05-08-2025
Dear Julia: I'm middle-aged. Am I invisible?
Q. Lately I've started to suspect I'm becoming invisible. Not in a cool 'Harry Potter cloak' way. More in the 'middle-aged woman no longer perceived by society' sense. I walk into a shop and the assistant breezes past me to help someone in gym leggings and lip filler. At work younger colleagues finish my sentences as if I'm a slightly confused aunt. Even automatic doors hesitate.
I've recently turned 50 and apparently that's the age when women — especially — start blending into the wallpaper. I still make an effort: I've got good hair, decent shoes, I remember to exfoliate — but it's like the world has quietly decided I'm surplus to requirements. I'm not ready to fade out like the end credits of a BBC drama.
I know I should rise above it. Be wise. Be dignified. Bake sourdough and embrace linen. But if I'm honest, I miss being REALLY seen. I don't want to pretend I don't care, because I do care — even if I know it's deeply uncool to admit it.
So tell me, how do you grow older with a bit of grace — and preferably without having to take up cold-water swimming or start a podcast?
A. Thank you for this wonderful, painfully funny and all-too-relatable letter. The way you write — sharp, witty, honest — is anything but invisible. You leap off the page. And yet I hear the ache underneath your humour: the feeling of being overlooked, dismissed, edited out of your own story.
What you're describing is real and well documented. Society still clings to outdated narratives that equate a woman's value with youth, beauty and fertility. As men age, they're seen as distinguished and wise. As women age, we're told — sometimes subtly, sometimes blatantly — that we're past our prime. It's not just personal. It's cultural. And it hits us at a time when so many other transitions are converging: menopause, children leaving home (and sometimes having more sex than we are), ageing parents, shifting roles at work. There is also the additional, subtler narrative, that to ask for attention when you're older is rather embarrassing. Attention is for the young … It's a lot.
I want to say this clearly: society suffers when midlife women are ignored. We hold immense emotional, professional and relational intelligence yet we're often sidelined just as we come into our full power. The loss isn't just ours. It's collective.
But now, to you. I'm curious, what's your first instinct when someone breezes past you in a shop or talks over you at work? Do you freeze? Shrink? Laugh it off? I sense a punchy, bold woman behind this letter. Maybe it's time to let her lead. Could you challenge a colleague next time they interrupt — even with humour? Could you ask, at work, whether there's space to advocate for how older women are represented, respected and heard? This is less about making a scene and more about making a mark.
Growing older with grace doesn't mean disappearing under a cashmere wrap. It means owning who you are with even more truth than before. And it starts on the inside. This isn't about chasing the next serum or 'anti-ageing' campaign. It's about seeing yourself fully and then showing that self to the world. Not just with exfoliated skin and decent shoes, but with your voice, your presence and your refusal to be erased.
Talk to other women your age. Make space to vent, yes, but also to laugh, plan and play. Discuss ways you want to be seen more and give each other feedback about what enhances that. It can be something small, like a new lipstick. Go where you're seen. Dance, volunteer, flirt, lead, write. Look for role models that fit for you and absorb some of their chutzpah. Take up space, in whatever way feels most you. You don't need a podcast or a plunge pool to matter.
Move your body in ways that feel joyful and alive. Relish the skin you're in; not despite its changes, but because of them. And yes, if sex is on your radar — however, whenever, solo, together — go and find it. Pleasure is protest too.
Make the decision not to fade. Above all, don't go along with the invisible narrative. Caring about this, as you do, matters. And caring also means you'll act on it, which makes you visible. And visibility isn't just how others see you, it's how you see yourself and whether you're willing to show up as that woman, every damn day.
So yes, wear purple (from the poem Warning by Jenny Joseph) if you want to. But more than that, be loud, be bold, be seen and take up your space now, not isn't your exit. It's your entrance.
Dress courtesy of The Fold
