Following various conversations about older women today and yesterday, let's have #TenTweets on #OlderWomeninFiction. Follow the hashtag to collect them all!
1. When looking at the arts in general, and the portrayal of women in particular, it becomes clear to anyone of sense that there's an elephant in the room. #OlderWomeninFiction
2. A great, big, middle-aged elephant, with the power of invisibility. Or so we might assume; because middle-aged and older women in the world of fiction are so rare that they might as well not be represented at all. #OlderWomeninFiction
3. I'm waiting for the first guy of a certain type sidling into my mentions with WHAT ABOUT HELEN MIRREN just about anytime...
Now. #OlderWomeninFiction
Now. #OlderWomeninFiction
4. But here's the thing. Helen Mirren is 75. Judi Dench is 85. Even Michelle Pfeiffer is 62. These women are all easily old enough to be GRANDMOTHERS. So where are all the mothers?
#OlderWomeninFiction
#OlderWomeninFiction
5. It seems that storytellers (especially those who write for the screen) have a humungous blind spot where women aged 30-60 are concerned. #OlderWomeninFiction
6. They leap straight from Young Romantic Lead Playing Opposite Suspiciously Age-Inappropriate Actor to Mother of Suspiciously Age-Inappropriate Child to Didn't She Do Well, Bless Her in what seems to be no time at all. #OlderWomeninFiction
7. And it's starting to happen in fiction, too. With some heroic exceptions (you know who they are, don't @ me), certain writers (especially men) seem genuinely unaware that 40-60 year old women exist at all. #OlderWomeninFiction
8. The commonest way it seems to come out is in the way grandmothers are portrayed, especially in children's fiction. Rocking-chairs, knitting, grey hair and bent backs seem to feature abundantly. #OlderWomeninFiction
9. Reminder to men writing fiction: women in their fifties, sixties and beyond don't correspond to this stereotype, and they're totally judging you right now. #OlderWomeninFiction
10. What's more, they probably make up a significant part of your readership. They deserve to be acklowledged. And older women do not exist simply to be mothers, grannies or Game Old Birds. They have stories of their own, at least as relevant as yours. #OlderWomeninFiction
Postscript: one of the reasons (apart from lockdown) that I stopped dyeing my hair was out of curiosity. I know very few women of my age who show their natural hair, and when they do, they tend to get comments.
Remember when Keanu Reeves' (younger, very pretty) girlfriend was mistaken for - er, Helen Mirren? That's because a lot of people aren't used to seeing women under 75 with natural-coloured hair. 
So far, I haven't been mistaken for Helen Mirren, but several people have told me I look like Margaret Atwood (she's 80.) And although I have recent photos available for them to use for free, the Press keep paying Getty for pictures of me that were taken over 10 years ago.
