Celebrating the artistic power of ageing women

The godmother of Australian letters, Helen Garner, has found chart-topping success yet again with The Season, her first full-length work in a decade. Garner is now in her 80s. “Beyond a certain age women become invisible in public spaces,” Garner once wrote. She is far from alone in her observation that ageing women are often discarded by society, but this frequently leads to the most profound creative work. 

Garner is the latest in a paradigm-shifting year for public perceptions of mature women, who have always been bastions of innovative and celebrated creative work. Alexis Wright, whose work Praiseworthy picked up the Stella Prize and the Miles Franklin Literary Award in 2024, is over 65. Many of Australia’s most celebrated artists, such as Judy Watson, Kate Grenville and Patricia Piccinini, are creating some of their most celebrated work in their ‘third act’. 

2024: the year of ageing women

2024 was a breakthrough year in discussions of perceptions of ageing women, particularly in the US. In much the same manner as in 2016, the presidential election cast a new light on gender debates.

Miranda July’s trending and acclaimed novel All Fours examined female desire and menopause in a way that gripped countless readers. Julia Louis-Dreyfus gained more traction with her popular podcast Wiser Than Me, in which she interviews female icons who are 65 or older. Louis-Dreyfus signs off every episode of her podcast with the same plea: “if there’s an old lady in your life, talk to her!“

There are common threads in Louis-Dreyfus’ guests and in the work of Miranda July, Helen Garner and others. While society may leave ageing women feeling unseen and discarded, the rise in maturity can also mean liberation. 

As actress Sally Field said on Louis-Dreyfus’ podcast: “The task as a grown-up person is to realise what garment you have knit for yourself to survive as a child, the winter of your childhood. But when you’re in the summer, so to speak, of your adulthood, you’re boiling hot and you can’t figure out, ‘Why am I so f***ing hot all the time?’ And it’s because you can’t take off this garment that you knitted for yourself as a child that you no longer need.”

The shedding of layers can mean liberated artistic freedom as ageing women care less about the opinions of others and daringly leap ahead into their work.