It is fair to assume that the proprietors of such establishments take for granted that only young nubile females get the men with money to burn - regardless of age - in. And they won't be straying too much from what most of us would assume as well.

While the brouhaha stirred some debate, to me the most interesting question was one posed by a reader. He asked: Which mattered more in this case - the gender discrimination or the age discrimination?

This case, after all, was about both. It was about gender plus age-related appearance discrimination. This, however, is not a category of discrimination recognised by law anywhere I know of.

Our laws, I would urge, should acknowledge this hybrid form of discrimination for, otherwise, the constitutional mandate against the two categories of age and sex discrimination won't work for older women.

As an example, assume that downsizing in a corporation sees five women over 40 let go from a particular department, which is now left with 20 employees - 10 women under 40 and 10 men over 40. Since half of the employees retained are aged over 40, you can't cry age discrimination. Likewise, with 50 per cent left being female, you can't show gender discrimination either.

This may not be proof positive that we tend to value older women less. But just think about your own grandparents. Most of us love our granny and will have fond memories of her when she is gone. But have you ever thought of her as a smart and independent individual?

Now think of our grandpa - or the older men who run our corporations and government. By contrast, the image this evokes - that they are wise, able and powerful - reveals how we are probably all guilty of marginalising older women to some degree.

If age were the main reason why older women are treated negatively, then older men would suffer likewise. Instead, society tends to regard older men more favourably since the prevailing culture privileges males throughout their life-span anyway. He is usually better off money-wise and probably regarded as being still sexually potent. In other words, he is still every inch a man.

Older women, in contrast, are assumed to be just the opposite. And many a younger woman might believe that as well.

That is, younger women also discriminate against older women. Inwardly, even if not outwardly. Since it is presumably not their own gender that they are critical of, what they are discriminating against is the age-related appearance of their older sisters: They look older, work slower and seem less efficient and less effective. Young women may imagine that they themselves will not succumb to the effects of ageing, unlike their older sisters.

Just take women's magazines, for instance. Though mainly run by women, even these publications push the 'beauty is youth' line, because this is also the line pushed by advertisers. Pictures of older women in these glossy magazines are carefully 'photoshopped' to rid the older female faces of crow's feet, fine lines, eyebags and other undesirable signs of ageing.

The fact is that older women are discriminated against, relative to older men, in a way that is distinct from the discrimination against older men because they are ageing per se, and distinct from the discrimination against younger women because they are women per se.

For older women, age matters, but gender matters as well, and the only way to make sense of it all is to consider the twain as inextricably intertwined.

Older women must cope with not just ageism, but also its conjunction with sexism. In jobs where appearance matters to advertisers, older women get the short end of the stick. Have you seen any prime-time newscaster on the major channels lately who could be described as an older woman? Young female newscasters - and some middle-aged male ones - are a dime a dozen, though.

Here's the bottom line: Many a woman's self image is based on standards set by men and young women.

Since beauty is equated with youth, appearance-related discrimination must affect older women very disproportionately, which leads to a systemic disvaluing of the intrinsic worth of older women. If so, it is high time our courts recognised this hybrid form of discrimination that involves both gender and age simultaneously.

Hey, 55-year-old partying mum: If you are indignant enough, why not test this out in court?

andyho@sph.com.sg

Here's the bottom line: Many a woman's self image is based on standards set by men and young women. Since beauty is equated with youth, appearance-related discrimination must affect older women very disproportionately, which leads to a systemic disvaluing of the intrinsic worth of older women.