FIVE WOMEN WHO DEFY
‘LITTLE OLD LADY’
STEREOTYPES I
B Y L I Z SPIKOL
J E STAFF
n a recent Buzzfeed-style video, the AARP asked a handful of millennials
to imitate “old people” doing a range of activities, from jumping jacks to
crossing a street.

One young woman in track pants and ballet slippers does an “old person”
pushup by collapsing on the floor in a heap. Three guys asked to read text
messages squint at their imaginary phones; one of them actually scratches
his head in mock bewilderment. They move in bent-over slow motion when
asked to be “old,” aping a cartoonish style that’d be perfectly at home in a
high school production of Our Town.

The video is depressing but it’s hardly surprising.

Ageist stereotypes are deeply embedded in the popular imagination.

Even the words we use — “seniors,” “elderly,” etc. — connote reductionist
old-school Geritol commercials rather than convey a vibrant, dynamic
range of experience.

Yet that dynamism is, in fact, the reality for older adults; how could it
not be, given that, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the 65-and-older
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM ELLEN CARVER
population in the U.S. went from 44.7 million in 2013 to 46.2 million in
2014? That’s a lot of people to lump under a single banner.

Such labels hit women especially hard, as they’re already subject to
gender bias. Studies have shown a serious discrepancy between the way we
perceive older men (distinguished and sexually viable) and older women
(sexless and unhealthy).

But Judaism reverses things; women increase in value, in fact, the older
they get. An adage derived from Leviticus goes, “An old man in the house
is a burden but an old woman in the house is a treasure.”
Here are five terrific Jewish women “of a certain age” who make all re-
strictive labels obsolete. They’re blogging, publishing, rowing, teaching,
singing — they’re busy busy busy. They’re decidedly out of the house —
and that’s precisely what makes them the treasures they are.

THE GOOD LIFE
See YOUNG, Page 24
MAY 12, 2016
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