When was the last time you, as a woman of a certain age, smiled when you saw yourself on screen? I’m not talking about seeing pics of yourself laughing with mates on social media feeds, I mean seeing someone just like yourself joyfully depicted in a film, TV show or advert?

Personally, I am frankly wracking my brains. When it comes to women over 40, if we’re seen at all, we’re shown as world-weary, literally pissing ourselves while doing yoga, being left for a younger model, cheated on, in costume in some historical drama, having a menopausal meltdown or, in some adverts, ACTUALLY WHISPERING about the fact that we’re even over 40. 

Even now in the 21st Century, if we’re not shown on the school run, juggling children or arguing with teenagers, we’re stuck in the kitchen or doing housework. 

There’s still a lack of middle-aged and older female representation in the media, never mind done in a joyful, uplifting yet still realistic and relatable way or you know, normal middle-aged women doing their job brilliantly. If there’s humour involved, it’s often verging on a caricature or worse, a negative stereotype. Where are the positive, happy role models? 

And even though it could be argued that television has become a richer medium when it comes to roles for middle-aged women, so many female characters over 40 are still shoved firmly into the background.

Research from 2019 found that older women are often relegated to supporting roles – or are consistently portrayed as grumpy, frumpy or mad. We’re more often shown as fuck ups in some way rather than simply and laughingly not giving a fuck. 

But there are many joys of being a middle-aged woman, the knowledge and experience that age brings, the brilliance of female friendship, and frankly, the freedom of not giving a fuck as we get older. 

As Caroline Noakes MP, Chair of the Parliamentary Equalities Select Committee has said:  “You can’t be what you can’t see. Generation X (women) will not be silenced, we will not put up with that ‘past 40 and past-it’ mentality. We want to be seen and heard. We feel we are at our peak in midlife, that we are just hitting our stride.”

I couldn’t agree more. We’re not women who have simply pushed our dreams to one side and given up on bringing our full, present, dynamic selves to this wonderful thing that we call life. Of course, being a woman over 40 isn’t always a bed of roses, but we’re still curious, diverse, happy, funny people.

‘Real women’ aren’t a marketing gimmick and the time has come to challenge the discourse around middle-aged females. 

We women in the creative industries have a unique power to change the narrative that simply existing as a grown woman is a fundamentally miserable pursuit. Challenge accepted!