TV representation matters.

Media is vital in shaping our perceptions of people, particularly of women.

On Tuesday night on Twitter after the #lionesses win taking them through to the final I posted the lovely image of Tess an 8 year old supporter, dancing with joy to Sweet Caroline.

This is why representation matters. Girls seeing what women can do when allowed to participate & when shown on screen; learn not just that they can participate, but that they’re participation matters to everyone. 

Media influences us all. 

This is the heart of the Acting Your Age Campaign which I founded 4 years ago after becoming increasingly frustrated at the exclsuions of women over 45 in meaningful roles on TV. Actresses & presenters can & do lead but despie the wonderful strides forward in crucial diverse representations on screen, despite 50:50 Gender Equality pledges and targets from broadcasters, the women they’re talking about are invariably young women.

Often paired in leading roles on screen with middle aged men, these young women offer a ranges of stories and narratives but the women in middle age are still either absent, or reduced to stereotypical, forgettable, or bigoted roles.

Middle aged men can middle aged women can’t. Or to put it in terms of my Acting Your Age Campaign “on screen men have a whole life and women only a shelf life.

Once the perceived sexual currency of young women is used up so is their relevance to commissioners, producers, broadcasters and news editors.

Talking about this as a women in my mid 50’s, often meets with the same response. So being commissioned as a campaigning journalist on this form of equality is difficult. I’m grateful that I’ve ever been commissioned on this subject to be honest and I wish I could tell you that the refusals only come from men.

Sadly not the case.

Girls become young women, who become middle aged women, who then become old women. 

We still matter at every age and ageism especially targeting women, has been so normalised now that women like me who highlight ageism wherever it occurs, are the problem, not ageism itself.

As a campaigner I receive complaints & criticism. Not many but over the course of the 4 years with this campaign & 12 years of campaigning for equality generally, a few.

Every time, I meet the complaint in the same way. I listen. I may not agree but I hear what they need to say and I thank them for their opinion, because that’s all it is. 

One person’s opinion.

The representation of women matters as fact not only as opinion, because the exclusion of women in U.K. film & TV is also a fact not only an opinion. 

When we’re young women following our creative dreams, the industry can’t get enough of us then. 

But the industry needs to understand that creative dreams of all women, must mean for the whole of a woman’s life. For women on screen who naturally want to keep working & not retire at 45 & for audiences. 

It’s about her talent, her skill as an artist, it’s not about how long she can be exploited for her perceived sexual currency. 

So I cheered loudly last night (oh my that back heel goal) delighted in the joy of the team & supporters but particularly in the joy of this girl singing along to Sweet Caroline. 

No one will be able to convince her for the whole of her life that women don’t matter as much as men. 

What I’m fighting for is that when Tess reaches middle age, she won’t feel ashamed of that which so many women sadly do. That her age is no longer seen as a failure but simply what it is, just another stage of her life is vital for women now and for the generations to come.

That’s the goal, right? 

#ActingYourAgeCampaign

#DontCastHerOut

#5050From45

#ParityPledge