The unexpected affront

On being a woman in her sixties in business

In the latest season of The Crown, on Netflix, Imelda Staunton plays Queen Elizabeth. Here I am, a woman in her sixties, watching an actress in her sixties portray a queen in her sixties. It is a stunning performance. Staunton brings the wisdom of a life’s experience into her portrayal. She is at the peak of her talents, talents she gets to show the world as the center of this series.

I felt a swift sadness watching The Crown. I know there aren’t many women who get to star into their sixties. But they are there. I can see them. I seek out work that features their skills. Emma Thompson is 63, Angela Bassett is 64 and Imelda Staunton is 66.

Toni Morrison won the Nobel Prize for Literature when she was 62, the first African-American to do so. Many authors I enjoy wrote and write books well past their sixth decade, often with increasing skill and wisdom.

But I don’t live in the world of the arts. I live in the world of business. And I don’t see women in their sixties. Most of my career happened in the thin air of advertising and technology, and my female peers have dropped off along the way. They retire, or work on boards, or do what I’ve done, work part time consulting. I am always, without exception, the oldest woman in any room at work, and I just turned 60 in August.

I was often the only woman in a room, especially in tech, and I’ve experienced plenty of sexism. But it’s different now, the combination of sexism and ageism. Almost as soon as I turned 50, I started getting this look. Always from white men, who are in charge in my industry. The look is a brief flutter of surprise and disorientation when I say something insightful or intelligent. Intellectually, they know I’ve been hired to be smart and insightful, and yet when I am, it disrupts some cultural expectation that is apparently so fundamental that they have a reflective start of surprise, like the little jump when there is an unexpected loud noise.

An intelligent and competent woman in her sixties in business is an unexpected loud noise.

Women don’t flinch. Men of color aren’t surprised. Men under forty literally don’t bat an eyelash at a competent woman in her sixties. It is white men over 45 who are startled. Men my age or older are the worst offenders, so it’s clearly not about age but age and gender.

Years ago, I wrote an article called the Gray Ceiling, about ageism in advertising. A slew of older white men reached out to tell me their shock and surprise that people would not hire them because of their age, a characteristic over which they had no control. They were shocked – shocked – that discrimination existed, because they had never faced it until now. So, yes, I want to acknowledge that whatever I face as a white woman is much easier than what people of color face, especially women of color. My white privilege insulates me, as it always has.

And yet, as I watched Imelda Staunton play the Queen in a scene where she looks in the mirror and touches the skin of her neck, the complexity and subtlety of that moment, I felt loss. I feel like I am at the peak of my powers. I know so much more, I’ve seen so much more, I am wiser and more mature and resilient than I have ever been. I know I’m not alone in this. I believe there are many of us moving into this season with exuberance. The kids are grown and launched, our bodies are changing but still working, our minds are sharp. After hearing about the perils of menopause all my life, I was relieved to find that, for me, I just didn’t have to worry about carrying tampons or getting pregnant anymore. Bonus! If we’re lucky, we’ve got a decade or two left to make use of this wisdom, this freedom, this time.

But I too have internalized those cultural messages that tell me that an aging woman is repugnant. The way a woman’s neck ages has become a cultural touchstone for the disgust of old female flesh. Nora Ephron even wrote a book called “I Feel Bad About My Neck, and Other Thoughts on Being a Woman.” We all understand why it is the skin of her neck that Staunton touches to indicate the complexity of a woman looking at the reflection of her aging body, the juxtaposition of power and wisdom with physical changes we have been told are distressing.

Every time I speak in public or give a training, I say how old I am. Cindy Gallop does this as well, it has a hashtag #sayyourage. Now it’s not a surprise, but when I was in my fifties the reaction from the room was as if I just revealed a shameful secret on stage. People would tell me I appeared younger, if I didn’t say how old I was people might shave off years. But that’s the point, I want to reframe what 55, 58, 59, 60 looks like.

And yet, throughout the long pandemic, as I spent all day on Zoom, I found myself buying more face creams and neck creams. I googled “crepey skin.” I watched us, the older ones, place the cameras at a height, wear turtlenecks or scarves. I learned how to hide the square with me in it on my computer screen so I didn’t have to look at my face.

Years ago, I met a woman through work who was a few years younger than I was. She talked frequently about her young child. Only later did she tell me, privately, that she also had a teenager, from her first marriage. She whispered this fact to me in the hallway outside the ladies room.

“I don’t want people to know how old I am, so I never talk about my older child,” she said.

I understood, immediately. And I felt like we had this shared moment of quiet in the hallway, understanding the reason for this erasure and being sad about it, together.  

Many of us have to leave parts of our authentic selves behind when we go to work, to deny the reality of who we are, or who we love, or the ways in which our bodies are not like the other bodies of the people at work.

I appreciate the people are saying we shouldn’t have to, we should be able to arrive intact for our careers and not shave off pieces of our reality. And I also understand all the people who tell me the only reason they dye their gray hair or pay for procedures to get rid of their wrinkles is that they think without that they won’t stay employed.

I’m not the only one who is looking for the older women in business. For the last decade, women in their 40s have been seeking me out to ask me how I’m still here. They want a path, an example, someone who is ahead of them. There are a handful of us, yes, but so few. I am fortunate to have women in my community who are showing me how to age with intention, dignity and meaningful work. But they aren’t at my workplaces. And I think many women don’t have the kinds of examples I have in their family and community of alternative narratives and possibilities for women over sixty. 

This isn’t one of those pieces where I wrap it up in a bow, list out the three things to do to not internalize cultural attitudes to aging as a female. I have no secret way to get to sixty in the business world without getting the look of surprise when you’re smart. I have no tips on how to not care when you get the look of faint embarrassment when they realize you’re, you know, old.

All I can do is say my age, talk about my grandchildren – yes, I have two – and remind whoever is listening that some of us are still here, still doing good work, and still paving a way.