Maybe it's just me . . .

[pegkerr]

But I'd much prefer to celebrate my 50th birthday by getting a black belt than by reveling in the opportunity to dine in public wearing a purple dress and red hat. And by buying a lot of other tacky purple and red merchandise.

I kinda liked the idea of the Red Hat Society when it first came out, but I think they've been overtaken by merchandising greed and now they seem rather more cringe-inducing than empowering. And sdn is right, their website is really rather scary. If not downright blinding.

(Oh, and my fiftieth birthday is still three years away. Well, almost two.)

Comments

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

It seems like it's counter to the idea of the original poem in some ways. The woman in the poem was going to wear what she wanted and not worry about what other people thought. But once other people don't think, "How inappropriate for an older lady! Has she gone mad?" or even, "How refreshing that she is willing to be so eccentric!" but rather, "It's one of those ladies from that club again; they were in Perkins just last week," it stops being about individuality and starts being about herds of people again.

(And also, with our current culture and medical system, 50 is way too young to start counting oneself as old. My grandparents have just started to be old in the last few years, and Grandpa turns 80 on 2/1.)

[http://users.livejournal.com/anam_cara_/]

I couldn't agree more with everything you've said!!

[nmalfoy.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the idea of the red hats has kind of been overshadowed now. See, I think you should spend your birthday doing something that is uniquely you and that makes you happy. *That's* the idea behind the wearing of red hats-- to be free to be who you are. Sadly, I think it's gotten lost.

[redbird]

When I am an old woman, I shall continue to wear purple: I've been doing so since I was 12, and it suits me. Hats don't--I lose them.

Do what you find satisfying. Getting a black belt, or traveling to Argentina (a coworker is talking about celebrating her sixtieth in Tierra del Fuego), seems more appropriate than putting on a uniform that says "hi, I'm a woman in her fifties."

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

The women I know who belong to Red Hat groups seem to really need it. Like otherwise they wouldn't have had the guts or the imagination to do interesting and independent things, so it's a big deal for them. And I love it that the marketing to Red Hat ladies makes more purple clothing and fabric available to me.

For my 50th - I have a few years to plan, too - I'm considering things like hiring a live rock band for a party, singing and/or playing with said band, enlisting several young men to help me celebrate, and getting a tattoo.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

The women I know who belong to Red Hat groups seem to really need it. Like otherwise they wouldn't have had the guts or the imagination to do interesting and independent things, so it's a big deal for them.

If it works for them, then by all the means they should go for it. I imagine they're getting the same thing out of it that I'm getting out of taking karate.

And I love it that the marketing to Red Hat ladies makes more purple clothing and fabric available to me.

Ha. There's something to be said for that!

For my 50th - I have a few years to plan, too - I'm considering things like hiring a live rock band for a party, singing and/or playing with said band, enlisting several young men to help me celebrate, and getting a tattoo.

I'm still thinking about a tattoo, too. And taking up Gaelic fiddle. In my extremely copious spare time.

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

Gaelic fiddle would be extremely cool. I've been trying at least one new creative thing every 4 months, ever since I had to start my life over again. The newest is guitar. Which means that my fingertips feel funny when I type.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Not sure if it's quite the same thing - my mom belongs, and I think it more or less fills the place the PTA and then synagogue Sisterhood and her Mah-Johngg group had in her life.

On the other hand, she's been going to the gym the last few years, taking a couple of classes and getting Bat Mitzvah'd, and I really would say those things do for her something like what karate does for you.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

"I kinda liked the idea of the Red Hat Society when it first came out, but I think they've been overtaken by merchandising greed and now they seem rather more cringe-inducing than empowering."

Yeah, exactly. As long as there are women who are still feeling empowered by joining the club, more power to them, but leave me out of it. It's annoying when I wear a red hat that I bought just because it was pretty and somebody asks me if I'm one of those Red Hat Ladies. I actually have a purple tie-dyed t-shirt with that poem on the front that I bought because I liked the color and the fit. I thought the poem was okay, but I had never heard of the Red Hat Ladies. Now I'm embarrassed to wear it, and use it mostly as a nightshirt.

I wonder what the woman who wrote the poem thinks.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

I believe she is on record as actually having said that she really doesn't like wearing purple. She just thought it sounded good for the poem.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

That all these other people are making money off it, but not her? That poem was specifically mentioned in Wendy Cope's rant (http://books.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2223830,00.html) about internet dissemination of poems as ripping off the actual poets.

[davidschroth.livejournal.com]

For the appropriate birthday, I suggest testing for the black belt while wearing a purple dress and a red hat. Or only the red hat, if the red dress would interfere with the test.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Man, I'd love to see a video of somebody doing that!

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Well, mine is weeks before yours, and I suppose I will come up with some way to celebrate. Not Red Hat Ladies, though. They're all old.

K.

[whiskeychick.livejournal.com]

i'll be very blunt.
the red-hat ladies ate my mother's brain. She joined when she turned 55.
some of their rules seem rather (for lack of a better word) Nazi-ish.
Besides, from those I met, you have way more incredibly exciting things you already do with your life.
Go for that belt!
Kudos.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

They have rules? Yikes. How totally counter to the poem.

[elfundeb.livejournal.com]

The website is cringeworthy.

I'd heard of the red hats in my neighborhood, but I had no idea they were part of a national, for-profit organization. I'm all for eccentricity, but dictated eccentricity ceases to be fun. When I retire (I'm already over fifty), instead of joining the [my neighborhood] red hats, I'll join the [my neighborhood] women's club, which does valuable things like raising funds for community parks and the local historical society, in addition to having the kind of fun that is the expressed purpose of the red hats.