ABSTRACT
The way in which contemporary society constructs images of consumers, concentrating on the young and excluding the old (Friedan 1993), can be linked to the basic need of capitalist economies to grow. The constant need to find new sources of profit leads to both expanded consumption and recruitment of exploitable workers. The marginalization of women and the elderly to insecure and low-paid sections of the labour market makes them more exploitable. Capitalism’s need to raise the status of big spending consumers reduces older women, in contrast, to being seen as unwanted and undesirable. It must culturally construct consumers in an image that overvalues conspicuous material consumption (Packard 1963, Redclift 1984) and culturally undervalues the activity of those it wishes to exploit. However, these same attributes are undermining advanced industrial capitalism. The alienation-meaningless work, manipulated consumption, commercialized social relationships-endemic in such societies creates a profound unease. Older women are the victims of the modern consumer capitalism; in many cases those who are most victimized by a social system hold the key to its replacement.
