The Broken Ladder: Navigating Gendered Ageism in Senior Leadership

I finished watching the series “Younger” two weeks ago and I still cannot shake the chain of feelings the relevance to my current career struggles has stirred in me. Is it disappointment? Is it anger at the professional ecosystem? Is it the self-reflection of how I ended up judging Liza at the first two seasons? Is it the realization that a patriarchal society is actually running the show?

Many female professionals have always found themselves at a crosspoint at one point of their careers. “The Second Shift” is defined as the disproportionate workload of women who work professional jobs but are also responsible for unpaid domestic labor. Should a woman choose to be a full-time mother or family caregiver, she is penalized later on when she decides to go back to work.

First, there is the Penalty of Age, highly skilled women often re-enter in their 30s or 40s, well at least they attempt to make their comeback at those ages, only to find themselves rejected based on ageism. Being in your thirties or forties is an obstacle to restart your career, regardless of how skilled or qualified you are, only if you are a woman that is. What are the factors that companies and managers base their decisions on—if I am not to call it flat out bias?

The second challenge is the Planned Career Break and the perceived gap in their field of expertise. Women find themselves rejected because they have been out of touch taking on a societal role expected of them. No one is willing to take the time to explore if they have actually been idle all those years or active, working on self-development and managing smaller professional but informal roles. Nor do managers and the HR team consider them for more junior roles to help them get on the ladder of growth and leadership.

The third obstacle is Gendered Ageism. It is the distinct barrier of the broken ladder women encounter after the age of 44 that makes securing new, senior-level roles, such as senior director, C-suite or board positions, significantly more challenging than it is for men of the same age. This touches a personal spot for me. If you are above 44, it is next to impossible to land a new full-time position at the same career level you deserve, worked hard to achieve and can excel at. Then comes the “Experience Discount”. We are expected to succumb to the “Downward Salary Pressure” and accept reduced salaries & wages as a penalty for getting older. Men rarely suffer from this, on the contrary, their age is of an added value since it brings on experience, maturity and authority. You know, the traits women cannot obtain due to their gender; age makes us outdated, less tech-savvy, less flexible and too expensive. This hypocrisy and bias are infuriating.

Going back to “Younger”, Liza, the main character, lies about her age to land an assistant’s position in a publication house—not all of us are lucky enough to fake-it-till-you-make-it when it comes to looking 14 years younger. She was ambitious and did not want to take on a lesser dead-end position. She had potential and a career map in mind but the ecosystem was not interested.

What strategies do we need to navigate this dilemma, and where do we even start? More importantly, is it time to tackle the internal process that helps female professionals overcome these systemic biases and stereotypes?

In my upcoming training, “Power, Presence & Purpose: Advancing Women into Senior Leadership,” we address these “Internalized Glass Ceilings” head-on. We will explore the developmental paths high-achieving women need to navigate these evolving circumstances and seize new opportunities.