Voices of Older People
Feeling Invisible:
You really start to look
in the mirror and ask
‘am I really here’?
Voices of Older People : Feeling Invisible: You really start to look in the mirror and ask ‘am I really here’?
COTA Victoria Voices of Older People
COTA Victoria is the peak organisation representing the interests of older Victorians. Our vision is to see a just, equitable,
inclusive and humane society in which older people live well, with dignity and purpose. From its inception in 1951
as the Old People’s Welfare Council of Victoria, COTA has sought to ensure older people are able to optimise their
opportunities for health, security and participation as a valued member of their community.
The ‘Voices of Older People’ series seeks to bring the diversity and breadth of the experiences of older people to the
forefront of thinking on issues of importance to older people, policy makers and those interested in the wellbeing of
older people.
Human rights empower individuals to participate fully in the social, economic, cultural and political life of their
community. Women and men—regardless of their age—ought to enjoy the same human rights: the right to freedom,
equality and dignity. The UN International Principles for Older Persons (1991) and the Madrid International Plan of Action
on Ageing (2002) affirm the equal human rights for older people and support their aspirations to remain independent, to
continue to participate in the life of the community and society, to receive care when needed, and to achieve fulfilment
and dignity.
However, entrenched ageism—the stereotyping of and prejudice against older people—can lead to age discrimination,
where a person is treated differently simply because of their age, violating their human rights.
The language of human rights is widely used by policy makers and advocates, and one might assume that in a wealthy
democracy like Australia, this common vocabulary translates into lived experience. However, older people describe their
experiences differently. When Ita Buttrose accepted her award as Australian of the Year in 2013 she declared that a lot of
older people feel they have lost their voice: ‘like they don’t have an opinion, they are not respected, they are invisible’.
Ms Buttrose’s statement echoed the findings of the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission’s report
on the rights of older Victorians: that people experience a violation of their rights as they age1. This lack of recognition
of the rights of older individuals, this ageism, is often expressed as feeling invisible.
“Once a person reaches a point in their life where they are perceived as ‘older’, they somehow seem to become
transparent to younger people, as though they don’t exist, don’t matter, don’t have anything important worth
listening to, or it’s out of date and irrelevant.”
COTA Victoria’s Human Rights Working Group sought to further explore this perception of a lack of recognition by
speaking with a range of older people about their experiences of feeling invisible. We explore these feelings and
whether the lived experience of ‘invisibility’ more accurately reflects their everyday experiences of ageism and age
discrimination.
The people with whom we spoke shared rich and often painful stories of experiencing invisibility. People wanted their
stories to be heard and were curious about others’ experiences. They shared a sense of outrage on hearing how other
older people are treated, but also seem to derive some comfort from knowing they are not alone.
In this paper, we describe older people’s reflections on their experiences of ‘invisibility’ or feeling invisible. We further
explore their views on causes and solutions. All the people we spoke with have been given pseudonyms.
Older people experiencing invisibility
Many people are very surprised to feel invisible in later life. It is particularly shocking for people from the ‘baby boomer’
generation, those born between the prosperous post-war years of 1946-1963:
“How on earth did we as a group, the baby boomers, how did we allow this to happen, why didn’t we fight for our
place in society as we got older to make sure that our place was a decent place?”– Cynthia
Some people pinpoint a specific time when they first experience ‘invisibility’, but most describe a gradual change as they
have aged. They see a clear correlation between experiences of invisibility and changes in their appearance associated
with ageing:
“I think maybe when I started to look old.” –Rebecca
“I think since my hair went grey and you know, I look seventy cos that’s what I am.” – Margaret
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Importantly, many people feel that leaving paid employment is the most important marker of old age. Jocelyn is
unequivocal in her view that:
Voices of Older People : Feeling Invisible: You really start to look in the mirror and ask ‘am I really here’?
“If you haven’t got work you haven’t got an identity, you are invisible.”
Invisibility experienced earlier in life forms a backdrop to experiences in later life, particularly for older women. The
women affirm that invisibility is not a new experience for many of them, who have previously felt unseen as wives or
mothers. As Janet says:
“I had my first child at thirty-nine … so you’d go to corporate things and people didn’t think you were worth talking
to, you know, you were just a wife.”
Despite these earlier experiences, older women report that feeling unseen as they age is still very distressing.
We are struck by the powerful language older people use as they talk about what it is like to feel invisible. Cynthia says
with some force, ‘You really start to look for a mirror and think, ‘Am I really here’?’
The language younger people use to refer to older people is a rich topic of conversation. Margaret makes an interesting
observation:
“Some people hate being called dear and love and all that stuff and I don’t really like it but I can’t say that it bothers
me. I’d rather they call me that than an old bat.”
People talk about feeling there is a barrier between themselves and others. Several people are concerned about the lack
of mutual understanding between younger and older generations. As Jane puts it, ‘I’m fairly direct in what I say, I’m fairly
open and honest, but as I get older I feel like I’m talking a foreign language.’
Some people initially say they have never felt invisible. Sarah feels, paradoxically, that being ‘very old’ protects her from
being invisible: ‘I’ve told people that I’m ninety-one and people love me, they come help me down the steps.’
Sula initially attributes her ‘visibility’ to confidence and her considerable experience as a leader. However, a more
complex picture emerges. Sula acknowledges that she has to make a determined effort to remain visible in committees
and other forms of civic life: ‘Definitely I’d be invisible if I didn’t speak.’
Invisibility is commonly described as a wholly negative experience; however a few older people think there are some
advantages. For Jocelyn, being invisible brings a degree of freedom:
“Sometimes being invisible is actually quite an okay thing. It’s like wearing an invisible cloak. You can mix in different
areas with different people and just be a bystander.”
The experiences of invisibility we describe here take place in everyday interactions in communities and in families,
but older people also speak about their invisibility in the context of broader social institutions such as the media.
Older people find our human rights are violated in broader social, cultural and environmental settings; in social and
community networks as well as in our family life.
Invisibility in socioeconomic, cultural and
environmental settings
Broad socioeconomic, cultural and environmental settings form a backdrop to people’s experiences of invisibility: older
people find ageism and discrimination are entrenched in our society.
Media and advertising
Several people refer to older people’s misrepresentation in the media and advertising, leaving the real person invisible.
Michael tells us for him there is, ‘nothing positive about old age in the media.’ His perception that advertising is geared
towards younger people is shared by others.
Cynthia has given a lot of thought to the invisibility of people aged between fifty and seventy in particular: ‘The majority
of marketing is about buying into retirement villages and having ‘lifestyles’ and you know we’re trivialised.’ She asks,
‘Why is there no marketing about looking gorgeous at seventy?’
Services
We heard about experiences of invisibility in a service context when dealing with doctors and in hospitals, for example.
Jane is furious that nobody listens when she repeatedly tells her hospital doctor and nursing staff that the drugs
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Voices of Older People : Feeling Invisible: You really start to look in the mirror and ask ‘am I really here’?
prescribed are not effective for her. She is sceptical about the chances of doing anything to change this: ‘I could write
a letter of complaint to the managers and to the hospital … but there’ll be no change.’
Similarly, Sarah is astonished by what happens when she goes with her husband and daughter to see his specialist:
“The specialist talked to my daughter who didn’t know anything about it because I looked after him all the time
and so it didn’t take very long I’m afraid to say stop, until the specialist realised that I was the one who knew what
was going on, my daughter was there to sort of observe … I was invisible.”
Perceptively, Sarah also wonders if she in turn has made her husband feel invisible when they meet with his GP: ‘I
would make him invisible, my husband, because I wanted to tell the doctor all the things I knew about him.’
Michael is frustrated by his council’s failure to respond to his repeated complaints about a noisy neighbour: ‘They’re
ignoring the fact that I’m different at seventy-three than I would be at fifty-three.’ Michael describes himself as having
‘high stress levels’ exacerbated by the council’s lack of recognition of his needs, of his voice.
Cynthia is fed up with the lack of services and programs relevant to her age group: ‘There’s a bit of a Bermuda
triangle … we’re too young to be doing, you know, the gentle chair exercises and we’re too old to do the energetic
dance program.’
The discussion of older people’s invisibility in the ways services are designed and provided, illustrates the prevalence
of tacit discrimination.
The employment market and workplaces
Employment is a significant arena where invisibility is experienced. This is particularly the case for people in their
sixties or early seventies. Recovering from these painful experiences is often a lengthy process.
After moving to Melbourne in her mid-sixties, Jocelyn tries to find work in her profession of forty years. After initially
getting nowhere, she disguises her age in subsequent applications, and succeeds in getting an interview. She
describes how the panel reacts when she walks in:
“Their faces just dropped because they were expecting someone in their thirties and here’s this old crone … a
blind went over their faces … and one of the men said ‘well seeing you’ve come along we might have a bit of a
chat.”
Jocelyn feels invisible in this situation: ‘I’ve got forty years of experience and all of a sudden that means nothing.’
Likewise, Cynthia is extremely distressed by her experience of the workforce now she is in her fifties. She describes
it as: ‘Absolutely horrible and incredibly, emotionally disturbing.’ After spending several years caring for family
members, she is unable to re-enter her previous profession taking a series of temporary, low paid jobs in hospitality
and factories to make ends meet. She describes her traumatic experiences in these jobs, and her dismay that her
previous employment history seems to count for nothing, as ‘heartbreaking’.
Cynthia eventually finds a professional role, but then endures workplace bullying; which leads to her becoming both
physically and psychologically unwell: ‘I was with a younger group who just dismissed me. They spoke about people
my age as being dinosaurs.’ While in this role, she is excluded from activities, patronised, and discriminated against:
“They spoke to me as if I was some sort of retarded idiot and I found that really offensive because I was the most
highly educated of them.”
Life outside the workplace brings its own invisibility. Michael feels that without paid work or a valued role he has
no opportunity to share the skills and knowledge he has accumulated over a lifetime: ‘The skills that are in an older
person are not seen as valid skills.’ He sees this lack of opportunity and validation as a loss to society as well as a
source of personal frustration.
Since leaving paid employment, Janet has been very active in her community, accumulating significant experience
and skills. Yet this voluntary work is often invisible: ‘because it hasn’t had a salary attached to it, it doesn’t have an
identity, it doesn’t have a value.’
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Voices of Older People : Feeling Invisible: You really start to look in the mirror and ask ‘am I really here’?
Social and community networks outside the family
People differ in how often they feel invisible in their communities, and how much it distresses them. Cynthia sees this as
an almost constant issue for older people:
“We’re ignored when we go into shops, we’re treated with disrespect in every- not every situation - but many
situations in the public arena. For example in public transport or in the street where the kids just walk straight at you
and you have to jump out of their way.”
She concludes that, ‘You’re not acknowledged in a meaningful way in any environment.’
Most frequently mentioned are interactions with staff in shops. For instance, Margaret believes that she and other older
customers in a Telstra shop were ‘put on the back burner. I think they were hoping they’d have to go to lunch before
they had to deal with us’.’ She thinks this sort of discrimination is more likely to happen if the person serving is young:
‘They don’t engage, it seems to me, in quite the same way ‘(as with someone their own age).
Michael describes an incident in the supermarket when he was talking to the woman on the checkout, and how this
makes him feel:
“There was a guy standing behind me and he leant forward and said to (the woman on the checkout) ‘what did he
say?’ Would he have done that if I’d been a thirty year old? I suddenly became an object. I was no longer a human
being.”
We hear about other social interactions with strangers where older people become invisible. Jane remembers visiting a
neighbour who had been bereaved. Someone she has never met answers the door: ‘He looks straight through me, yells
back ‘there’s an old lady here to see you’. I sort of looked around, ‘where’s the old lady?’, because I don’t think I’m old.’
Although being described as an old lady startles her, Jane tries to rationalise his comment: ‘I didn’t feel put down
because when you stop to think about it, you know, people see sixty-five year olds as old.’
Cynthia describes being ignored when she made a suggestion in a voluntary group she had just joined. She had to
repeat her idea five times before anyone responds. Afterwards, one of the others comes over:
“… Saying words to the effect that ‘we thought you were a bit of a silly older lady but gee that made a lot of sense’….
I felt absolutely gobsmacked, and you know he was in a sense apologising and acknowledging me, but I thought well
what is it about you, you know, I’m better educated, I’ve had better jobs in the past … you think because I’m old I’m
senile.”
The man’s ‘apology’ only serves to underline the extent to which Cynthia is being dismissed on account of her age.
Peer networks provide older people with a safe refuge where they feel valued. In peer environments, Michael feels
understood and able to be his real self: ‘With the U3A group or with my friends they see the real me and that feels much
better.’
The importance of peer relationships continues in later life. Sula is very aware of the isolation of older people in her
culturally and linguistically diverse community who are not connected with peer networks. They are invisible to the
outside world, living a restricted, housebound existence in their children’s homes. She hears stories of extreme isolation
and invisibility.
Family relationships
Some older people admit feeling invisible within their own families. Sarah notices this when spending time with her
teenage granddaughters: ‘I’ve got no idea what they’re talking about. My daughter can sort of translate sometimes. I
could be invisible and it could hurt if I allowed it, so a lot of it is if we allow it.’
Janet describes what happens when she spends time with her adult children:
“They end up talking to each other about all sorts of things and I watch … It would be nice to have some
communication about what I’m doing and about what they’re doing and a bit more exchange of things.”
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Voices of Older People : Feeling Invisible: You really start to look in the mirror and ask ‘am I really here’?
The impacts of invisibility
The older people we speak with are deeply affected by their experiences of being invisible to others, in whatever
context they occur. Anger is a very common response as Margaret describes when she was ignored in a shop: ‘I wanted
to give them a good punch.’
Janet thinks that older people are expected to accept and understand that younger people might see them as a threat
in the workplace, but says, ‘sometimes I don’t want to understand it, that’s where the anger comes in.’
Experiences of invisibility have a cumulative effect on older people. Margaret feels that her loss of self-confidence after
leaving work was made worse by continual daily experiences of invisibility: ‘I have lost a lot of my self-confidence for all
sorts of reasons and this obviously adds to it.’
Some people begin to dread situations which they have formerly looked forward to. Before her weekly visits to the
market, Margaret often feels anxious:
“I hope it’s okay and that I’m going to feel okay … and sometimes you go and it seems to work very well and a lot of
times you go and it doesn’t and so then I might think well I won’t go the next week, so it kind of puts you on the back
foot I suppose.”
Although she still goes to the market, her pleasure in this outing is considerably diminished.
Several people recognise the complex relationship between how others see them, how they see themselves, and how
they behave. Sarah articulates this very powerfully:
“If you’re invisible someone’s not looking at you - so what are they seeing or not seeing in you? Are they just seeing
you as rubbish? And then you’ve got to look at yourself, what are you seeing in yourself that is responding to what
they’re saying?”
The people we spoke with are often unsure how to act when they feel invisible; they second guess themselves
afterwards as to whether their response helped or had made things worse. Individual personalities and life experiences
shape people’s behaviour in these moments.
In situations where they feel invisible, many older people behave assertively. Jane says: ‘Unless I jump up and down
people don’t hear you.’
Rebecca is very clear that everyone should be treated respectfully however old they are. She remarks, ‘I don’t just, sort
of, head down between my legs and walk out, no. I make it known and I’ve also written to a number of companies and
complained.’
Some people are less comfortable asserting themselves. Margaret will occasionally intervene if someone pushes in front
of her, but worries that ‘it will come back on me … the person I’ve asked to move aside will get stroppy or the person
behind the counter will not treat me as well.’
Michael describes an alarming incident in a shopping centre car park, where a young driver first accelerated at him, and
then verbally abused him:
“I yelled at the guy to slow down … and he yelled back at me ‘why should I you old’ (something nasty) and then
began to stop his car. I saw a group of people on the footpath so I just headed for them and when he realised what I
was doing he drove away again. … To be called an old something or other is quite unpleasant.”
After this distressing experience Michael feels so threatened he bought a book on how to use a walking stick for selfdefence.
Fighting to be noticed in everyday social life can also be exhausting. Although Jane describes herself as an assertive
person, she wonders:
“How long do you have to go on being assertive for? … Am I going to have to do this till the day I die? And what
happens when I can’t do it? I wonder how many old people acquiesce because we’re worn out from standing up.”
Dealing with these experiences forces people to make complex choices which they are not always happy with. Michael
feels he has to behave in certain socially sanctioned ways to be accepted and to be seen: ‘Twenty years ago I was able to
just simply be. Whereas now I have to act a part … trying to win people with humour.’
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Strength is found in sharing one’s experiences with other older people, usually in informal networks such as family or
community settings. Cynthia has gone a step further and set up a formalised group for unemployed older people:
Voices of Older People : Feeling Invisible: You really start to look in the mirror and ask ‘am I really here’?
“It was really set up as a sort of support and advocacy group but what was interesting (was) we were all scarred; we
were all psychologically and emotionally scarred by what we had experienced.”
Several people create a new sense of meaning by reorienting their lives and foregrounding different aspects of their
identities. Referring to the loss of ‘good identity’ she had as a well-paid professional, Jocelyn says, ‘I suppose I channelled
all the frustrations into being a grandma.’
The older people who share their stories with us display considerable resilience and thoughtfulness as they negotiate
these experiences. Jocelyn thinks resilience enables her to bounce back, and that it means ‘having confidence in who
you are and about your very core of being.’
These experiences of invisibility show how older people’s human rights can be violated in everyday social and family
life, and in broader social structures. Invisibility has profound and far-reaching consequences for people’s lives, affecting
mental wellbeing and financial security. We ask older people about what they think needs to happen to support their
human rights in daily life.
Older people’s ideas for solutions to invisibility
Older people believe the experience of invisibility is complex and not receptive to a ‘quick fix’. As Margaret says,
‘You can’t change people’s attitudes and fix things overnight, all you can do is keep chipping away until, you know,
somewhere you get a better deal.’
At the same time, people are not short of ideas about potential solutions. These ideas vary in line with their beliefs
about the causes of invisibility, but most believe that invisibility in daily life reflects both personal and social forces.
Rebecca says:
“It is the world (that is responsible) and also I attach quite a bit of blame on the older person as well because I don’t
think they do enough for themselves to make themselves heard.”
Both Rebecca and Sula believe that our behaviour in social situations affects whether or not we experience invisibility.
Rebecca attributes the fact that she rarely experiences invisibility to her assertiveness. Similarly, Sula argues that older
people who are shy or who do not speak up are more likely to be treated as invisible.
Rebecca wants other older people to learn to be assertive:
“I would love to take some older people out and just show them how to behave you know, go into a shop and not be
demanding or whatever but get what you should be getting, respect!”
Rebecca acknowledges that to be able to demand respect, ‘you’ve got to respect yourself first’. Older people wonder
how far identity can be sustained ‘from within’ and how far it is shaped ‘from without’. Reflecting on the importance of
having a secure sense of identity, Jocelyn argues that ‘We must all validate our own (identity) and not rely on society to
do it on our behalf.’
Others reflect on how confidence and behaviour in social and family interactions can be affected by marginalisation
in broader social structures. Having lost the socially valued identity which work can bring, Margaret suspects that her
behaviour has changed, altering how people perceive her and treat her:
“I was a nurse and I think that gives you a place in society and nurses ae generally thought of as being good people
… and then all of a sudden you don’t have that anymore. … It’s certainly affected me I think. I found life I don’t know,
somehow less attractive and that people treated me, because I was struggling a bit I think people maybe treated me
differently. … I don’t know whether it was me or them or both of us.”
People are acutely aware of this relationship between how they are treated and how they feel about themselves. They
believe that changing broader social attitudes must include changing older people’s views about themselves. Margaret
compares the fight against ageism with that against racism saying, ‘Maybe something should be done to somehow
make older people - people like me - keep this confidence they once had.’
Margaret interprets her personal experiences in the light of broader social forces. She suggests education to help
younger people to better understand older people, an educational process which should begin in school and continue
in the workplace. Margaret describes the kind of conversation she would like to have with younger people:
“I’d like to get you all out in the back room and sit you down and say look you know I am an old lady but I’ve got a lot
to offer and you have a lot to offer me if you would only do it in a manner that I would feel comfortable with.”
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Voices of Older People : Feeling Invisible: You really start to look in the mirror and ask ‘am I really here’?
Older people discuss the explicit connection between their personal experiences of invisibility and entrenched ageism
in political, economic and social spheres. Michael describes his battle with the council as a denial of his human rights,
while Jane’s sense of outrage is very clear when she asks:
“Why should we have to stand up and fight for housing or for dental care or any of that stuff? For what is basic, to
me, is just basic human rights in a wealthy country like Australia.”
Finally, many call for older people to mobilise together to tackle ageism. As Cynthia says, ‘It isn’t something that the
individual can handle. … The only way they will become non-invisible is to mobilise as a political force.’
In conclusion
Human rights are upheld or abused in everyday experiences. For older people, feelings of invisibility occurring in a
range of daily situations are experiences of entrenched ageism and age discrimination. Our conversations with older
people reveal how completely invisible they can feel.
Invisibility is experienced through the one-dimensional view of the older person held by others. This is Michael’s
experience when he feels he has to adopt the persona of the ‘humorous older man’ in order to be accepted.
While we have not here explored the effects of gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status and location, research shows
that the experience of ageism in daily life is shaped by these variables.
For instance, more women than men were interested in this research. This may suggest that women experience greater
invisibility, are more attuned to its impacts, and feel less embarrassed about admitting to it. Alternately it may suggest
they are more ‘tapped in’ to participate in conversations about how they feel and experience social interactions.
Finally, our conversations with older people highlight the significance of transitions in later life. For example, when
people leave paid employment, the loss of a valued work identity may render them invisible in profound and farreaching ways. Feelings of invisibility are acute amongst these ‘younger old’ people. This is an area which merits further
research.
Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission, Rights in focus: report on the rights of older Victorians,
2012, p 15-16.
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ISSN 1837 – 3984 No 3 2015
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