"WOMEN OUR AGE"

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23115, 13 August 1938, Page 12 (Supplement)

"WOMEN OUR AGE"

What New York's "Bright Young Things" Have to Put Up With

By Carol Bird

A Special Representative in New York—(Copyright)

A GE—or approaching age—is, to /A a certain type of woman in the United States, like a porcupine quill in the side. It is ugly, Bharp, awkward and utterly intolerable. It stabs incessantly and, not infrequently, puts her in such bad humour that she takes out her misery on some poor hapless soul—usually another and younger woman. Just let some of our women get well along into the forties, fifties or sixties, - and you will observe feline qualities at their best, or rather, their worst. Any woman who has been tho victim of a jealous woman —not jealous of a man, but of a slim figure, bright eyes, luxuriant hair, satin skin, popularity — will recognise the various techniquesoutlined here; techniques for,injuring her ego, her self-con/ideiice, her satisfaction with her own appearance. "Never Says It" There is, for example, the elderly "cat" who employs often that deadly phrase, "Women Our Age." She is talking with a woman many years her junior. Let- lis say that the oldish girl is 59. She is conversing with a woman of 41. There is a difference of almost twenty years between them, and tho fifty-niner knows it. But she says, eniiling brightly: "Y"ou know, I'd love to go bicycle riding, but I don't think it's a dignified sport for women our age, do you?" j Or: "My dear! You must go to see 'The Twilight Y'cars. It's such a touching drama for women our age." Or: "Those bolero suits are cute, don't you think so? But they're not at all becoming to women our age."' "Before My Time" The natural response, of course, for the forty-oner is: "What do you mean, 'women our a<jc' ? I'm twenty years your junior." Btit she never says it. Usually these attacks leave the victim speechless. She thinks of all sorts of bright retorts after she gets home, but at the moment of the fray does naught but suffer inwardly and murmur to herself : "The old wretch! The nerve of her! Trying to put me in her decrepit class!" Then there is the "feline" who is tormented because she does not know a woman acquaintance's age, and intends to punish the younger woman for not revealing it. She tries either to worm it out of her by making her boil up into a rage, and thus "spill the beans," or else she annoys her by insinuating that she is much older than she is. This is her system: This oldish "meanie" is about 62, let us say. The

woman who stirs her up to all this fiendishness, merely by being .'Jo instead of her own ripe age, is talking about current plays with the Old Girl. Suddenly the O.G. says: "That reminds me. Didn't you think Ada Jtohan (or maybe it is Lillian Russell or some other old-time actress), was adorable in 'The Gay Buccaneer?' Do you remember how fascinating she looked in those yellow tights?" The woman who is 3/5 and "on the grill," looks blank. Perhaps she has the nerve to pipe up and say: "That was belore my time. I never saw Ada l'ehan." Maybe she's just a milk-soppish person' who has lost her nerve under the boring eyes of Mrs. Sixty-Two, and keeps silent. But no matter which course she takes, it's tho wrong one. If she says: '"I never saw Lillian Kussell (or Ada, or Sarah Bernhardt). 1 was in my cradle then," the oldster will merely sneer a knowing sneer, smile a knowing smile and say nothing. But what she has said with that grimace is: "You can't fool mo, girl! You're as old as I am, and even older." If she says nothing at all, Mrs. Sixty-Two will continue to reminisce about the olden days, taking it for granted that her companion knows all the answers, but is keeping silent out of false pride. "Two Apples" This type of woman knows full well, just as the one who glibly uses the our ape" phrase, that her friend is her junior by many years, but she's trying to fool herself into believing they are contemporaries, and at the same timo aggravating tha younger woman beyond endurance. Thu.s she knocks oif two apples with one stone. She continues to try to "date" the younger woman whenever opportunity presents itself, She talks knowingly about the days of "hair rats" and pompadours and bustles, of ostrichfeather hats and mutton-chop sleeves. Or horse-and-buggy days, or the times when young folks went on hay rides or made fudge or rode in horse cars. If the younger woman, who had read about all these things, though she knows nothing about them first-band, makes some intelligent comment, the "Old Cat" who has been baiting her, wags a reproachful finger: The Surprising. Thing "There!" she exclaims joyfully. "I knew you used to wear a redingote just as I did. But you're so sensitive, my dear, that I've never touched on age before, knowing how vou felt about it." The younger woman can storm and rage all she wants, and declare that she never wore a redingote, except to a fancy dress'ball, that she merely read about this old style coat. She can say,

nnd truthfully, that she was .'5 years old when her mother and aunts More redilitotes, that she wore sailor suits at tin- time: hut the oldster conducting the inquisition will smile and say: "Oh, Marine, for heaven's sakes! Kvcry one knows we're about the same ago. Why try to conceal the fact?" Well, folk, it's a surprise to ns that more women do not go at each other tooth and claw. Then there's the one who tries to take the joy out of life for a younger friend by still another method. She is calling on the younger woman one evening just as she is getting into a new din nor gown to keep a "date" with the Man in Her Life. She thinks she is looking quite alluring, and as a matter of fact she is, but the Old Girl says suddenly, in startled tones: "Why, Betty, darling! Your hair is almost totally {jrey. It's all grey on top. Did you know it? Maybe it's the light you're standing in." "Old Kill-Joy" What is poor Hetty to say to this? She can whirl about and cry out: "You jealous old kill-joy, what about it? What am I to do about it?'Go out and dye it, like yours?" Or she can say, sarcastically: "Yes, isn't it too bad? I'd look charming to-night if it wasn't for that mark of age, wouldn't I?" But she does nothing—even as you and ]. Few of ns are prepared for the poisoned dart at the time it's shot at us. If it isn't the shining tresses that the Old Girl comments on, it's the lines around your eyes. Sometimes she's quito subtle about the way she lets you feel that you're shriveling up like a pieco of old parchment. She peers at you one day, in a bright light, and says: "You know, Aggie, you've got the cutest little laugh lines around your eyes. They're just all over the place. Deep little curlecucs. I sup-

pose some folk would call thein wrinkles. But 1 don't. 1 know they're lines of good nature. You're such a sweet thing! Always happy and gay and enjoying life." The Sweet Tiling should turn on the other at this point and say: "That's just the trouble. I'm having too gay a time. It burns you up. Don't you wish you were my age and had my personality instead of being an old buzzsaw and on the shelf?" But tho Sweet Young Thing says nothing of the kind. She just buys some skin-tissue food and wonders if, alter all, she has a lot more crow's-feet than she should have. And then there is Old Green Eyes, who implies that you're robbing the cradle. Although tho .Man in Your Life is your own age, or perhaps a year or two older, she insinuates that he looks like your offspring. No male cavaJier has darkened her doorway since her husband died thirty years ago — eagerly, so to speak. But it irks her to see you gallivanting around in a big car with an attentive male at your side, so she sticks tho asp in your breast one fine day. "Young Brother" "Adeline!" she exclaims. "I was so surprised the other day when 1 saw you drive off with that young man. 1 thought at first it was a young brother 1 hadn't met. He's an awfully goodlooking youth. .1 think it's so stimulating for us to go around witli young folk once in a while. They keep lis ill tune with the Limes." The younger woman wants, at this moment, to say coldly: "it may interest von to know that I was out with my fiance, and lie's three years older than I am. And don't you wish you had an adoring male in your life?" But, like the remainder of us worms, she cannot think up the right answer on the spot. So she weeps on the man friend's shoulder that night and tells him what the Old Crow said. Man-like, he pats her back, kisses her, wipes away the tears and asks: "Why do you pay any attention to the Old Buzzard? She's jealous. She's taking her envy out on you. Why do you see her? Keep away i'rom her." And that, my friends, is the only course to take to avoid the "felines" in this country. There is no way of retaliation. You can think up all tho bright answers for the next emergency, but when it arrives the words will stick. Somehow, face to face with the Old Vinegar Cruets, you grow speechless as a frightened child. There is something so horrific about these old girls who punish younger women merely for the crime of having been born years later than themselves, that it leaves you as helpless as Snow White in the clutches of tho Old Witch, —S.F.B.