Age Before Beauty?

In today's Guardian, Joan Bakewell writes of the discrimination she perceives against older women in broadcast media. You can read the article here. http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/sep/03/television.discriminationatwork

It reminded me of an interview a fellow reporter did when I worked on a local paper in the South West. She had interviewed a locally well-known female newsreader. (I won't mention her name as the lady in question has also worked on national networks in recent years.) About an hour after she'd filed the copy, the news editor came over looking quizzical. "Jules", he said. "It's all good, but, where's the age?".

I was a bit taken a back. Such an amateur mistake. Even I, at that time an intern of only a few weeks, would have been mortified to have done it this was one of the most experienced reporters in the office. But there was an explanation. Female presenters are not welcome in serious television broadcasting once they reach a certain age.

My colleague had not included the news reader's name in the interview because the woman was afraid it would end her career. In fact the interviewee had confessed her employers thought her to be ten years younger than she was.

She had told the reporter that she had not deliberately lied to the broadcasting company, but had failed to correct another's error when her looks were deceptively youthful. She did not want responsibility for the fiction being published, so fearful of the truth, she asked that it be omitted all together.

This points clearly to an environment where sexist age-discrimination is part of the establishment. The presenter's concern was not that she would be discriminated against because of her actual looks, but that her age would make her an unwise choice in the minds of those who still think of female presenters as a visual marketing tool. It suggests a form of ageism which has evolved beyond individual chauvinist instincts into unstated formality.