44,000 a year, compared to £2,500 for each trainee, for a nine month period). In fact the benefits will extend as far as their children, families and the wider community.

Linda secured funding to do the Project. She completed the course. She did not miss one single session. I don’t think she missed a single minute.

We watched Linda transform – her physical presence, body language, voice projection, intellectual reasoning, confidence, self awareness. It was a transformation that Linda initiated within herself, we provided the right kind of knowledge, support, (the occasional) challenge and encouragement. It was as if she understood the importance of the moment. The moment when she finally could see who she deserved to be.

* For more on the effectiveness of the Next Project and its employment outcomes, see this recent piece in the Guardian.

Education, Music & arts, Social exclusion, Uncategorized, Women

Painting, prisons and penal reform

Some thoughtful and attention-grabbing images on display this week at The Big Issues exhibition, a project that forms part of prison outreach work at Surrey’s recently restored Watts Gallery.

Peace on Earth, Louise HMP Send

The exhibition is the result of the Compton-based gallery’s Art for All project. The outreach scheme involves artist-led workshops with inmates in prisons including Send and Coldingly in Surrey and Bronzefield in Middlesex – the pieces featured here are by female offenders at Send and Bronzefield.

Everyone Deserves A Chance, Amanda HMP Bronzefield

The inclusive arts project is in keeping with the beliefs of the gallery’s namesake, Victorian artist George Frederic Watts. Watts and his artist wife Mary Watts supported penal and social reform, believing in widening access to art, using the medium to benefit individuals and the community and arguing against prejudice towards ex-offenders. The couple’s aim of transforming lives through encouraging the socially excluded to engage with art underlines the gallery’s current outreach work.

Mother and Child, Juliet HMP Bronzefield

Art for All aims to build confidence and self-worth in people usually deemed socially excluded – prisoners, young offenders, addicts, and those with mental health issues or experiencing homelessness housing. One former prisoner at HMP Send, for example, was released before Christmas and been accepted on a foundation course at Brighton University. Another participant described the project as “some light in the dull, grey prison world”.

Rehabilitation through art can provoke controversy and the Watts gallery scheme is by no means unique, but with prison numbers at a record high and a proven reoffending rate of 26%, the value of projects like this is clear.

The exhibition is on until Sunday.

Big society, Cuts, Employment, Health, Housing, Learning disability, Local government, Mental health, Older people, Poverty, Social care, Social exclusion, Substance misuse, Third sector, Women, Young people, Youth crime

The cuts: the worst is yet to come

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An authoritative analysis in today’s Society Guardian of the deepest spending cuts in a generation, which start from Friday. The special issue inludes some sector by sector breakdowns of savings and job losses, including pieces I contributed to the in-depth coverage.

media & communication, Older people, Uncategorized, Women

Putting an ‘oh’ into OAP

Given the scrap heap syndrome surrounding ageing women, how refreshing to nod to the centenary of International Women’s Day with a photographic project that shatters the stereotypes of older women. In fact, some of the glorious images I’ve been looking at (below), not only shatter the stereotype, but pick up the splinters and waggle them defiantly into the faces of those with age prejudice.

Hermi, 85, above and below: “I don’t really feel like an older woman, even when I’m hobbling about because my knee has got arthritis in it.”

A series of exhibitions entitled Look at me! Images of Women and Ageing opens in Sheffield today, part of a joint project by the universities of Sheffield and Derby, cultural development agency Eventus and photographer Rosy Martin.

The project asked how older women feel about their public representation and the series of exhibitions in Sheffield feature images by local women. The women took part in workshops to create new and alternative images using photography, art therapy and video techniques. The workshops revealed not only how women feel silenced later in life, but how common it is for older women to feel pressure to deny ageing and or feel their sexuality marginalised.

Take one participant, 57-year-old Shirley (is 57 really that old, by the way?) who, when asked to pick an object to represent herself, chose a red high heeled shoe. She recently bought a red sports car to match her shoes: “The car and the shoes are things that aren’t safe, aren’t comfortable but are still part of me because there’s still that bit of me that has a bit of fire and sparkle… Yes, there’s the part of me that’s ageing, there’s a part of me that’s falling to bits but there’s this other bit and this car represents that.”

Shirley, 57, above: “There’s still that bit of me that has a bit of fire and sparkle”.

Shirley, who had a career in business management, wanted to participate because she was aware that she was entering a transition period and feared that these life changes signalled “the beginning of the end.”

Another participant, Hermi, 85, says: “I know I’m 85 so I know I am classed as an old woman. But I don’t really feel like an older woman, even when I’m hobbling about because my knee has got arthritis in it.”

If age brings widsom, then Hermi proves this by sharing a firecracker of a life lesson; the advantage of being an older woman is the freedom which accompanies age. Somehow, though, her own words pack a characteristically better punch: “If I want to wear a sleeveless top, I shall wear a sleeveless top and if my bra bothers me, I shall bloody take it off. That’s it. I mean there’s got to be a silver lining in everything, the silver lining in old age is that you can do what you like and nobody can tell you any different.”

To find out more about the ‘Look at Me! Images of Women and Ageing’ project and the free exhibitions, visit the website

Big society, Local government, Music & arts, Women

Women, know your politics

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Uncovered from The Original Ranch on Vimeo.

Above, ‘Uncovered’, a short animated film inspired by women’s attitudes to community, participation and politics.

The best ideas are, usually, the most simple ones. That’s one reason I’m a fan of a new project called Politics Uncovered, a community-based attempt to demystify politics for women.

Working on the premise that a) women are still woefully underrepresented in politics and b) very few people know even the basics of democracy and government, social enterprise arts organisation The Original Ranch has produced an event that is something of a beginners guide to politics.

The Original Ranch recorded women’s views about community, participation and politics during several discussion groups last year. It used the material to create a short animated film (above) which, along with a basic lesson in the workings of government, constitutes the event Politics Uncovered. The lesson explains the key structures at national and local levels, describes the main players and their roles, and gives participants an opportunity to ask questions.

The first Politics Uncovered event at the end of November involved around 30 women from London, all political novices who wanted to find out more about government issues.

According to Olivia Bellas, founder of The Original Ranch, what makes the project unique is that it is a free and accessible ‘lesson’ in politics, presented in a non-politicised environment (the launch event was at the Women’s Library in east London and offered a crèche facility) and it offers interactive and creative approaches to learning.

Put simply, if you want a beginners guide to politics, delivered in an informative but interesting way, look no further.

“Politics can be quite difficult to grasp; there are many different players, institutions, mechanisms, and formalities,” says Bellas, “and so it is hardly surprising that many people may not fully understand it”.

Although there is as yet no formal evaluation, Bellas says that anecdotal evidence from participants reveals
an increased knowledge of and interest in politics and a feeling of empowerment.

The quirky template used in Politics Uncovered could be used to raise awareness of all sorts of social issues in communities, in a visually appealing way that participants find neither too intimidating nor too condescending. I’m interested to see how the project evolves in 2011.

Education, media & communication, Private sector, Uncategorized, Young people

Wonder women and why we need them

For me, it was an eclectic yet potent combination of Wonder Woman, Kate Adie, Blue Peter’s Janet Ellis and Margot Fonteyn. Although I’ve yet to perform an arabesque while reporting from the frontline and deflecting bullets armed with nothing but golden bracelets and a roll of sticky backed plastic, I did at least pick some interesting female role models when I was growing up.

While it’s unfair to say that today’s girls and young women only dream of becoming reality tv stars, pop singers or footballers’ arm candy, it’s usually the case that the most successful women in the public eye tend to be very famous, very rich and very thin.

Campaigners at Pink Stinks are doing much to champion real, strong female role models who are “inspirational, important, ground-breaking and motivating” and today a new drive is launched to ensure that younger generations also have a range of professional female figures to look up to.

The business group everywoman has created the Modern Muse drive to inspire and engage the female business leaders and entrepreneurs of tomorrow by showcasing successful women in business. Although the majority are women in business and the private sector, there are – admirably – several powerful female role models from the public sector such as former Nurse of the Year Grace Vanterpool and Gill Evans, one of the country’s most senior policewomen.

Karen Gill, co-founder everywoman says: “Younger women today tend to have a strong focus on celebrity role models and we want them to be exposed to a much broader canvas, to women who have built businesses or are working in major organisations, whose lives are equally glamorous in very many ways.”

Modern Muse project aims to reach a million young women and girls over the next three years, to inspire and motivate them to look at business careers and entrepreneurship. The project will showcase stories of real women “whose experiences encompass ambition, passion, success and failure; showing that business is fulfilling and can also be fun and rewarding”. Many of the Muses will speak at community events and in schools, with the aim of nurturing female talent and encouraging women to start, own, run and grow companies.

Grace Vanterpool says: “Some of the role models that young women aspire to can be linked to their cultural or ethnic background and parental influences. Many young women in African Caribbean community aspire to become professional ‘divas’ and mothers – we seem to be less focused on getting involved in business. This may be due to the fact that there are not many successful business women who could become mentors to women from the African Caribbean community, and also to promote the benefits of setting and running a business.”

Vanterpool got involved with Modern Muse she wants her experience to inspire other women “to be the best that they can become”. She recalls, for example, that among the most patronising comments she’s had over the years are those that downplay her role. “Comments such as I am “only a nurse “, brought on by the perception that doctors who are predominantly male are usually the ones seen in senior leadership roles like mine.”

Metropolitan Police Detective Inspector Gill Evans says her motto is “it is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it is because we do not dare that things are difficult.” She adds: “I feel passionate about inspiring the next generation of young women and girls to succeed whether it be in business or the public sector. I recall a number of times that I just needed to talk or run an idea past someone but couldn’t for fear of being seen as weak. I think that it is important that we continue to encourage young women and girls at every opportunity that they can reach their goals/aspiration regardless of their career choice.”

Modern Muse is launched with the publication of a book and a photographic exhibition by Mary McCartney. The book and exhibition focus on 100 inspirational female entrepreneurs and business women, personifying the ‘Modern Muse’.