Let's focus on the harder harsher plight of elder women. Old men may be the presidential candidates and run politics and governments. Old women are relegated to the sidelines. They are always in the back.. in the background ...behind the man....left behind....

The younger Beauty Queens may have their momentary glory but are still not regarded as equal or able or strong like the young men. [ Note that Obama and Palin are close in age, about 1 year apart , but with different life experiences and attitudes. One is considered "serious" as a male, but the other is called frivolous.]

Back to the old ones we like to ignore and push aside if possible. Yep, older women are a higher proportion of the elder population...check the stats out yourself !

Women are required to be 'good looking' and pressured into doing surgeries and buying cosmetics and clothes and LOOK like men might want them, so no wrinkles, no sags, no bellies, no age showing is allowed.

Women are required to be the caretakers - of sick, or old, of the dying, or the grandchildren no one else has 'time' for. They continue to work tho NOT paid.

House/home work is not calculated in the GNP and is not counted in the wealth or products of the country or of the family either. But she must continue to work or connive to have someone else to depend on for financial support. Because she is not wanted otherwise.

Women are not allowed to be dissenters, to be loud, to be angry, to be upset, to be sensitive, or to be anything but compliant, nice, sweet, agreeable and preferably helpful. Old women are no longer Sexy, so they are obviously of little value or worth.

Money or help is the only thing they can 'trade' with for companionship or association. They volunteer a lot. They offer 'to help you' more than old men ever do.

They have to do something Extra, lots EXTRA to allow them entry into any social circle or group. Check it out. Who does the Free Work ?
Who takes care of 'the details", the home, the children ?
Who brings in the pot luck goodies ?
Who takes care or visits the sick ?
Who always stands "behind her man" ?
Who cleans the ...toilet too....?

So the female elders are being even more severely ABANDONED by any govt resources - if they have not already become eligible for their Social Security. The Bush version of "you dont need that old Social Security plan!" has now been proven a trick and a lie...another one.

Jobs are NOT given to elder women because they are not 'pretty' to look at, not 'sexy' to arouse young men in the work place and make the place 'more fun' for them, and old women are conveniently labeled as "slow, prudish, and demanding". Ask the elder women you know. How are they accepted in an 'equal employer' work place ? What actually happens when they apply for a job they can do or did before? What are the excuses made for not hiring Her ?

Any negative description to not hire older women who cant hide their wrinkles and age.

Young women are more gullible, believing they will "succeed & be quickly promoted" having had less experience of the glass ceilings and shadow walls.

Old women are given multiple excuses of why they are not hired, because the law says...but does not carefully enforce...the age-ism so prevalent everywhere.

Especially now, when jobs are even scarcer and we are at the lowest pay rates too.

so Yes, the Old are not given much, and are not considered valuable or worthy because they are "OLD". The emphasis on the glory of youth is mostly a consumer-sales-pitch to have them be glorified for only a short time, to have the young buy more of those products sold by sexy -look-alikes-sorta.

The younger are still not yet experienced in how corps and companies use and discard them easily, as the prior values of one's loyalty to the work and the trust back to that employee have eroded completely by now. [Even auto manufacturers want out of their pension plans, their promises & loyalty to their workers are being broken now. ]

The young are easily seduced and lured by titles and dreams and false promises. The older folk have been thru that story a few times, not just once, and may not sell themselves as easily, unless hunger is actually gnawing.

On the other hand....some of us Old Women are glad to have been in another time, another generation, another cultural zeitgeist than the prevailing failing one.

So being old has a lot of [prior] benefits that may still remain in us, in our memories and the things we have experienced and learned [before]. And these may be all that is left to us all, now, young OR old.

This is no country to be an Old Woman, as she has become a throw-away, unless she has saved her money under her mattress.