Wine, women and thong

Vickie Johnson was nearly giddy at the prospect of joining a women’s group, especially one called the Blue Thong Society.

Not one for joining organizations, much less all-female ones, Johnson, 54, now is not just a Blue Thonger but president of her Chandler, Ariz., chapter.

When her husband showed her the Web site for the provocatively named group last summer, Johnson signed up without hesitation.

“I said, ‘I’m there and I’m leading the conga line,’ ” says Johnson, who hosted the first meeting of her chapter in September.

In less than a year, the group begun by four women sipping chardonnay in California is now an estimated 400-member organization with chapters in California, Arizona, Florida, Hawaii, Texas, Virginia, North Dakota and New Mexico. The catalyst for the Blue Thong Society was one woman’s 50th birthday, and her uneasy feeling that a red hat and purple dress were not defiant enough symbols for debunking middle age.

“We burned the bra. We rebelled,” says Jackie Tushinsky, 52, one of the Blue Thong Society founders at Mary Jo Wallo’s 50th birthday celebration in March 2005.

The Blue Thong Society has a Web site (bluethongsociety.com), a motto (Fight frump), dues ($29 a year), an official drink (blue martini, or margarita) and a date for its first convention, March 30 through April 1, in San Diego. There’s even a corporate sponsor or two lining up to plug into the baby boomer women who are doing for aging what they did for politics, motherhood, the workplace and the home front.

“Women are tired of being invisible once they reach a ‘certain age’ and are making themselves seen and heard,” says Deana Rohlinger, an assistant professor of sociology at Florida State University.

“It (Blue Thong Society) is the 2006 version of the quilting bee, but with an edge,” Rohlinger says.

“The Red Hat Society and the Blue Thong Society provide women with social support and a sense of community. They also directly challenge cultural stereotypes about how middle-age and older women look, act and feel.”

The Red Hat Society was started more than eight years ago by Californian, Sue Ellen Cooper. She commandeered the red hat and purple dress mentioned in Warning, a poem by Jenny Joseph, as what has become its members’ visible rejection of quietly fading into the sunset once the mid-century mark is hit.

Rohlinger says it’s logical that groups like these – there are Aqua Babes in Virginia and Raging Grannies in Canada – are emerging.

“Many of these women came of age during, and were influenced by, the women’s movement,” Rohlinger says.

“These are smart and savvy women who are using technologies like the Internet to increase their number, link women into a local, national and international community, and fundamentally change how we think about aging.”

Blue Thongdom isn’t for everyone, says member Linda Pollack, 59.

Some women want to know the rules – there are none – and the purpose. Other than fighting frump – an attitude, not necessarily a fashion style – and contributing to charity, having fun tops whatever agenda there is. The anthem sung at these meetings is “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” A blue thong (not the shoe) is waved while they sing.

To Pollack, the blue thong acknowledges that young rebel who challenged authority as well as the woman who is staring down 60.

“We’re not ready to be put out to pasture,” she says.