I give the finger to ageist labels!

if you follow me on Instagram and/or Facebook you can’t fail to have seen my recent rant about being represented by all sorts of negative adjectives, to describe my age! What I wasn’t expecting was the unprecedented huge amount of comments I received from my followers, aged from 18 to 80. It appears I am not alone in disliking labels - at any age - and have opened a right can of worms! As one lovely follower commented, her Grandfather told her “labels are for tins, not people.” So I just had to share #FingerFriday as a very short blog post because you may have missed it, and want to join in, and because so many of the comments deserve to be seen. Judging by the response, we, obviously, still have much to do to continue our fight against ageism (and sexism). I hope you find this as fascinating as I do.

First, this is the post I left on Instagram & Facebook:

Happy #FingerFriday everyone. Can the media and marketing folks please stop calling women my age: pensioners, old woman, elderly and InstaGrans? All of which I’ve been described as recently! I know anyone Over 50, even 40, looks absolutely ancient to a 25 year old, but can we please stop with the stereotypical labels and spread a bit of positivity! Would love to hear what you hate being described as, whatever your age. Thank you to @stylemesunday for sharing this awesome hashtag and inspiring us all to not put up with any shit!

There were an unbelievable over 4 thousand Likes and 700 comments on Instagram alone, which is the most I have ever seen in my five years of being an Insta Gran: scrub that last word! And it wasn’t just the red outfit, purposely worn to feel powerful, it was what I was saying that resonated with so many of you. So here are just a few of the amazing responses I received, including a couple of men (proof indeed that this is all about sexism as well!) , an 18 year old, and every age in between:

Grateful and thrilled to have had such an overwhelming response to my rant!

Thank you so much to ALL the women (and the few men!) who took the time to share their likes and dislikes about being labelled, at any age at all. It has been fascinating reading them all. Please share your thoughts in the Comment box below and let’s keep this thing going and spread the word. I’m now embracing becoming an INDY (I’m Not Done Yet) and thank Andrew Middleton for sharing this short video and joining in the debate!

And if you haven’t already, join me on Instagram to carry on #FingerFriday: at Alternative Ageing.