Comments on: Elderly women are B.C.'s new poor

By: carole mcgowan

carole mcgowan — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 00:11:56 +0000

while the cuts to the status of women by conservative government were devasting, what i find equally disturbing is that the last funding that went out went to studies on poverty as if poor women were an afterthought. such studies now gather dust in storage lockers.
when funding for women’s centres disappeared so disappeared the opportunity for all women to come to the table.
i’m not so sure transitional housing is the answer what poor women need is housing that’s homes not shelters. all the $$ that go to the olympics would build allot of housing.

By: carole mcgowan

carole mcgowan — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 23:28:36 +0000

ok i am waiting and signing off now.

By: carole mcgowan

carole mcgowan — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 23:26:24 +0000

while this doesn’t surprise me given the systemic inequality of work, wages,pension contribution, and unpaid work. i find it increasingly hard to stay gainfully employed.
i believe i can still work (63yrs.old) remarkably healthy inspite of extreme poverty, however, since we can work past 65 my experience has been the places that welcome older women are tim hortons..whoopee..just what i want standing on my feet and cashing for 8 hr. a non-stress job for us poor old women.
my experience has been that even inwomen serving agencies the full time jobs with benefits go to young woman who have that “positive energy and much more potential.”(translation the right amount of subservienance) frequently, these women will do anything to get the job including some pretty nasty tricks on their co-workers. their rational is frequently they have student loans and bills to pay. like we old women living in poverty don’t have rent and bills to pay. when will women serving agencies start setting examples rather than status quo? why is it ok for us to volunteer (unpaid work) but do paid work? do we need a visible minority status for old?