Is There a "Right" Age for Women at Work?
Illustration by Marcos Osorio.
By Jules Barrueco
In the months leading up to my 45th birthday, I had been feeling confident about my professional prospects for the future. I had worked tirelessly, earned the accolades, built the stellar reputation. Achieving the next promotion had been my singular focus for years, and I believed my time was just around the corner. I hadn’t yet realized that “time” plays by different rules for women, that we only get to partake in the “your time will come” part of life, immediately followed by the “past your prime” time. For professional women, is there a “right time” for success?
My acute focus on age started last fall when I was turned down for a big job. They sought 20 years of experience; I had 19.4. Despite a strong first meeting, the awkward call came four weeks later: “Well, actually it said 20 years or more, so….” At 44 years old, I was still at the kids’ table. I don’t need to tell you the gender and hair color of the person who got the big job. You already know.
That experience should have left me deflated, but instead I stayed hopeful. After all, I got that first meeting, and my 20th anniversary as a lawyer was just around the corner. In just two fiscal quarters, I thought, I’d have the bone fides for a job with “Deputy” in the title, or “Head of,” like the one I’d just missed out on. Maybe I could be “Chief” of something, like my younger, higher-paid husband. In order to reach that 20-year milestone in May, I just had to make it past a tiny stick of dynamite in April: my 45th birthday, also known as the time in life when age discrimination becomes more commonplace for women. Which meant I wasn’t just aging in, like I thought; I was simultaneously aging out.
I knew the indignities of being an older woman in law would come for me eventually; I had, after all, suffered the indignities of being a younger woman in law. When I was a promising junior associate, a male superior groped my ass, and opposing counsel called me a dumb cunt. When I was a successful senior associate, a male superior gave me his secretarial work and his veal parmesan orders. I understood we wouldn’t be taken seriously when we were shiny and new, but I’m not sure I realized how immediately we could transition to dull and obsolete.
That possibility came into focus this winter, a few months after the big rejection and before my big birthday. On a family road trip, with little to do in a dark hotel room that wouldn’t wake my young son, I scrolled my NYTimes app. In one sitting, I read about a 58-year-old female TV anchor who was fired after she let her hair turn gray; a 51-year-old female presidential candidate who was described by a prominent TV host as not “in her prime, sorry” (he’s no longer employed though, sorry!); and a 45-year-old woman—45?!—who went missing while walking her dog during a work call, which the police publicly blamed on her struggles with menopause. I started to question what, exactly, I was about to “age in” to.
“All this time I thought my generation had made new rules about aging, with our “geriatric pregnancies” and frozen foreheads and we-can-have-it-all tomfoolery. Come to find out, there is no outsmarting the system; birth date still trumps Botox. ”
April came, and I turned 45, and May came, and I hit that 20-year career milestone. Then came June, and my newfound fears were confirmed when the Harvard Business Review declared: “there is ‘no right age’ for professional women.”
The June 16 article discussed findings from a recent survey of 913 women leaders from four US industries, including law. The research flatly debunked my prior belief that I was headed into a “middle-aged ‘sweet spot’”; in actuality, women in my age group fared no better than their younger or older counterparts. The conclusion of the study was depressing and definitive: “In our research we found no age was the right age to be a woman leader.” There was always an age-based excuse to not take us seriously, to discount our opinions, or to not hire or promote us. “Each individual woman may believe she’s just at the wrong age”—aren’t I??—“but the data make the larger pattern clear.”
All this time I thought my generation had made new rules about aging, with our “geriatric pregnancies” and frozen foreheads and we-can-have-it-all tomfoolery. Come to find out, there is no outsmarting the system; birth date still trumps Botox. To be sure, at this moment I have a (middle management) job I love leading a team of talented lawyers and reporting to a supportive male boss. This has nothing to do with them. This is about a systemic problem creating an uncertain future for every capable woman I know; it’s about the fact that, not only will we perhaps not achieve our bigger-job goals, but for many of us the jobs we have will be lost, then our resumes will be ignored. With 20 years behind me and 20 to go until traditional retirement age, this is supposed to be my midpoint, not the beginning of the end.
Since I added “worry about my employability” to the myriad things keeping me up at night, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what the future will look like, for me and for my growing network of brilliant forty-something women. But as I look to our future, my mind keeps wandering to our past: the countless hours we’ve spent reviewing each other’s resumes, strategizing the next move, giving the glowing reference, helping land the new client. We look out for each other like it’s our job, because, we’ve decided, it is. Maybe 45 is the age when we could disappear mid-meeting and an international conversation about our hormone levels would ensue, but it’s also the age by which we’ve built coalitions of like-minded women, gained a modicum of influence, and become generous with our time even when we have none to spare. Maybe it’s even the perfect age to work on burning the stereotype of the has-been woman to the ground.
Just yesterday, as I was writing my mid-year self review and thinking about the politically correct way to say “I feel like my time may never come,” a text message interrupted my thoughts. A woman I once helped land a new client had been contacted by a recruiter seeking referrals for a big job in my industry. My friend wanted to put me up for the job; a job, incidentally, with the word “Chief” in the title.
And with that message, a bit more hope for my future returned; hope for a bigger opportunity, sure, but mostly hope for our collective ability to change this narrative. Maybe that’s my naïve optimism talking again, or maybe it’s the hard-fought confidence of a woman of 45.
Jules Barrueco manages a team of in-house lawyers at a Fortune 100 company in New York, is the Programming Chair for its local employee resource group for women, and does not practice law under the same name as her byline because can you even imagine?!