I know this is going to be huge news but sexism & misogyny affect middle aged & old women too. We have the same issues of judgemental attitudes towards us, the same “self loathing for profit” from advertisers but gendered ageism ensures we don’t have a platform to complain. So...

I used to be able to write about issues of equality but that was before I publicly stated my age. I used to be able to talk about feminism but that was before I publicly stated I’m autistic. With freelancers fighting for every commission more than ever, older women are bumped.

We’ve been you, you have yet to be us. Across all forms of media as women are finally beginning to shape the cultural narrative, writing their own stories and shaping the opinion landscape.
The middle aged woman is still the maternal, nagging oppressor, the impediment to freedom.

The fixed staple remains. Women who age have no value. Until all women are allowed to tell the story of our lives in fact & fiction, until the gendered ageism which dominates all media, is removed ; young women will hate & fear ageing & older women as completely as many men do.

The spaces women can occupy in the public discourse & in opinion pieces, are reserved for young women, campaigners with a PHD or those with a book. Middle aged women aren’t commissioned to write books addressing the inequality we’ve lived for decades. Because “yuck”.

I think young women are great, fiercely rejecting fat shaming, slut shaming, bodily control & gender stereotypes but middle aged women face the approbation from men & from many young women who are complicit sadly in the structures which will oppress them too, as they age.