more...and more

[dungrollin]

Kneasy wrote:
> Last year the BBC broadcast a series - Grumpy Old Men - (all of 
> the participants younger than me, so they've still got time to 
> get *really* irascible) complaining of the vicissitudes of modern 
> life. Mobile phones, shops, modern youth, fashion, Christmas, etc. 
> Quite entertaining. Now they're doing Grumpy Old Women. I detect a 
> difference. While the men complained about society, the women 
> complain about themselves. Enlightening. Such self-absorption. 
> Such a seeking to comply with a chosen stereotype.  Still; only to 
> be expected from a sub-set gullible enough to believe that 
> somebody else's idea of beauty can be bought over the counter in a 
> fancy-shaped bottle.
> 
> "Igor! Start boiling the oil. We could have visitors."

Ah. So I wasn't the only one who noticed. Enlightening, wasn't it? 

I'm not sure I'd put the women's complaints down to self-absorption 
though, more an inability to stop giving a damn about society's 
expectations of them. The old men were far more arrogant: 
pronunciations from on high about everything that's wrong with the 
world, and why it should conform to their expectations of it and how 
horribly unfair it is that mobile phones exist. The women were 
complaining about how irritating it is to have to conform to 
society's expectations of them. It's awfully sad that they still 
feel they have to.

I'd be fascinated to know what the grumpy oldies of fifty years 
hence will be bitching about. Will the male and female groups be 
more similar in their grumping subjects, or is an obsession with 
female appearance something our species is stuck with? I have a 
horrible feeling it's the latter.  If only we were descended from 
birds rather than mammals, then it'd be the blokes having to deal 
with keeping the bright colours bright, and the impracticality of 
maintaining overly-long absurdly-coloured lice-free tail feathers...

I wonder what they'd complain about then.