Grace’s Musings: Here’s to our Queenage years

What to call ourselves in midlife can be tricky. Being a “woman of a certain age” – ugh – I’m sensitive to the awful labels that society can slap on us. But “Queenager” is one that I love.

Coined by former Sunday Times journalist Eleanor Mills on her platform, NOON, the term “Queenager” celebrates the kind of woman who is no longer content to be invisible. She demands to be heard. And it’s important for all those coming up behind her. As Mills says: “We want women to look forward to being 50 as the age of opportunity.”

Pivotal research undertaken by NOON among ABC1 women aged 45-60 in the UK revealed that Queenagers spend £92 billion annually, make 95% of household outlay decisions and out-consume their 30-year-old friends by 250%. Yet 41% feel unrepresented by wider society.

Businesses are missing a massive commercial opportunity here. In 2019, women over 40 outearned those under 40 for the first time ever. And though we might drive consumer decisions in the home, we are underrepresented in advertising.

A startling 54% of Queenagers said they were more likely to buy from brands that represent them – just one of the reasons we started Studio10 (alongside our desire to provide the best foundation for mature skin, of course).

Today, we midlife women view success on our own terms. The research revealed that time for ourselves was more important than having a partner, a job we love, friends or an active sex life. Our work-life balance was 16 times more important than our job status.

Forbes magazine has called us “super-consumers”, and noted that, while we are particularly interested in finance, politics, health and achieving joy in our second act, what we need is ideas on how to spend our money – and there are few resources that help us to do that. Why does society continue to quietly dismiss us in this way?

Many of us are financially independent, have confidence and autonomy, and years of accumulated wisdom and experience, which help us to navigate life’s challenges. The irony is that while society focuses on the difficulties of ageing, for many of us our fifties are the start of a period of adventure.

We are either at the top of our game in the workplace, or we’ve opted for a less demanding role in order to focus on what’s important. Some of us are starting a whole new career or pivoting in order to travel or go back to education. We’ve dealt with the fear – of divorce, redundancy, bereavement, menopause – and we’re ready for a new challenge.

Novelist Annabelle Thorpe had a delightful take on it in Marie Claire recently. “For me, at least,” she wrote, “being a Queenager is probably the most liberating era of my life, set free from the tyranny of what should be.

You’ll never catch me in a carrot-leg jean, I’m more than happy to admit that I find Michelin-starred restaurants fussy and pretentious and I’ve allowed myself the luxury of deciding that I never have to watch a Shakespeare play again. Cooking on a Saturday afternoon takes place to a soundtrack of loud 1990s music (mostly Primal Scream, the Stereo MCs and Madonna).”

I’ll second that. This is the time when we’re at our fiercest, the time we burn most brightly. And I’m delighted to be sharing that with all of you.