The Visibility Problem Nobody Talks About After 50

Recognizing when you've begun making yourself smaller because you're getting older, and giving yourself permission to step forward again if you still have something you want to contribute.

From attention to what?

When I was younger, I was prone to being dramatic, which meant that walking into a room usually drew people's eyes to me. I wasn't acting out, I was busy radiating. Up until about 10, I thought I was supposed to be an actress, and so that's what I was embodying at the time. As I got older, the looks became more focused and interested. I certainly wasn't a beauty, but the sparkle in my eye and the smile on my face were worth noting, and I’m basing that on the attention I usually received.

In my 20s, as I was becoming a woman, the attention became more prolonged and intentional as I entered restaurants, clubs, or gatherings. Sometimes it made me self-conscious, and sometimes it was flattering, but mostly I just got used to the nonverbal acknowledgments. This went on through my late 30s.

Then I became a mom, and most of my awareness of any looks fell away. As you're taking care of this youngster you've brought into the world and learning this enormous new role, any attention directed at you no longer even rises to the level of worth noticing.

Ryan, my only, on his first birthday.

I had my only son when I was older (40), and I remember one particular day when I suddenly became aware of how much older I was. I was meeting a friend for lunch. I walked into a busy restaurant, and the door opened, clinking and clanging the chain behind me.

Nobody looked up.  The exception was a teenage boy who gave me a quick glance and immediately turned away, as if “nothing to see here”. My first thought with such a dismissal was, “Oh wow. Did I forget to wear my makeup?”

I remember wondering if somehow the wonderful glimmer of personality that was still inside of me didn’t get turned on that day. There was a void where there normally would have been a smile or some small nod of hello, something. 

I felt dismissed. I felt very unimportant, and a little less part of everything..

I sat down with my friend, where at least I had a friendly face looking back at me, but the experience was jarring. I remember wondering, “Is this how old people must feel?” Because I also hadn't been noticing old people my whole life.

That was the day I realized that people really do become invisible as they get older.

What it can feel like to be “invisible”.

Apparently, I wasn't imagining it

Years later, I learned that this feeling isn't particularly unusual.

A 2023 study published in the Journal of Women & Aging surveyed 158 women between the ages of 50 and 87. When presented with the statement that women become less visible as they get older, 84% agreed. The women described being ignored in social and public spaces, underrepresented or misrepresented, patronized, or presumed less competent. Taylor & Francis Online

At a talk to a group of SCORE women attendees, I asked if they ever feel invisible. A majority of hands went up. I don't think we're making all of this up.

But I also don't think the entire story is about what other people do to us. Somewhere along the way, I discovered that I was putting on my own invisibility cloak, too.

When getting older actually started

I don't think my own journey with feeling older really began until I was about 60.

At 55, I left my graphic design business behind and started a photography career. I had a 15-year-old son who kept me very young, and I was fortunate that the signs of aging were only beginning to show themselves. I still felt like I looked pretty good, which was extremely convenient considering there were suddenly lots of pictures to take and have taken.

Then, somewhere around 60, I looked in the mirror one morning and saw my grandmother's face looking back at me. It was a major awakening.

Over the next few years, the telltale signs of “aging” started to appear. I began noticing dark circles under my eyes, my skin giving in a little more enthusiastically to gravity, and the layer of heavy peach fuzz that seems to grow on all the women in my family until we eventually resemble little furry Chia Pets in the afternoon sun.

As I grew older, it was looking in the mirror one day that reminded me of something.

When I was a teenager, I remember seeing older women out shopping. Sometimes their makeup would look like a pancake of a flesh-toned color across their faces. Their lipstick might be outside the lines in places, and their blush would be sitting in little circles on their cheeks.

I thought maybe these women were just a little crazy and somehow thought that looked good. And I bought a 10x magnification mirror and I realized the truth of these women.

They couldn't see their faces!

They dutifully put on lipstick even though they can't quite tell whether it's inside the line. They put their blush where they've been putting it for the past 40 years and hoped for the best. They weren't nutty old women; they were women trying to maintain their beauty as best they could at the time. They were women who just needed a good makeup mirror so they could see!

I still think that's funny. Not what they looked like (even though it could border on the comical!), but the enormous difference between my perception of them when I was young and the reality I came to understand once I got there myself.

Almost hiding. (Branding photos for Lexa’s first murder mystery novel.)

Creating your own invisibility

Something else can happen once you begin feeling less visible from the outside. You may even start helping it to happen.

I remember attending a seminar where the leader was probably in her early 30s and most of the people attending were somewhere between their early 20s and mid-30s. I was almost 60. I was pretty certain I was the oldest person in the room.

The leader would ask questions and invite people to respond. I'd listen to the answers and realize that their experiences and perspectives were different from mine. There were things I could have said, but I began to wonder whether anything I had to contribute would make sense to this group, or if I would sound like someone still inserting disks into the slot of her computer.

So I did what many of us learned to do in school when we desperately didn't want the teacher to call on us. Held very still. Looked down at the paperwork. Found something interesting to do with my pen. “Whatever you do, don't make eye contact”.

The message I was trying to send was essentially: Please don't pick me. I have nothing I can add that this group would understand.

And there's something rather 360-degree turnabout about that. I had noticed that the world wasn't seeing me in quite the same way anymore. Now I was deliberately making sure someone didn't.

I think invisibility can begin to feel like a lack of importance. A lack of relevance. Somehow even a little less aware or astute in the world. Eventually that can turn into: Maybe that's how it's supposed to be. Maybe I should be quiet. Maybe this isn't my time anymore.

Strength through experience

Except I know more now than I ever have.

Here's the contradiction.

At 65, there have been substantial changes in my thinking, my heart, and the way I create in the world. I have decades more experience under my belt. I read people better. I recognize patterns more quickly. I've become much more deliberate about the people I surround myself with.

I love being around people who seek goodness, try to get the most out of life, and constantly learn for the pure joy of discovering what makes their lives better. I'm still curious. I'm still learning. And professionally, there are things I can do almost instinctively now because I've been doing them for years.

I can be photographing someone, recognize what isn't working, change the light, change a position or expression, and suddenly there she is. I can sit down at a computer and do something in Photoshop that someone else finds completely mystifying. You could actually call me an expert in this area with all that I have under my belt. 

That's experience. This is what has made up my LIFE. Nothing about that disappears because my hair is turning gray or because I've acquired a collection of wrinkles I didn't order.

Which raises an interesting question:

How can we know more than we've ever known, have more experience than we've ever had, and simultaneously question whether we have what it takes to be visible now?

Visibility isn't an obligation.

I want to be clear about something. You don't have to be visible in any way, shape, or form after 50. You don't have to start another business. You don't have to build a personal brand, make videos, write a book, teach a course or prove to anybody that you're still relevant.

Visibility has to have a reason. You have to want something enough to work through any resistance.
If you're ready to retire and spend your time traveling, gardening, playing with your grandchildren, or doing whatever brings you pleasure, I invite you to glide into this wonderful chapter of life and enjoy it for all it's worth. 🤗

But there are those of us who aren't finished. They find that there's desire nagging at them. They have something left to do. 

A book they want to write. Something they know how to teach and want to share. A business they want to start. A group they want to bring together. A conclusion they've come to after 30 or 40 years of living that they know could make a difference to somebody else. These are the people I'm talking to.

What if this is your time again?

Because you now have something that you couldn't possibly have had at 35.

Experience.

Beautiful Stephanie, Intentionally Visible for her next let of her journey

Intentional Visibility- What It Takes

The work of visibility after 50 starts before anybody else sees you. It starts with becoming willing to truly see yourself again.

For me, some of that work started in the mirror. There were mornings over the past few years when I'd look at my face and immediately notice everything that had changed in a way that didn’t make me happy: the under-eye circles, the sun spots, the sagging, the hair roots, the “where did my eyebrows go?”.
All of it.

So I started doing something to counteract it. I'd look at myself first thing and enthusiastically say:

“Hi, cutie!”

That made me smile. Beam even. Sometimes it made me laugh.

And after a while, all that aging evidence became ignorable instead of intolerable. I didn't have to pretend it wasn't there; I just stopped making it the most important thing I saw. Soon, all that aging evidence started to pale in comparison to the happy face I encountered. This is the fun part of the work.

Then you make the video. It's cringy. You make another one. Very much still cringy. (This IS the program that moves you forward!). The next is better. You keep going. One video soon will actually be good. Then more. Then really good.

You post something you think is terrific after spending 4 hours and nobody responds.

You learn the technology. Or you hire somebody who understands it. You start with an iPhone and a $20 stand because that's enough to get you going. 

You walk into rooms where almost everybody is younger than you. As we get older, that's going to happen more often unless we're attending an AARP meeting. You smile. You become interested in the people around you. You ask what would be useful to them instead of walking in already convinced that you don't belong. And please, stop using youth as the measuring stick for relevance.

And yes, I'm a photographer, so I can't stress this enough:

You get and keep current photographs.

If you truly want to be seen, you let them meet the person you are today. When you appear confident in a photograph, people aren't noticing your age. They're noticing your energy. When you're confident in being seen, your age stops being the most impactful thing about you. Find a great photographer in your area, one who shows work that is very compelling, and hire them to be “your person”, your partner in the visibility journey.

Professional branding photos can certainly make visibility easier, as well. So can an updated website. Get the professional help with writing, design, video or whatever else your work requires and get going.

But you don't need all of those things before you're allowed to begin. Sometimes visibility starts with an iPhone perched on a counter at chest height and something you really want to say. You hit record, and you're off. 

The important part is becoming willing to be seen before you're perfect at being seen.

The journey to getting older is so personal to me.

This isn't beginning again

I recently rebuilt my own website. It took me four months, and I used to be a graphic designer. There were certainly moments when outsourcing the whole thing sounded very attractive, but I also realized something while I was doing it.

Being over 60, I'm not trying to update the business I had at 55.

I'm building what comes next.

Maybe we don't need to call that starting over, this is simply our next chapter. And yes, this may be the final chapter of the work we create, yet I don't find that depressing. If anything, it makes me want to be more intentional about what I do with this chapter, and how I want it to feel and to be. I know who I want to work with, and I know why. I'm much more interested in helping people who still have something they desperately want to contribute than I am in convincing someone that she needs to get beautiful photographs just for the sake of it. 

Give yourself the permission you need.

If there is still something in you that you can't stop thinking about that you want to do, I would like to give you permission to try.

Write the damn book.

Launch the course.

Start the group.

Teach somebody how to paint.

Build the business.

Make the video.

Share the thing it took you 30 years to learn.

Maybe 30 people need what you know. Maybe 3,000 do. Maybe your first ten posts will be met with complete silence. You don't know. Neither do I. But you'll never find out by looking down at the paperwork and hoping nobody calls on you.

You don't need to look 35. You don't need to pretend getting older is wonderful every minute of the day. And you certainly don't need to prove to anyone that you're still relevant.

If you still have something you want to say, make, teach, build or contribute, look up. Let yourself be seen.

Because visibility isn't about refusing to grow old.

It's about refusing to fade away before you're done.

Wishing you all the best in your journey ❤️