ISLAMABAD: Most women hit their career stride after 50. If only companies knew it. The recent ranking of Forbes’ 100 Most Powerful Women List showcases women in the prime of their lives – and careers. 80% of them are over age 50 - and half are over 60. Because despite all the stereotypes and inherited stories, fairy tales and films of older women as fearsome, wrinkled crones, the emerging 21st reality is that women in Q3 - the 3rd Quarter (50-75) of our longer, 100-year lives – have never looked better, felt fitter or wielded more power.
Women in all walks of life, in all sectors, and even in some unexpected countries, becoming fully self-actualised, vocal and visible.
Like men, it takes a bit of time. Actually, it takes decades. The majority of men hit the big time power and influencing positions in their 50s and 60s (the tech sector being the notable exception). And because most women still madly juggle the impossible contradictions of capitalism, careers and care (of children, elders, spouses, and anyone else who needs them) in Q2, they tend to blossom a tad later, on average. They have less linear, “squigglier” careers, and then suddenly explode from the sidelines, raring to go once their Q2-caring-priorities are satisfactorily completed.
The woman who comes out No.1 on the Forbes ranking (for the second time in a row) is a perfect, even archetypal, example. Ursula von der Leyen is the 65-year-old President of the European Commission. At 61, she was elected to lead the government representing 450 million people across the EU’s 27 countries. But at 26, in 1986, she more conventionally married her physician husband, and had seven kids over the next 13 years. Like so many women, she spent Q2 prioritising family. She entered Angela Merkel’s government in 2005 at age 46 as Minister of Family and Youth and fast tracked her way from there. It probably helped to have a female boss who let her in – and then promoted her to some unconventional roles, like Minister of Defence.
In your organisation, you may not see these Q3 women coming. You may not be investing in their talent and ambitions. Too many companies still write off, or nudge out, their 50+ employees. Most no longer invest in their development, ambitions or potential pivots. Younger bosses and hiring managers often think they are well past their sell-by date. Retirement is still the socially-accepted and expected solution to people ‘blocking’ the top jobs. The judgement is visceral: older people are tech-phobic, resistant to learning and set in their ways. Yet increasingly, nothing could be further from the truth, if companies are interested in unearthing it.
If you’ve been sloughed off at 50, like many, you may appreciate Eleanor Mills’ story. After 25 years as a senior Editor at the Times newspaper in the UK, she was brutally let go – and lived both to tell the tale and reinvent herself as the leader of Noon.org.uk, a community of “Queenagers,” midlife women raring to flex their magnificent, post-menopausal muscles. If you find that metaphor far-fetched, check out photographer Alex Rotas’ arresting images of competitive Q3 female athletes.
So here’s some predictions for 2024. Companies will change fast – because they have to. As the demographics and talent realities of our new age of longevity take hold, smart companies are recognising that 50+ women may be their most ambitious, dedicated and hungry talent segment.
When organisations flex their old, outdated, linear career maps, designed for single-earner men of another age, they discover a loyal seam of untapped potential, contribute to retention of talent of all ages, and increase the engagement and productivity of inter-generational teams.
Ageism in companies is the current norm. Don’t get outraged, get educated. Longevity and ageing workforces are new and haven’t yet quite made it to the leadership agenda. It will be the work of the next decade for organisations to adapt to the new generational balance of both their consumers and their workers. For the moment, everyone 50+ suffers from it. Many men are ruthlessly tossed aside. But for women, as Dr. Lucy Ryan describes in Revolting Women, ageism hits hardest at midlife, just at the moment they are ready to rise, finally freed of their Q2 quandaries. They get hit with three hammers: “they are not male, they are not young, and they rarely follow linear careers.” And she says, no one even notices. Instead, it’s normalised. Time to rethink and adapt corporate cultures and systems.
Ageism against ourselves – internalised, and aimed at our own future selves – is equally rife. The idea that women’s most valued asset is their looks, which disappear as they age, is bought into as much by women as it is by men and employers. A 43-year-old journalist writing recently in The Guardian admitted that she feels her “youth slipping away, and with it also the features that make me recognisably female. For the first time, I wonder how easy it would be to distinguish older men from older women if people didn’t put in all this work.” I wonder what the ever-elegant Ursula von der Leyen would have to say about that.
It takes leadership and vision to understand the demographic trends at play, educate everyone through the historical legacies and present prejudices, and push through the years of gender balancing to build a pipeline of women ready to accelerate. It also takes leadership to adapt corporate systems to recognise that women’s career trajectories may have different shapes and timings than the old (and fast-ageing) default male norm. Those that do will benefit by tapping into the majority of today’s talent pool and the majority of the market’s purchasing decision-makers - not to mention the wealthiest.
Companies that have already adapted to women will be a step ahead in adapting to the fast-rising new longevity. Gender balance is good preparation for generational balance. These organisations will have learned to recognise the potential of Q3 careers and how to attract, retain and develop older talent. This will give them a competitive edge as societies around the world age and the availability of younger talent shrinks. And they will have a much stronger bench of brilliant older women ready to lead.
