A video of a woman dancing while several others sing and cheer her has gone viral on the internet. It is not common to see elder women engaged in recreation or being encouraged to do what they want to. The age barrier for women affects their social and personal life more than for men. But isn't it heartwarming to see when you see such cheers being shared? It reinforces that age is just a number.
Women are often told, "Act your age", be it dressing up or doing a job, basically how to live. Her age is kept in mind right from when she should stop acting childish, wear grown-up clothes, get married, have children and then stop having fun in life because they have lived enough to do that. And many times, women are made to feel older than their age through pop culture. Recently, a regressive advertisement was called out for showing mid-aged women as wrinkly old through illustrations. Read here
Viral video: Elder women dancing and singing
A video shared by media maven Raj Nayak shows an elderly woman dancing while a room full of women sing to what the user claims as Hanuman Gatha and the women might be residing in one of the states of South India. It was not just dancing but the woman was seen emoting and enacting the words of the song like a play. All of the women can be seen having a great time as they are completely invested in the performance. Whether be it religious or recreational purposes, we rarely see elderly women being so active especially if it requires physical expression such as performance.
It would be wrong to say that women are shy in general but they are conditioned to believe that after a certain age, their physical self should express less and grabbing a spotlight in a room full of people is a complete no. There is no constructive reason behind this, mostly people just make excuses like, "it doesn't look good" to control women from being themselves. I remember growing up when I left my singing classes to join dance lessons for the first time, many suggested that for women the skill of singing is much more beneficial. They explained saying that even though dance is a graceful art, but, a woman can only dance till a certain age while if you learn music, you can sing forever. There are plenty of women who are made to give up their dancing career after marriage because it apparently doesn't look good for married women to dance in front of strangers on stage.
Suggested Reading: Viral Video: Woman At 84 Got Birthday Shoutout By Favourite Eatery
There is almost no proper representation of elder women doing what they want in media as we think once a woman becomes a grandmother or reaches the age of 60, her life is over. But why? Don't women's old age measure in time? Why are their wishes and dreams suddenly so worthless after getting old? When will people stop seeing women being happy and themselves as a threat and just let them be?
Views expressed are author's own.
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