Hi there
Hope you’ve been enjoying the sunshine – how weird, but also kind of wonderful, for it to be 29 degrees in London on May Day: A first blast of summer amongst the bluebells. I don’t think it will be quite so hot for our London walk tomorrow (details here – it starts at noon – 12pm – on Hampstead Heath) but it’s not going to rain. It’s free to Paid Members – bring a packed lunch and swimming things if you fancy a dip in the Ladies pond at the end of the stroll. (Note: Entry to the pond is £4.50.)
The highlight of my week was going to speak at Be Bold Now, held at the swanky offices of a media agency Taboola, in Aldgate, London. Set up by the two awesome Queenagers Nickie Smith and Kate Isler, who used to work together at Microsoft, Be Bold Now is about empowering girls to try and close the gender gap. The World Economic Forum now says closing that gap will take more than 134 years. (It’s getting worse. In 2023, it was 131 years.)
About 350 women came together to inspire each other and a new generation of Queenagers-in-training (young ‘uns!). It was quite a starry evening. Felicity Ashley who rowed the Atlantic talked about shifting ourselves from “I can’t” to “I will”. A young entrepreneur called Mae Yip explained that success is about taking risks: She left her job as an accountant to set up her own business. Gail Porter was weepingly (literally) honest about her breakdown, being sectioned and the appalling way she was treated by the “Lad Mag” media in the 1990s – and how losing her hair to alopecia completely changed the work she was offered and the way she was treated.
You can watch my speech from Be Bold Now here
What girls told me about change
The best part of the evening for me was an inspiring group of Be Bold Girls (the organisation sponsors programmes to build confidence in girls aged 11 to 17). These girls talked about their beef with how they are represented. They complained about being bombarded with beauty images on TikTok and other social media which are always ridiculously over-perfect, which never show normal teen girls “with acne or blemishes or different shades of skin. They make us feel bad about ourselves, and we think they should have to have warnings on saying that the pictures are air brushed or changed”.
They also appealed to the beauty industry to show all shapes, sizes and ethnicities of girls and to celebrate them rather than make them feel inadequate “for totally normal skin”. They also discussed how skin and beauty had become a tyranny to their generation.
This really chimed with me, not just because I have noticed in my younger nieces an incredible obsession with skin products, but because I also read an article in the relaunched Observer Magazine about so-called Dermorexia. It documents how Generation Alpha (kids born after 2010 who are now, staggeringly age 15) are obsessed by skin care. “Diet culture has been traded for skincare in women’s media…the pathological obsessions with thinness and health are now focused on the face, with pressures displaced towards looking snatched, or glowing” – or indeed youthful!
The article quoted a Harley Street dermatologist saying teenagers are turning up at her clinic with permanent skin damage from using anti-ageing products. This phenomenon included a 12-year-old who had “at least 40 skin products that could have paid for a family holiday. She said all her peers had the same products, which they learnt about on TikTok.” For this girl, the products had caused acne and damage. And this is an epidemic.
Gen Alpha are driving 49% of the growth in skincare sales (!) and the British Association of Dermatologists has noted a significant rise in the use of anti-ageing products by teenagers. There’s also the terrifying trend of what is called “baby Botox” – supposedly preventative Botox for teens to prevent wrinkles.
I write about this because my talk at Be Bold Now was all about the lack of authentic, or even any, representation of older women; the lack of a positive story about what we can be at 50 plus. I talked about reinvention and how changemakers aren’t extraordinary, they are just people who got fired up about something and take action. I spoke about how the girls and women in the room could do it too. Confidence isn’t innate – it’s about overcoming our fears and doing things anyway.
(I was terrified when I first started writing my truthiest truths in this newsletter but with my heart beating I hit send, built a community and wrote a bestselling book).
We can’t forget our Queenager mantras
This is one of our Queenager mantras: Doing something new, making change, is scary but having done it (whether that’s getting into cold water for the first time or speaking up about an issue) shows that we can survive the fear and discomfort. It’s a lesson that can translate into all the other parts of our lives to help us Be Bold.
Of course I made the point in the 100-year-life, 50 is only half way through.
I talked about the reality of the under-representation of older women in the culture. The vast majority of the 50+ women we are allowed to see are ones who look freakishly young. Women are too often seen in black and white – valued by the male lens of our society for our hotness and fertility – rather than for the rainbow of all the qualities that we truly are. We deserve to be viewed in Technicolor.
And that despite being behind over 90% of all household consumer spending, we appear in less than 10 per cent of advertising: That is gendered ageism writ large. I told the room of women that despite the bad press in the general media and culture, the reality is that being 50, or 60 or 70 is actually GREAT.
We want young women to look forward to getting older!
It’s when we finally become the women we always wanted to be and shapeshift into the shape that truly suits us. As our research shows, those of us who shed the most during the midlife collision end up the happiest, with lives which are resonant and which match on the outside how we feel on the inside.
I want all young women to look forward to being Queenagers – that’s when it all gets good! In midlife we have the experience, confidence, funds and time to make our dreams come true.
I love it when our message strikes home
The reaction in the room was astounding. Cheers showed the message had landed. But the reaction since on social media and in all the messages I’ve received has been even more heartening.
This is a good example: “Found you so inspiring at yesterday’s event. I’ve always feared ageing but you made me excited to be a Queenager! Just ordered your book – can’t wait to read it. Thanks for shifting my mindset.” Another said how proud she was to be “a Queenager-in-training”. One, Lisa Daramola, wrote a whole post on LinkedIn about how inspiring she found the NOON message: “Last night I left Be Bold Now London feeling exactly that. Bold. Inspired. Ready to take action! One woman in particular lit a fire in me… Eleanor Mills…I walked away with a reminder: the second half of life can be the best half yet!”
The next morning, I was reminded of just how important this new story is. On a sweltering day I took the Elizabeth Line to Canary Wharf to do some filming about female entrepreneurs. Walking through the mighty shopping centre there I realised that EVERY SINGLE Advert – about 30 of them on the main concourse – was for “aesthetic procedures” ie Botox and fillers to keep women looking young. This isn’t an accident. I’ve had too many conversations recently with corporate Queenagers (or even women in their 30s) with very airbrushed faces who admit they are doing it to “stay relevant, to look young, to stay employed”.
The ‘stay young/stay relevant’ message is loud in NYC
I heard this drumbeat particularly loudly when I was in New York to launch my book, but it is here as well. Why else would the banking capital of the UK be exhorting women to get Botox “at lunchtime or after work”? I’m afraid this is the face of gendered ageism (where sexism meets ageism), writ large in our biggest commercial centre. It has to be tackled. Why does a youthful face have anything to do with competency at work?
Of course, it doesn’t…but the male lens values women for being ‘pleasing’, particularly in corporate roles. The pressure to look younger at work to “stay relevant” ie attractive enough to go on being employed – is real. We have to change this.. and we can if we keep drawing attention to the madness and use the power of the Queenager pound to insist they won’t get our money if they don’t change this story.
One of the big asks of Be Bold Now is for women to patronise women-owned businesses and use their voices to push for what we want.
The scary thing about this is that Generation Alpha, because of social media and its particular obsession with appearance, are getting indoctrinated into the need to stay young and to buy into the toxic anti-ageing juggernaut before they are even 20. The beauty-industrial complex is getting them young.
Children should be looking forward to the full century they have ahead of them, not feeling anxious about getting older and already feeling their best days are behind them.
All of this just makes me more passionate about our NOON project and changing this ridiculous narrative that a woman is only as valuable as her unlined face. We don’t want any more generations of girls growing up thinking that men have a full life while women have a half life, a sell-by date. Why should men be lauded for ageing like silver foxes, or maturing as fine wine and improving with age, while women are seen as peaches – one wrinkle and we’re done?
Luckily this is just a stupid, toxic story. It’s a bit like the ones we were told in our youth about race or sexuality. We can tell a better, truer, fairer story that actually women live longer evolutionarily because as we age we have huge wisdom the race needs us to impart.
(If you don’t believe me, just listen to this scientist.)
Age 50 is when women come into their power and confidence and are freed from the tyranny of the hotness Olympics.
Time to make some plans…
Ok rant over – enjoy the rest of your Sunday and look forward to seeing lots of you at NOON Circles in the next few weeks.
Also, put a save the date in your diary for Saturday June 7th when I’m going to be leading a NOON trip to Margate, for a swim, a very special Private Art View, lunch and more. If that sounds good to you, email me at eleanor@noon.org.uk and we’ll send you more details this week.
Also, if you are in the Folkestone area, I’m coming down to give a special talk at our Folkestone NOON Circle on May 15th. It promises to be a great evening and all are welcome, including non-members. Sign up here and let your Folkestone friends know!
Much love
Eleanor
