The Problem With Calling Women Like Betty White ‘A Sweet Old Lady’

It’s patronizing, infantilizing and strips them of their fangs

The beloved actor Betty White died last week, a few weeks shy of her 100th birthday, and while there have been many wonderful articles and columns celebrating her talent, brains, wit and sauciness, NPR pop culture critic Linda Holmes had an astute observation:

“Something awful happens to the pop-culture take on smart, sharp-witted people when they have the audacity to age beyond some unspecified point. It seems especially true for women. …while White received a lot of attention in her 90s — far more than most actors do, even if they live that long — a lot of it felt reductive to me, almost infantilizing. The same sauciness she had when she was younger was received like a stunt, like it’s inherently funny to hear old women talk about sex, talk about lust, make dirty jokes. … It was patronizing at times: The way we appreciate older women is often to defang them, turn them into fuzzy little stuffed animals — and it’s unfair to them.”

White made a comeback in 2010, at age 88, after appearing in an ad for Snickers during the Super Bowl, which led to her hosting Saturday Night Live. Soon her sexual innuendos and feisty persona put her into the “adorable, sweet old lady” category, a…