Article by Ceri Wheeldon

That seems to be suggested in new research highlighted in an article in the mailonline.  Apparently although we may have passion we lose our ‘get up and go’ at 54  ‘when it becomes harder to motivation yourself to leave the couch and try new things’.

I was fairly horrified to read that as I know so many women who have achieved so much in their 50s and beyond – setting up businesses, writing books, climbing mountains, raising funds for charities.

Does this woman represent your perception of what a 54 year looks like today?

What I was equally worried by was the selection of images selected to accompany the feature. Instead of showing vibrant 50-somethings they selected images that quite frankly don’t represent the women I know in their 50s and 60s. They showed images of sad, dejected individuals who looked I think were considerably older than 54, which was the age benchmark of the article.

I then looked to see who had written the article – it was a male writer who,  based on his LinkedIn profile I would assume is aged around 30 – and obviously has a perception of those over 50 which appears to be a generation removed from reality.

It took me back to the early years of running the Fab after Fifty site when I would meet PR people in their twenties and thirties who would all talk about Helen Mirren and Judi Dench (fabulous but significantly over 50) when referring to 50plus celebrities. I used to ask how old their mothers were –  nearly every one of them would say that their mother was in her fifties but ‘not typical’ as she came across as being ‘younger’ than her age. I had to stress that their mothers probably were in fact typical – it was age stereotypes that were out of date!

How worrying to see this article and that we still have not  made progress in shifting perceptions of how today’s 50 something women live and look today.

When we are expected to continue working until we are in our late 60s we can absolutely not be written off at 54!!

I thought we had made progress in terms of challenging perception in the ten years or so since launching Fab after Fifty – but based on this article it would seem that there is a lot more work still to be done!!

Ceri Wheeldon

Ceri is Founder and Editor of Fabafterfifty.co.uk She is a frequent speaker at events and in the media on topics related to women over 50 , including style and living agelessly. With 20+ years experience as a headhunter Ceri also now helps support those looking to extend their working lives.

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