The Economics of the Second Half
Look around the senior table. The men are getting older. The women are disappearing.
Not everywhere. Not all at once. And rarely through an announcement that says, you are now too old to matter. It happens more quietly than that.
At 35, she needs more experience. At 42, she is finally seasoned. At 48, she is senior. And somewhere in her fifties, the language begins to shift. She has “been around a long time.” The organisation needs “fresh energy.” Someone wonders about her “runway.” A younger woman is described as dynamic. The grey-haired man beside her acquires gravitas. She acquires an age.
And I have been wondering: who decided women have a shelf life?
