Have you noticed something about the women who were honoured this year in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list?

Have you noticed that a significant number of these leaders in business, the media, STEM, women’s rights, Indigenous recognition, and innovation are women over the age of 50 – usually referred to as ‘older women’.

These women have been quite rightly recognised for their valuable contributions to society.  So why is it that women over 50 are generally regarded in media and in terms of employment as having expended their value with their youth?

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Paul Keating recently expressed fears of a future when there will be two Australias. But we are already there. We already have a generation of people who have worked all their lives and now find themselves impoverished. They are women aged over 55 and there are over a million of them.
Their economic disadvantage is the consequence of a history of gender discrimination.
Throughout their working lives, these women suffered decades of economic discrimination, inequality and injustice.

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Let’s start by listing what other people call us – matron, old lady, granny, biddy, old bag, crone, hag, witch, are some of the names used.

There is nothing positive about these appellations. They are either neutral or negative. 
They denote weakness, ugliness, helplessness and even evil.
They constitute a massive put down. 

In a society that values women primarily for their youthful beauty, sexual and reproductive powers, the more we age, the more we lose value. Our currency as women is devalued. 
Until we become invisible.

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