Dr Cathy Casey: Women are growing older ... invisibly

Denise L'Estrange-Corbet. Photo / Dean Purcell

Opinion

I addressed the Older Women's Network at the Positive Ageing Centre in Takapuna last Saturday. This is a group of local women "who are no longer young in years but know no limits age wise". Their mission is to unite and support older women.

I talked of my delight at being the liaison councillor for the council's new Seniors Advisory Panel and how the role had made me acutely aware of the negative language of ageing and the lack of images of positive ageing, especially images of older women. I illustrated my speech using the photographs from the pages from that morning's New Zealand Herald.

Women found
The Saturday Herald is a weighty tome. It is a broadsheet with nine sections, Canvas magazine, Herald Homes and two advertising brochures tucked inside it. All up I had 271 pages to peruse before 9am.

Within the 271 pages, I found 356 photographs containing a discernible adult. Of those, 213 (60%) featured only men, 101 (28%) only women and 42 (12%) both men and women.

Of significance, there were only seven photographs of "older women" ie women over 55 (2%).

Six of the seven older women featured were head and shoulder portraits of well-known women:

1. Denise L' Strange-Corbet

2. Joan Baez

3. Hillary Clinton

4. Penny Hulse

5. Anne Gibson (Herald's Property Editor)

Only one "ordinary" older woman made it into the news pages that Saturday. There was a head and shoulders picture of a Rotorua teacher who received a nomination for a Pride of New Zealand Award. The only other older woman was in an advertisement for new kitchens. She is pictured laughing with her male partner over two glasses of red wine as she chops something on the kitchen bench.

It is interesting to look at where in the Herald women's images were used. The glossy pages of Canvas magazine (32 pics) was the only section that included more images of women than men - 17 (53%) featured only women compared to 7 only men (22%) and 8 men and women (25%). The Weekend section (74 pics) also had lots of women in it (46%). Tellingly, both Canvas and Weekend magazines focus on features traditionally associated with women such as fashion, entertainment, beauty and cooking.

Finally, most of the women who made it into the Herald's news pages were recognisable women, either rich, famous or both.

Women lost again.
Several sections of the paper had no or few women - sport, racing, cars, business and commercial property. The two sports sections were full of men, the majority rugby players on the field. Only three active, sporty females were shown out of 39 photographs. There were no women in the racing section.

Interestingly, the six women appearing in the car section were head shots of women writers. Few women populate the business or commercial sections unless they are writers or real estate agents. The women in Herald Homes were headshots of female real estate agents in paid adverts or homeowners in promotional shots seeking to sell their home.

Any newspaper item that does not relate to an individual or a specific male issue could use a picture of a woman to illustrate it. There were a lot of missed opportunities for women - especially older women - to appear.

British pop star Lulu (now aged 66) was profiled in Canvas magazine but in the accompanying photograph, she looks closer to 26.

The Weekend magazine included a feature about opportunities on the water, with five photographs of men fishing, boating, diving and sailing. Women do all of those things. Older women too.

Why do we need to make older women visible in positive roles?

New Zealand's population is ageing. The representation of older women in the Herald does not reflect their real proportion in our society. It is important that images of positive ageing are more visible in our mainstream media, to promote and encourage progressive attitudes towards older people and the fantastic contribution they make to society.

Positive ageing reflects the experiences older people have about themselves and how younger generations view ageing, including their own ageing.

More images of sailing, wine-swigging, happy older women ageing disgracefully please New Zealand Herald.

Dr Cathy Casey is an Auckland councillor for the Albert-Eden-Roskill Ward