Awkwardly thrust into the role of sexless crone.

A couple of weekends ago I made the mistake of going to a party hosted close to campus by one of the younger members of my section.

Remark: I got to know my friend S (Not Ms. S, another S) about the time she was 35 and I was 28. At the time, she complained a lot about being around younger people and finding herself thrust into this unpleasantly asexual "wacky crone" role. I realize now that this is a big downside of law school parties for me, and that I don't think I'm approaching it with the same degree of insight S did.

It's very annoying. As a feminist analysis might predict, the persistent and unspoken denigrations of the youth are far-ranging, because many people value women are primarily for their sexuality, so once you're thrust into the sexless crone role, you're pretty much devalued across the board. I don't know why this should surprise me, or frankly, why it should hurt, as it's just another layer on the whole devaluation I've experienced for decades as a not-thin-enough, not-breasty-enough, not-x-enough woman.

It's hard to explain how this manifests in conversation. It's things like not being listened to, or beyond that, getting a kind of "why are you here, why are you speaking, why do you exist" reaction. Annoying.