Blog Posts - relationships

The ‘Young Lady’ Dance

The first time I was addressed as “young lady,” I was too surprised to say anything. The doctor was evidently trying to be jocular. He was patronizing, I later realized, and wondered how other women visibly over 60 respond to this misguided attempt to be funny.

I’m in good company, though. When Gray Panthers’ founder Maggie Kuhn was honored by Gerald Ford in the Oval Office, he called her “young lady.” She replied fiercely that she was not a young woman and that she was proud to be old. Telling off a president was gutsy.

After a talk on aging to a group at a retirement center in Maine, I asked how many women in the audience had had the “young lady” experience. Every hand shot up. I then asked how many of these old women had liked being called “young lady.” Only one hand went up. “I feel flattered,” the woman said. Several members of the audience vigorously disagreed with her.

When I am addressed as “young lady,” my strategy is to ask, “Why are you calling attention to my age?” Patronizing persons immediately deny that they have done any such thing. If they think of themselves as free of bias or insensitivity, they respond indignantly when their well-intentioned remark has been challenged.

No one has ever thanked me for my challenge.

When I issue my negative reaction to “young lady,” though, I feel I am attacking ageism, and I feel good about the effort. The success of my educational work can be gauged by a very recent exchange at the local lobster pound:

- Hello, young lady.

- How old do I have to be not to get called young lady?

- In your grave.

- I’m just an ordinary person. Don’t call attention to my age.

- OK, spring chicken.

Once the secretary of a dean at the university where I used to teach announced my arrival in his office by saying “a young lady is here to see you.” I probably didn’t disguise my annoyance very well when I asked why she was calling attention to my age. She denied that she had done that. I insisted that she had.

What is going on here? I suspect that someone who calls me “young lady” sees my old face as a disadvantage and so, wanting to reassure me that I’m still OK and jolly me along, uses the phrase. The person must be keenly aware of my white hair and somewhat wrinkled face. Like the disabled, the fat and people of color, I stand out.

To my surprise, I am now part of a minority, a rude awakening for a middle-class white woman. I am noticed in a way I never was before. Most people I now deal with in offices or medical centers are younger than I am.

Making people uncomfortable is not something I do casually. As a white woman, I have certainly been uncomfortable when challenged for unintentional racism. Those experiences remind me that when people are nudged outside of their comfort zone, they may change. Or not. I may often need to channel Maggie Kuhn.