Dour outlook result of society

By Kent S. Collins

Dear Senior Forum: I am a sweet, little old lady with a cheery outlook on whatever life is left to me. But all around me are other old ladies not so cheery. Would you write something in the newspaper about the spirit of older people --- especially women? --- L.L.E.

Dear L.L.E.: Certainly bad health impacts the mental and spiritual wellness of many people. Family relationships impact wellness, too. But below is a letter that goes deeper --- and darker --- into what you wonder about. It may explain some of what we all see in people of the golden years.

Dear Senior Forum: The older women now clogging our system with their disabilities have a real reason for their condition. It isn't enough to say, "Men!," and laugh. The problem is preventable. I have learned a few things about it in my 74 years of life, marriage and motherhood.

Statistics show that we so-called second-class citizens have more physical and morale problems than the average white American male. We women are --- and have always been --- at least second-class, if not worse.

The civil rights movement taught us that feminism is also necessary.

As a middle-class, white American girl and woman, I was baffled to realize that society really expects women to be abused, as children, as wives and as mothers --- not with beatings and murder, but with malice and contempt.

Employing women at only meager wages is still a curse. This sort of thing wears people out.

I used to think that women were allowed to live a little longer in order to give them a chance to relax and discover their own minds without the daily assaults from family and society.

Better treatment for women as human beings would result in better health and longer working years. We would all be healthier and less expensive to maintain. I wonder why human beings so seldom realize the profitable economy of respect and goodness toward each other. --- From Morehead City, N.C.

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