Lifestyle
Women just get better with age
Think life slows down after 50? Think again — women are hitting their stride, speaking up, starting businesses, and living on their own terms.
By Lucy Bloom
News flash: Australian women are not shuffling into obscurity once they hit fifty times around the sun. They’re starting businesses, having great sex, mastering the art of ‘no’, and in many cases, finally getting some breathing space to kick obligation to the curb. Instead of winding down, many women in this age bracket are winding up the dial of personal agency.
Who says we’re done after 50?
Sadly, society wants to keep older women in a box labelled CRONE. The term traditionally refers to an older woman, often depicted in folklore and fairy tales as withered, sharp-tongued and sometimes magical but usually in a sinister way. It comes from a word meaning dead flesh! In modern English though, crone has become shorthand for a woman who is no longer youthful, fertile or desirable. Pah! Let’s take a look at who might ridicule older women and see if we care…
Beauty industry, we see you
Every one of us - even women - have been preloaded with socially reinforced unconscious bias. I recommend Gender Bias by fire chief Dr Sabrina Cohen-Hatton and Invisible Women by Caroline Criado-Perez for a mountain of evidence on this which will make you weep. Gender bias and ageism combine for women over 50.
The primary source of this is DRUM ROLL… the beauty industry. They want to keep us as life-long customers so big brands spend billions convincing us that age is an unacceptable look. Anti-aging is a term made up by those who flog surgery, face cream and injectables. Read my other article on the REAL seven signs of ageing.
Furthermore, those who are terrified of an experienced woman stepping into her power will try to ridicule her into submission. They mock what they fear with terms like Boomer, Karen and Cougar. What is behind this is a fear of female confidence, the kind of hard-earned wisdom that money can’t buy and a woman who no longer measures her worth by her waistline. Those opinions - you can compost them. They’ll break down into something useful eventually.
Booming in business, not brain-dead
The fastest-growing segment of new business owners in Australia is women over 50. We are not starting hobbies just to fill the void, women over 50 are building profitable, scalable enterprises. They have networks, they know how to negotiate, and they’re less afraid to take calculated risks.
For example, Melbourne grandmother Suzanne Carroll is the founder of Cool Clutch, a range of elegant handbags with a built-in cooler for your champas. Suzanne found herself unemployed at the age of 52 when she created the business. She wasn’t ready to retire and had decades of business experience. Cool Clutch was recently named one of Australia’s Top 50 E-Commerce retailers. As I like to say: boomshakalaka.
Want to feel more purpose and fulfillment? Here’s the best books to get you started.
Midlife = maximum pleasure
Here’s something the ‘crone’ myth leaves out entirely: many women report their sex lives get better after midlife. Not in quantity, but in quality. For some, that’s within a long-term relationship now that the kids have left the roost. For others, it’s with a new partner, or with themselves. Freed from the possibility of pregnancy or from the endless exhaustion of early parenting, midlife women are exploring pleasure with a new sense of ownership.
‘After divorce I was like a chimp being released into the wild. I took a while to find my feet but now my sex life is all about never lowering my standards and variety is the spice of life.’ says Sofie, an event manager from the Gold Coast. ‘I know what I want and I’m willing to articulate it. I didn’t have the confidence to do that when I was younger.’
The learned art of opting out
Midlife brings another superpower: discernment. Once upon a time, many of us felt obligated to attend everything we were invited to: birthdays, engagement parties, awkward Friday drinks. Now, not so much.
One of my dearest friends, aged 61, has perfected the art of politely declining to protect her energy. ‘If I’m going to leave my couch, I want it to be for something worth the lipstick,’ she says. ‘I’ve stopped giving time to things that drain me. I’ve stopped saying yes when I mean no.’
This age-related selectiveness isn’t about being antisocial. It’s about valuing time and energy (all of which are on the decline as we age). I’ve recently decided I don’t like attending book launches. And my favourite down time is knitting with beautiful yarn while I watch stand up comedy at home. My current fave is Sarah Millican (who recently turned 50). A week-night out has to be something spectacular to compete with my happy place.
From crone to queeeeen
The ‘crone’ narrative belongs in the bin. The reality is far more interesting. Women over 50 are often more confident, adventurous and comfortable in their own skin than they’ve ever been. Your best years don’t have an expiry date that matches your night cream. And as Gloria Steinem says, ‘Women may be the one group that grows more radical with age.’
Cate Blanchett (my number one favourite Australian woman over 50) was a co-creator of the ABC series Stateless. This is a glorious example of older women as lead characters on Australian television, who do not conform to outdated gender and age roles. Bravo.
We need more of this kind of representation for the cultural shift towards older women as wise and wonderful, to accelerate. More movies that fit this description from my recent watch list include: Tinā (2024), A Stitch in Time (2022) and anything starring New Zealander Robyn Malcolm. And there’s always Sex and the City from the New York point of view. Want more? Here’s 20 movies that celebrate ageing.
Everyone is part of this cultural shift. The old story said that women in midlife shrink into smaller lives. The new story says: we expand. We’re building businesses. We’re loving ourselves, we’re setting boundaries. So the next time someone drops the word ‘crone’ or ‘boomer’ as if it’s a bad thing, take a bow, queen. This is your time to shine.
Feature image: pexels/RDNE Stock project
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