Age. Aging. Ageist.

Ruminating on turning 80

Earlier this month I woke up and wondered, “how could I be 80?”  Likely good genes, good education, good fortune, and good luck.  Being a CIS white woman didn’t hurt either.  

A blizzard raged the day I was born.  80 years later, climate change resulted in winter at our Rhode Island home requiring only one visit by a snow plow.  AK47’s were being developed for military purposes.  80 years later they are used to mow down children.  Antisemitism then; antisemitism now. That’s it for my Debbie Downer moment.  For those who don’t remember or are too young to remember, Debbie Downer was a 70’s SNL sketch during which Rachel Dratch constantly ruined any fun by interjecting unsolicited sad remarks.

As we age, we think of birthdays as celebrating we are still around.  The thought that “age is just a number” or “80 is today’s 60” is bullshit.  Age is a defining number, along with the aches and pains and declining recall that accompanies it.  Not to mention women’s appeal was often tied to the notion that women should lie about their age.  Do women still do that?  I guess so, since there is at least one ad on TV where a women basically says, “My age? I’m not telling”.

Age played a key role in two of my favorite jobs.  In 1978, it was not my age but the age of Peter Shapiro, who was running for County Executive in Essex County, NJ.  I met Peter when he invited me to sit in on an early  strategy meeting. The first topic was an upcoming fundraiser dubbed, “Kick 25 Goodbye”.  I blurted out that highlighting how young Peter was didn’t seem like a great idea since he would be leading a county which had a budget larger than 11 states and included management of prisons, parks, and substantial federal programs.  Apparently that observation led him to ask me to become a formal part of his campaign team.  A year later, I walked into the county offices as his Chief of Staff. 

Almost four decades later, in my mid-70’s, I founded Gender Avenger, a nonprofit dedicated to ensuring women are always part of the public dialog.  It all began when I was astounded that Harvard’s Institute of Politics (IOP) had five white men on stage to discuss the 2012 election (yes, the reelection of Barack Obama).  I posted about it on Facebook and got an unexpected large response followed by an admonishment from the IOP administration asking, “how could you do this to us?”  My answer was easy, “Because there were five white men on stage”.  

As I plotted the creation of an organization to publicize such occasions, I realized key to its success would be my willingness to go after anyone, friends and foes.  Luckily, I had reached the “post ambition” stage of my career and didn’t care who would be mad at me, which turned out to be a good thing. since folks tended to be pretty sensitive about being called out.  Beginning in earnest in 2015, with eye popping visuals (pie charts) and snarky weather-related language such as “cloudy with a chance of patriarchy”, GenderAvenger used social media to expose the paltry number of women featured on stages, in the media, at any public forum.  At its inception, shaming was the most effective tool.  One of my favorites was the discovery that there were more Michaels on a JP Morgan health care panel than there were women.   FYI, our biggest moment was around the 2017 Consumer Electronics Show.  

Before Gender Avenger I spent most of my career in and around political campaigns. so I feel compelled to spend a sentence or two on the issue of Biden and age.  In 2020 age wasn’t much of an issue; after all, Trump was close in age to Biden. This time around I fear Biden’s age will become the new version of Hillary’s e-mails.  Every moment – a forgotten name, a hesitation, a cold, a fall, will generate media attention and speculation about the impact of his age on the campaign and a future presidency. Constant harping on it will create a meme that will be hard to tamp down and will undoubtedly intrude at moments when attention should be on so much more that is important.  

Speaking of the politics of age, no self-respecting New Jerseyan can write about politics and age without a nod to Millicent Fenwick, apparently the inspiration for Doonesbury’s Lacy Davenport.  I met her a couple of times and, take my word for it, Millicent Fenwick invented “on brand”.  She was patrician by birth, by how she spoke, by what she expected from life (apparently it never occurred to her that she might lose her race for the US Senate).  Nevertheless, throughout her political career, she was portrayed as a quirky woman of the people. She first ran for federal office at age 65, which in the 70’s was considered a near-death experience.  Fenwick was a progressive Republican (remember them?). Wikipedia reminded me of one of my favorite Millicent moments: “Once, when a conservative male congressman attacked a piece of women's rights legislation by saying, "I've always thought of women as kissable, cuddly, and smelling good", Fenwick responded, "That's what I've always thought about men, and I hope for your sake that you haven't been disappointed as many times as I've been."  Back to the issue of age.  Fenwick was 72 when she ran against Senator Frank Lautenberg.  He didn’t explicitly reference age; however, he did question whether she was “up for the job”, a pretty explicit carom shot.  When at the age of 84 he ran for a fifth term, the issue arose.  The Senator claimed to have never brought up age during the 1982 campaign.  

In the world of politics age is just a number until it isn’t.

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