7 New Rules: How not to go invisible over 45
Which apparently - all women do. Just plain VANISH from society's sight (hearts, minds, loins). Right? NOPE. Not on my watch, loves.
I ended up proper carousing in a packed pub over Christmas. Local boozer, heaving with youngsters back from uni, their parents, their parents’ mates, etc. Halfway through the night - my turn to get a round in, so… I squished and snaked my way through three-people-deep crowds to the bar. The very milisecond I get there, a 20-something barman appears from nowhere, slides my way obligingly (ignoring the tutting and fumings of punters who’d been there far longer). He laughs at my lengthy, niche order which I have to read from my Notes app (“One shot of rum, a pint of whatever it is you’re now serving instead of Guinness, but from the pump on the left, NOT THE ONE ON THE RIGHT, a Fernet Branca, an Espresso Martini, a Diet Coke…”), upgrades my Prosecco to champagne, dramatically undercharges me, and sends me on my way.
Now, I’m not saying Barboy was about to go full Babygirl on my (decades older than he) arse. I’m not even saying he was flirting with me (well: he was, but…). What I am saying, is: Barboy Saw me. Instantly and easily and vividly. Saw me, and served me. Even though, according to society, multiple resignedly despairing Substacks authored by women my age (and younger), and increasingly widely received wisdom, he should not have done.
Cos women go invisible as we age, right? At some not-entirely-specified point between: what? 38, and 52? - we just fade from society’s view, like we were never really there. The only people who can still see us are those obliged to, by blood, marriage, mortgages, but to everyone else? We’re gone! We get knocked sideways on pavements by people who simply don’t know we’re there, because we’re no longer young / hot enough to register on their retinas. We get overlooked in offices, on the tea runs. Jolly nearly run over on pedestrian crossings. And we do not get served first - or ever - at busy bars.
And we certainly do not get casually flirted with, favoured; we don’t get extra stamps on our coffee loyalty cards just COS, don’t feel ourselves subject to that flicker-longer-than-necessary focus from passing men (or women), those every-day acknowledgements of physical significance, so common when we were young that we didn't even realise they were happening, only now they’ve stopped? Oh, we feel their absence to keenly.
Right?
Yeah.
No.
Wrong.
Bullsh*t, actually. Tedious, self-defeating, self-perpetuated, sorrowful bullshit.
This is not my experience at all. And I am frankly f**king furious that women - so many women! - are not only buying into the idea wholesale, propagating it, willy nilly, accepting it as an inevitability: they’re sort of perceiving it, the expression of their “invisibility”, as an ideological obligation. Like it’s boastful or unsisterly not to feel invisible after a certain point. Like we have to say something along the lines of:
“Age and dwindling fertility has made me, too, quite invisible to society’s gaze, a whisper of a person, a ghost - as it must, for I am Just A Woman, you see, and without youth? What do I even mean? Nothing!”
But no. Like I say, this has not been my experience. Not even slightly. My experience is, I get chatted up, casually flirted with, served at busy bars. I. Get. Seen. And this is not because I’m some friggin mindlessly gorgeous 90s supermodel of a woman, whose miraculous genetic good fortune is as relevant now, as much of a gobsmacking, room-illuminating bonus, as it was, when she was 20. I am not Helena Christensen. I am not Jennifer Lopez, for that matter. I guess you could say something like: I scrub up well for a civilian - but, know what? That’s not even what it’s about. That alone does not explain why I haven’t gone invisible.
I am not invisible through sheer stubbornness- and because there’s some stuff you too can do, to ensure society keeps Seeing you.
Which is kind of important, from the perspective of you retaining power through the entirety of your life. Because being seen is really not just about being fancied. It’s about power. It’s about who matters.
Want details on the seven rules which will guarantee you - women - do not go invisible with age?
Then gather round!
Do not wear