DON’T LOOK
THROUGH ME
BY BRON W Y N R EID
T
here I was, standing at the make-
up counter in a major department
store, while the beautiful young girl
wearing the equivalent of my yearly
make-up quota assiduously ignored me whilst
talking on the phone. I stood there, with a
perfectly good American Express card in my
hands, waiting to purchase some items from
an expensive skincare and make-up range.
This, friends, was my first “invisible
older woman” moment, and that realisation
shocked me pretty much to my core.
Anyone who has known me for some time
would not call me invisible, and neither
would I say that about myself. Maybe it had
happened before, and I just hadn’t noticed.
At first I was shocked that this thing I
had heard about had actually happened to
me: apparently the Invisible Older Woman
Syndrome affects women aged 50-plus,
with post-retirement a whole other story.
(I must have been a late onset case.) We
disappear from public view. We are no
longer visible in shops, at functions, on the
bus, in a queue… We are ignored, just as I
was at the make-up counter.
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After recovering from the shock of
this experience, I began researching this
strange syndrome, and found intriguing
evidence of its existence.
Having a passion for small business
myself, what struck me most is that business
owners and staff who either consciously or
unconsciously embrace the Invisible Older
Woman Syndrome are cutting themselves
off from one of the most important and
profitable demographic segments in society.
There are more Australian women in,
or poised to join, the age group of the so-
called Invisible Older Woman group than
ever before, and we are the wealthiest
demographic of women in history – ever.
We have benefitted from the major
social and economic shifts of our times
and as a result are more active, healthier
and longer-living, and have accumulated
more wealth than any of our female
forebears as a group. We have had (and are
still enjoying) career success. The fastest
growing group of entrepreneurs is women
over 55. That’s me.
We have spending fire-power…
H O N E S T LY W O M A N M A G A Z I N E - S U B S C R I B E N O W