Older women feeling ignored, undervalued

Millers Dunedin assistant manager Lilian Robertson says she loves making her customers feel '...
Millers Dunedin assistant manager Lilian Robertson says she loves making her customers feel ''valued''.

Margie Fox (54) has not been clothes shopping in 10 years. She finds it an uncomfortable experience, and has only hit George St now to find a dress for her son's wedding.

''I hate shopping. All the clothes are sexy and for young girls. You go into a shop and everyone looks at you like `what are you doing here, old woman?'.''

Mrs Fox's dislike of going into shops mostly targeted to young women is a common one, a transtasman survey conducted by Millers clothing has found.

More than 4000 women were surveyed on both sides of the Tasman and the results speak of a generation of older women who feel invisible, ignored and even rejected by society.

Eighty percent of respondents said they felt ''misrepresented'' by the media, and were too often portrayed as ''old'', ''elderly'', ''frumpy'' and ''unimportant''.

Almost one-third felt they had been discriminated against because of their age and 78% said they felt ''invisible'' when engaging with those beyond their close social circle.

The results, said Miller's Dunedin assistant manager Lilian Robertson (51), were ''very upsetting''.

''I found the survey concerning, quite sad actually. That a whole lot of women feel invisible. How can you have confidence in yourself and the life you're leading if you feel like you're not there?''

Ms Robertson, who has worked at Millers for more than five years, said she thrived on giving her clients a good time when they came into the shop, and making shopping ''fun and not shameful''.

''I don't want my customers feeling lost, I don't want them to feel they're not seen. We all have a role to play in life, and that role doesn't have to mean always being sexy and young.''

Sixty-five percent of the women in the Millers survey said shopping was the primary place they felt ignored, followed by public transport, walking down the street, social gatherings and in restaurants or cafes.

Kathy Johnson (43), who has been a hairdresser all her working life, said business would always be busy because the hair salon was one of the last places older women still felt valued.

''Feeling ignored is huge for older women,'' said Miss Johnson, who works in a salon in George St.

''It annoys me because older women have so much to give in terms of life experience and wisdom. I love making a fuss of women when they come in to get their hair done. For some of them, that will be the only couple of hours in their month when someone looks at them and listens.''

- by Eleanor Ainge Roy 

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