Some days just aren’t worth putting on a bra.
……………..On a Coffee Mug
How old is old in Hollywood? You don’t want to know.
by Kerry Cue
“I wish that other women would let other women age gracefully. Women take it as something personal that they are getting older. They think that they failed somehow by not staying 25. This is crazy to me because my belief is that it’s a privilege to get older – not everybody gets to get older’
……………………………..Cameron Diaz, actress, 41.
In the 1967 film, The Graduate, Anne Bancroft played Mrs Robinson, a bored-housewife living in a loveless marriage. When the 21-year-old Ben Braddock played by Dustin Hoffman visits the Robinsons, urged on by his parents (Mr Robinson is a partner in a legal firm with Ben’s father), he is seduced by the much older Mrs Robinson. Ben, however, falls in love with Elaine, the Robinson’s daughter, and in a climactic ending, the young couple run off together.
The Graduate 1967
Anne Bancroft and Dustin Hoffman
At the time, Anne Bancroft was 36-years-old and, in fact, only 6 years older than Dustin Hoffman. So, historically, in Hollywood, you are branded ‘the older woman’ at 36 years of age.
Forty-five plus years on The Graduate highlights a more disturbing issue. In the film, Mrs. Robinson is a ‘formidable’ character. There is a word you do not hear any more. ‘Formidable’ applied to an older woman in a position of authority. The ‘formidable woman’ was matronly and someone to reckon with. She stood for definite principles. She didn’t tolerate fools and often held the position of Hospital Matron, Head Mistress or, even, the family Matriarch. When we were young girls many ‘formidable women’ – Reverend Mother, for starters – had our measure. Where are they today? These days, older women, who exercise authority are described as ‘ball breakers’, ‘old dragons’ or, in the case of the matriarch, ‘a Control Freak’. Is it the ‘management team’ and their spin that has replaced the ‘formidable woman in the workplace? Has the mass movement of women out of the home and into the workplace in the 1970s unthroned the matriarch? Curious, isn’t it?
Anne Bancroft, 70, 2001
At 70 years of age, Anne Bancroft (above) still looked impressive. She won an Oscar in 1962 for her role in The Miracle Worker. She was happily married to her second husband, Mel Brooks, for 45 years. They had one son. Sadly, she died in 2005.
Kerry Cue is a humorist, journalist, mathematician, and author. You can find more of her writing on her blog. Her latest book is a crime novel, Target 91, Penmore Press, Tucson, AZ (2019).
Photo Source: Film Promotion Pic and Salon.com
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Dating for Grown Ups
by Kerry Cue
When virtual reality gets cheaper than dating, society is doomed.
………………..Dogbert, Scott Adams Dilbert Cartoon
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Kerry Cue is a humorist, journalist, mathematician, and author. You can find more of her writing on her blog. Her latest book is a crime novel, Target 91, Penmore Press, Tucson, AZ (2019).
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Hey! Older women take off the Invisibility Cloak
by Kerry Cue
When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me
………….Jenny Joseph, Warning, Poem, 1961
Do dull clothes make you dull?
Red Hat Society
Jenny Joseph’s poem has gained something of a cult following. Today there are Red Hat Societies that encourage members to go out in public wearing purple dresses and red hats. They have a lot of fun and raise money for charity – insert applause here – and, of course, the Red Hat ladies don’t go unnoticed in public.
Such societies, however, rather defeat the idea of the older woman as a respected individual by turning her into a red hat, purple dress-wearing stereotype. Jenny Joseph aptly expressed her unique eccentricities in her poem, but why turn yourself into a Jenny Joseph clone?
There is, however, a more insidious problem concerning fashion for older women.
In her book FASHION AND AGE: Dress, the body and later life, (Review: Cheryl Buckley, Times Higher Education, 19 SEP 2014) Julia Twigg insists that as women age they become estranged to fashion and begin to wear “rectangles and squares” in sombre colours with little ornamentation, instead of choosing clothes that fashionably drape and shape our older selves.
It is the curse of the ‘chunky ¾ length pants and polo fleece tops’, the uniform worn by older women on bus trips! This garb is the real world equivalent to Harry Potter’s Invisibility Cloak.
Fashion is fun but it’s not for everyone. Moreover, older women can wear what they bloody well like. They’ve earned this right. But fashion also serves a purpose. Dowdy or dull outfits scream ‘I’ve given up’. If you are not interested in yourself, who else will be?
Yes! You do get more respect if you dress smartly in public. You needn’t stop there. Some older women don amazingly zany outfits and they are, indeed, an inspiration for all ages. Here they are, women from the Advanced Style Blog. Ari Seth Cohen wanders the streets of New York taking pictures of fashionable women in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. And they look fabulous, darling!
Beatrix Ost Fashion Diva
Fab Fashionista
Joyce
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Kerry Cue is a humorist, journalist, mathematician, and author. You can find more of her writing on her blog. Her latest book is a crime novel, Target 91, Penmore Press, Tucson, AZ (2019).
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The Sibyls Salute: Judy Chicago
By Kerry Cue
Because men have a history, it is difficult for them to imagine what it is like to grow up without one,
or the sense of personal expansion that comes from discovering that we women have a worthy heritage.
Along with pride often comes rage – rage that one has been deprived of such a significant knowledge.
Judy Chicago, Good Reads
Artists never grow old because …
there’s no use-by date for passion.
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Judy Chicago
Judy Chicago is a celebrated artist – There are 7 retrospective shows celebrating her work across America this year alone – who, at 74, shows no sign of slowing down.
Not only is Chicago a Sibyl, her life’s work has been dedicated to showing how women’s voices have been silenced throughout history and, this of course, includes the Sibyls.
Chicago’s best-known and most loved work is The Dinner Party. It consists of 39 place settings each representing a woman neglected by history. The vulvar and butterfly shaped ceramic place settings celebrate forgotten (female) goddesses, philosophers, priests, writers, doctors, painters, explorers, and rulers. The triangular table sits on a Heritage Floor, which contains the names of a further 999 women throughout history, who have made a significant contribution to bettering women’s’ lives.
The Dinner Party
Judy Chicago 1974 – 79
A new book by Chicago, The Dinner Party: Restoring Women to History (with a foreword by Arnold L. Lehman and contributions by Jane F. Gerhard) was also published this year.
The book not only looks an iconic feminist artwork, it highlights the fight feminists faced in the 1970s. The Dinner Party, for instance, once inspired aN 87-minute debate in the U.S. House of Representatives over whether it was art or pornography. You will find more information about Chicago’s fascinating art in the article Why Judy Chicago Still Fights for Feminist Art at 75 by Bob Duggan at Big Think.
We the Sibyls salute Judy Chicago.
Kerry Cue is a humorist, journalist, mathematician, and author. You can find more of her writing on her blog. Her latest book is a crime novel, Target 91, Penmore Press, Tucson, AZ (2019)
When God had a Wife
by Lorna Ebringer
“Respect only has meaning as respect for those with whom I do not agree.” 
― Karen Armstrong, A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
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Where have all the goddesses gone, long time passing?
Where have all the goddesses gone, long time ago?
In the ancient world before there was one god there were many. Each one had a limited domain of power and different responsibilities. Karen Armstrong in her book “A History of God” pub.1993 tells us that they were often gods of place and as you moved from one location to another you would encounter a new set of gods and a different form of worship. These gods were both male and female and were served by both priests and priestesses. Because there were many gods the pagan religions were tolerant, there was always room for one more deity.
Asherah
God’s Wife
The founder of the idea of one god was Abraham, born in Ur in Mesopotamia in around 2000BCE though no one is quite sure of the date. Legend has it that for some reason Abraham and his family decided to migrate west. For many years they lived in Haran and then at the age of 75 he heard the voice of God for the first time. God instructed him to go to the land of Canaan.
On arrival Abraham encountered the gods of Canaan. In charge of the pantheon was El. He, together with a council of deities, kept order in the cosmos and in the human realm. El had a wife named Ashereh, goddess of fertility and symbolised by the tree of life. Their son Baal was the god of storm, their daughter Anat was the goddess of the harvest and in addition there were gods of the dawn, dusk, plague and death amongst others.
The people of Israel were slow to adopt the idea of one god. The women in particular did not like the idea of losing their female fertility goddesses and there is evidence that for hundreds of years they refused to do this. Dr. Francesca Stavrakopoulou, biblical scholar, suggests that archeological finds at Ugarit in Syria and in the Sinai and in the bible itself show that worship of Asherah as the wife of God persisted for at least a thousand years until the Babylonian conquest of Israel. The loss of the temple in Jerusalem in the 6th century BCE led the scribes of the bible to abandon the pantheon of gods and turn to the one God for protection.
Dr. Stavrakopoulou suggests that the loss of Ashereh has led to religion becoming more masculine. If God is male then to be a man is to be like him.
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‘Monotheism then has disempowered women.’
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Lorna Ebringer’s passions include trekking in remote areas of Georgia, China and Japan, opera appreciation and rock ‘n roll dancing.
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Thanks for the Mammaries
Children! Now about your Inheritance …
All heiresses are beautiful.
……………………………..John Dryden, English Poet, 1631 – 1700
Photo Source: State Library Qld
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Anti-Wrinkle Creams: When Hope Conquers Experience
by Kerry Cue
Most men running the major beauty corporations,
where you undoubtedly have spent
a lot of money,
think you’ve lost it at 50.
– Andrea Robinson, Toss the Gloss: Beauty Tips, Tricks & Truths for Women 50+
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Apply daily and avoid gravity for the next 40 years?
In the New York Times this week Bea Shipiro interviews Andrea Robinson, who worked in the cosmetic industry developing products for Revlon (Ultima II Naked collection ) and L’Oreal. The cosmetic industry veteran has just published a book titled “Toss the Gloss: Beauty Tips, Tricks & Truths for Women 50+”
Her book, according to Robinson, intends to “unconfuse” older women whom the industry has already dismissed. (We’re well aware of being dismissed by the industry.)
The person to ‘unconfuse’ 50+ women is Bobbi Brown, 56, the author of “Living Beauty”. According to Bobbi Brown, whose book has remained in print since 2007:
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“There is no cream that is ‘anti-aging’ ……. There is no cream that fixes wrinkles.”
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In fact, in Australia it is illegal to claim that a cream can reduce wrinkles. If an anti-wrinkle cream can do anything it is not a cosmetic.
It is a pharmaceutical product and must be tested. As a result, ads for cosmetic creams have developed a convoluted language to convince women that they do something that, legally, they are not allowed to do. A Multi Revitalifting Visage Night Creme will provide ‘hydradiance’ or ’luminescence’. Obviously, such creams do not reduce wrinkles, but you get to glow in the dark.
If you pay big money for an ‘anti-aging’ cream remember it doesn’t do anything, but at least you can be comforted in the knowledge that, philosophically speaking, it is opposed to the concept of aging.
Kerry Cue is a humorist, journalist, mathematician, and author. You can find more of her writing on her blog. Her latest book is a crime novel, Target 91, Penmore Press, Tucson, AZ (2019)
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After Retirement a New Career
by Dimity Reed
Imagination creates reality.
……………………..Richard Wagner, Composer, 1813 – 1883.
Having spent around 40 really terrific years as an architect and having rarely thought about age, my 70th birthday appeared just as a marvellous urban renewal project which had involved me for four years finished. So there were a few free moments there to contemplate how I might entertain myself, and possibly others, for what could be another 20 years.
Then, one evening, after a slightly boozy dinner, a musicologist friend asked if we wanted to go to a lecture he was giving the following day on how we humans turn sound into music. That invitation became a new life, and not just for me. We went and were so mesmerised by his ideas and presentation that I rang our youngest filmmaker son (there are a few in the family), Sam, and suggested he attend the next talk.
He did and afterwards asked our mate, Heath Lees, if he were interested in doing a television series on music and how we hear it. He was.
They talked for a while and agreed to talk more. Then Sam asked if I were interested in producing the series. I replied (with a rare meekness) that I knew nothing about film production. “Ah”, said Sam, “You’d be very good at it.” I don’t know about you, but in my parental experience flattery is quite unusual, so I immediately said ‘Yes’. And in early 2012 became a virgin film producer.
Screen Grab from Wagner’s Ring
– A Tale Told in Music
Heath wrote a script, we hired the Salon at the Melbourne Recital Centre, put a great crew together and shot a 16 minute teaser in a week. Sam edited it and I took it to a producer in Sydney for advice. The advice was good but unexpected, “Wagner’s 4 opera Ring cycle is on in Melbourne in 2013 and Heath Lees is a world expert on Wagner. He’s a brilliant communicator so put More To Music aside and do something on The Ring.”
A screen grab from Wagner’s Ring –
A Tale Told in Music
Heath, Sam and I took the advice and started work on four films, one on each of the Ring operas in September 2012. The scripts were written, money raised, brilliant crew again employed, wondrous singers involved and a month shooting in Europe happened. The films were completed and ready for sale in September 2013 (Available online here).
Dimity Reed, Film Editor
None of it was easy but it was glorious fun and the films are magical. Working with very talented people is one of life’s joys and everyone involved in Wagner’s Ring: A Tale Told in Music was hugely talented, hard-working, generous and fun.
So now we’re back where we stated, working on More To Music. And this, I think, is what the politicians call moving forward.
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Dimity Reed, Architecture Ambassador , 2008
Dimity Reed’s CV includes architect, author, Professor of Urban Design at RMIT University, Board Member and Councillor of the City of St Kilda, but at 70 years of age she found a new career as Managing Director of Mad Woman Productions. Her book, Tangled Destinies – the National Museum of Australia, was published in 2002.
sibylesque 
