Riot Women has exploded onto our screens and demanded our attention with its heady mixture of menopausal rage and depictions of women doing it all. At the same time, those women are rendered invisible by the society around them.
For some, going unnoticed by the world around you creeps up slowly. For others, myself included, it hits suddenly – and then you can’t stop seeing it.
For me, my moment of midlife invisibility realisation came while queuing at a bar for a drink. I suddenly saw that the other couple of women of a similar age to me were also simply just standing there, the eyes of the young people behind the bar glossing over us – we stood like ghosts while the young people were served around us.
Now, like Joanna Scanlon’s Beth, I’m bordering on the time of being ignored and unseen by my children. Like Rosalie Craig’s Kitty, I once felt so enraged by the microaggressions from the man who works in our local shop that when he chose to be particularly belittling before greeting the young man behind me with “Hey there my man, how are you?” I also contemplated grabbing a vodka bottle from the shelf and downing it in front of his face.
And Tamsin Greig, who portrays Holly in the series, gets just why women end up feeling this way – and reveals why the phrase “middle-aged” makes her think of women being reduced to something they definitely aren’t.
(Image credit: BBC/Drama Republic/Helen Williams)
Speaking on an episode of the Front Row podcast on BBC Sounds, Tamsin says that her character is looking into the abyss of “who am I now?” which is not only incredibly relatable, but also exceptionally sad.
After the decades of service she’s given her job with the police, instead of facing retirement with joy, Tamsin’s character, Holly, is staring down the barrel of caring for a mum with dementia, a sister in denial, and children who don’t care about any of it, but will no doubt expect her to be there when they need her to be.
Weighing in on the experiences of women of what Tamsin refers to as those in the “middle squeeze” of being caught between the needs of so many people while not having enough time for their own, the actress reveals disdain for the phrase “middle age.”
She suggests the term should be replaced with “midlife,” as the former invokes an image of women as simply “faded and dusty.” Tamsin also shares how her character is standing on the “midpoint of what you have to surrender and sacrifice in order to move into a new vivacity” when you hit midlife – never has a few words summed up an experience so succinctly.
(Image credit: BBC/Drama Republic Ltd/Matt Squire)
With my own mounting experiences of becoming unseen and relegated to less of a person because of natural biological changes, I can feel this oncoming onslaught of being “squeezed” between people who need me, like the sandwich generation that I am.
Hints that all is not well with my parents are starting to creep into my thoughts while I do everything I can to push them straight back out again.
Worries perpetuated for generations before me, suggesting that as a woman, my worth is defined by my looks, continue to echo through my mind. Because of this, I ran to Google to ask “what counts as middle age,” hoping it would tell me that I wasn’t quite there yet – I’m now three years in, apparently.
Then I angrily asked myself why I was so frightened of midlife. Well, Riot Women sums it up perfectly, doesn’t it? Midlifers are the definition of women doing it all and achieving so much. Yet it’s a time that coincides with those amazing women becoming marginalised.
No wonder we’re angry – all the unseen work, all the thought we plough into the care of others, all the side effects that can come with menopause that are statistically will go misunderstood or inadequately treated. It’s all so unfair.
At a time when women should be hailed as superheroes, we become translucent, wondering if anyone can see us at all, or if we simply just died and didn’t realise. People shouldn’t be shocked at midlife rage – and there’s no wonder we need shows like Riot Women to embody that rage and make our voices heard again.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.womanandhome.com ’
