Marketers who believe in the economic and social power of Baby Boomer women have invested a lot of effort convincing their less-enlightened peers that this demographic is anything but invisible. Women 40+ control around a zillion-quadrillion dollars of purchases and influence just about everybody about everything. So what if we’re not on every (or any!) magazine cover at the neighborhood stand, we are nevertheless a force with which others must contend!
But then again, perhaps there are some aspects of invisibility women 40+ would rather not give up! In fact, could it be possible that this cloak of invisibility could, under certain circumstances, prove just as useful as Superman’s ability to fly faster than a speeding bullet? Spiderman’s capacity to crawl up walls? There is, when all is said and done, some reason that we were all raised on a diet of comics that included invisibility on the list of super powers worth writing about!
Over the past several weeks, we’ve been in discussion with Boomer women, asking them 1) Is it true that there are times you feel invisible to others, i.e. you walk into a crowded restaurant, head for the host/hostess, and everybody around you — including younger women and men who arrive behind you — gets seated first? 2) If so, are there any possible benefits to this periodic state of obscurification? The answer was a surprising and overwhelming “YES” and “YES!” To wit:
“Flying back from Europe on an all-nighter, comfort was far more important to me than fashion. I dug through my bag and pulled out old sweatpants and fluffy socks. My rationale: as a 54-year-old woman, all I had to do was leave my make-up off, and stripped temporarily of positional power, nobody would look at me anyway. As I drifted happily to sleep, I felt infinitely superior to the younger woman on the other side of the aisle, who could barely breathe let alone sleep in her peg leg jeans.”
“The movie theater was crowded and my husband and I strategized about who would get the popcorn and who would run for the best seats. Approaching the usher, I realized that unfortunately, the tickets were still in his pocket—a long ways away in the concession stand line. No problem. I know how to make myself invisible. I looked straight ahead and with a sense of purposefulness, walked right on through to great seats. Didn’t even register!”
“The younger people who gather at the water cooler to dish the dirt don’t even acknowledge me when I’m a few feet away, filling my coffee cup, and listening to every word. I’ve gotten a lot of insider tips this way — political intelligence that I use to my advantage. When I make my moves, they don’t even know what hit them.”
Invisibility: the super power of choice for women 40+, who know how to turn just about everything that happens to them — whether or not by their design — for the good.
-Carol Orsborn, Ph.D.
