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Badass Women at Any Age


Jun 14, 2022

Despite being the only woman in the room early in her career, Eleanor  Mills had a successful, rocket propelled  career in journalism.  Blindsided by her termination at the age of 49,  Eleanor was determined to do something different and counteract the perception of women in the media. Eleanor is founder and CEO of Noon, a new platform for women in midlife.  She campaigns to challenge gendered ageism and to change the narrative around the later stages of women’s lives to one which is more optimistic and fit for purpose.  She believes that 50 is the age of opportunity where we become the women we were supposed to be.  She wants women to look forward to midlife as their prime.  Eleanor became a founder at 50, having spent 25 year as an editor, columnist, interviewer and editorial director of the Times of London.  She was chair of Women in Journalism UK from 2014-2021 and has campaigned around the media’s male lens and diversity for 3 decades.  She, along with Accenture,  recently undertook the largest research project  to date on women 45-60 called Meet The Queenagers.  Eleanor exists to help women through the pinch points of midlife and into a new chapter and to challenge the cultural story that midlife women are peaches, one wrinkle and you’re out, while men of the same vintage are seen as fine wine, improving with age.  Eleanor is challenging this framing as the last bastien of feminism.  The voices of older women go unheard in nearly all cultures and Eleanor says, “This must change.”

 

What You Will Hear in This Episode: 

  • Eleanor’s personal story.
  • The culture and perception of women in media. The male lens.
  • Creating Noon to showcase the stories of women doing incredible things in midlife.
  • Midlife women are a huge audience. Queenagers.
  • The scandal of lack of representation of older women.
  • Women forged in fire.
  • Reevaluating purpose and legacy.
  • Helping women make a shift by bringing focus to it.
  • The power of the demographic.
  • Gender assumptions and stereotypes.
  • Gendered ageism, ridiculous, unfair and bad business.

 

Quotes

“I knew that what had been had gone and I was definitely looking at a whole new future.”

“What’s wrong with looking a little bit older?  We are all going to age.”

“Women like us appear in less than 2% in advertising and less than 6% of those making marketing and advertising decisions are over 50.”

“It’s actually older women who are controlling the spend.”

“By 2025 50% of the workforce in the US will be over 50.”

“Senior women in organizations are 70% more likely to encourage other women of color and more diverse folk within an organization.”

“In the 2019 UK census women of over 40 started earning more money than women under 40 for the first time ever.”

 

Mentioned:

Noon

The Queenager on Substack

Avivah Wittenberg Cox

Susan Golden - Stage Not Age

https://bonniemarcusleadership.com/

https://web.facebook.com/bonnie.marcus/ 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/bonniemarcus

https://twitter.com/selfpromote

https://www.instagram.com/self_promote_/

Gendered Ageism Survey Results

Forbes article

5 Tips to own the superpower of your age

IAMMusicGroup

 

Purchase my book Not Done Yet on Amazon: 

 

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