traditional workplaces

The traditional workplace, according to Beryl, was never geared for older women workers, and male employers are blatantly discriminating against them because they refuse to accept that times have changed and that older women these days have no alternative but to continue working until they drop.

"Rather than getting a steady stream of bright young things taking over from women leaving work for marriage and babies, women these days are staying put in jobs or merely taking short periods off work to have babies," says Beryl, “and traditional male employers resent this.”

"Traditionally, too," adds Beryl, "older women in positions of power tended to be women who have never married and had children - assuring themselves an uninterrupted career path - but these days women take on superwomen personas in order to have it all."

"In the traditional workplace," says Beryl, "the spinsters were expected to retire at 55, and could do so because they had worked and saved all of their lives without kids interrupting their careers and emptying their savings accounts."

"When I think back to the very first job I had at the age of 15 in a traditional workplace," says Beryl, "I remember how women my age were treated with great respect."

"The day they retired was a crowning achievement for them," says Beryl. "Everyone stopped work while the presentations were made and a few of us cried because we didn't want them to go - they kept things together at work and that's how we liked it."

"At that age," laughs Beryl, "my social life was a lot more important than my work. How different it is for young people today!”

“They want to be in charge almost from the day they start work - they are bossy and pushy and think they know everything," says Beryl, “and in many ways I don’t blame them for taking it all while they can because they, too, will get old one day and face ageism at work.”

Read more by Beryl on this issue:

empty nest mirrors
A glut of older women workers?