Thanks for the Clarification, Justice Stevens

All these months I’ve been whining and complaining about dealing with turning 50, and whether or not it means I have crossed some invisible border into the “golden years.” I’ve been reading everything I can get my hands on about the “midlife crisis” as experienced by women, trying to decide if that is what I am dealing with. I’ve been alternately amused and insulted by the adjectives used to describe people my age – descriptions ranging from “older” to “senior” to “elderly.”

Now, thanks to a ruling by the Supreme Court, I no longer need to debate over whether or not I am “mature” or “old.” Apparently, I am now so old; the Supreme Court has judged that I have needed age discrimination protection for the past ten years.

And age discrimination is a real issue; just ask any 16 year male driver who needs to obtain car insurance. Ask anyone who is on the job hunt and is being tossed between having “not enough experience” and being “overqualified” — euphemisms for you are either too young or too old. Ask any Hollywood actress, especially one who has the audacity to date younger men.

The Supreme Court Justices, who themselves may really define “older worker,” by setting the bar at age 40, they have now dumped “about 75 million people — roughly half the nation’s workforce” into the “older worker” category. Apparently, those of us aged 40 and over need to be legally protected from employer policies that negatively impact us because of our age. The ruling was based in part, on a case from Mississippi, where police department raises were unfairly distributed to the benefit of the younger officers. So, the ruling will right a wrong and make it easier to bring an age discrimination case against an employer.

What strikes me as odd is why any employer would do anything to place half of its workforce at a disadvantage. Surely, the heads of corporate America are fast approaching, if not passing, middle age. Do they all have the Enron-inspired managerial mantra of getting whatever they can for themselves and the heck with everyone else? What does it say about us, as a society when half our workforce needs to be on guard?

I think we need to start a new lobbying group, one that will address the needs of those of us now declared Legally Old People. And apparently, by the sheer virtue of our numbers, we LOPs could become a force to be reckoned with.

That is, if we admit our age.