Gather round, as I draw my woollen blanket around my knees and prepare to impart my wisdom to you. That’s right, I’ve committed to the ‘I’m old’ motif for this blog series, and I’m sticking to it. Though, as I shuffle with my tartan shopper trolley straight into this blog post, the concept of aging is actually pertinent to the topic I’ll be discussing this week.

Welcome to Women in War and Politics.

More specifically, welcome to Older Women in War and Politics.

Or indeed, anything really.

First off, let’s be clear; when it comes to fiction, old can mean anything. Come to think of it, the same applies in the real world. I’ll never forget being told, as a fresh-faced twenty-two-year-old holiday camp assistant, by a four-year-old girl, that I’d probably be dead soon because I was so decrepit in her eyes.

It can be discomforting or oddly cathartic to view your relationship with aging through the eyes of the characters you read or write. These days, I’m firmly in the twilight stages of the Mother phase, and I can see cronedom (what do you mean that’s not a word) coming for me at an increasingly alarming pace. If this were a movie, my days of being ‘clumsy girl falling out of cab’ (always face-first onto the pavement, never into the arms of a handsome stranger) are firmly behind me.

Aging is a subject I explored in the second Vanguard book, The Hand That Casts the Bone, as Henriette comes – or tries to come to terms – with advanced maternal pregnancy (which used to be called geriatric pregnancy, don’t you know), the loss of her business, and the physical and emotional changes that come with being somewhere north of 40. There are also some issues with war and death and criminal gangs, but that’s pretty standard.

The fact is that aging for women, particularly as they enter the perimenopausal stage and beyond, is rarely touched upon in books – but in reality, there is a heavy real-world toll. Women often hit the peak of their careers at the same time as the menopause strikes. And while every woman is different, it can be career-ending. It can be relationship-breaking. So why don’t we reflect this in the attitudes and behaviours of the characters we read and write about?

Don’t get me wrong. You don’t need to write all over-40 women as hot, sweaty, confused wrecks. They don’t need to languish, pale and quaking at the onslaught of ‘The Change’. You don’t need to hammer home the emotional and physical toll of menopause. However, you should realise that as the lived experience of almost all women (eventually), it doesn’t ring true when we read women in their middle age looking, acting, and thinking like women in their 20s.

Adding a middle-aged woman to your story doesn’t make it more inclusive unless it includes storylines, behaviours, and attitudes that could be realistically done, said, or thought by a woman with a few miles under her belt and stuff to be getting on with.

‘It wasn’t about vanity. For the most part, Henriette did not care for how she looked or what anyone else thought about it. Looks faded. Any woman who did not accept and prepare for that eventuality was a fool to herself and Henriette had never been that. No, there was more to it than simple pride. Henriette might not have been attractive, but she had built something that would last long after her lips thinned. She dedicated her life to it. But that was gone now, and it showed on her face. That was why Henriette could not bear to look in the mirror. Without her home, her business and her girls – what was she? An ageing woman painted in rouge. She had become ridiculous.’

When it comes to physical appearance, women in their 40s are rarely unscarred, unmarked, or unmarred by the passing of time. Nor are they sexless sacks of extra flesh. They (and by that, I mean we) are complex, emotional beings with worries about crows’ feet and years of experience in handling last-minute crises. Yet middle age seems to be the invisible era for women in fiction. Unless they’re a general on the battleship or the grizzled warrior a la Sarah Connor, this is the time of life when women characters are relegated to lurk in the back of the pages until they can emerge in a few years’ time as a wise woman ready to dispense homemade remedies and pouches of herbs.

So, how can you write middle-aged women in a way that feels real, yet still gives them the power and agency they need and deserve?

Give them long-term consequences.

How often do we hear about the old warrior feeling the twinge in his back, rendered on him during his berserker days? After 40, we all start to feel the physical consequences of our misspent youth. It is particularly important that, when writing women, physical consequences extend beyond those related to childbirth. Yes, giving birth can physically change a woman, but so can poor posture, malnutrition, and four decades of running around in high heels.

Make physicality introspective.

An older woman’s relationship with her own reflection is very different from that of a younger woman. Feelings of disconnection with the face looking back at you are common. And no, it’s not because women over 40 want to look like they’re 21 again (I’m not sure I want to live that Maybelline Matte Mousse nightmare again). Most of the women I know feel their face really only ‘settled in’ by their mid-to-late 30s. Women have a complex relationship with the way their looks are woven into their identities. Exploring this with Henriette gave me a tremendous sense of connection with the character, which had nothing to do with vanity and everything to do with coming to terms with not only a change in appearance, but a change in the way she felt society viewed her.

Embrace Middle-Aged Sex.

Unless you’re young enough to know what TikTok hair is, there’s no excuse for thinking middle aged sex is a myth, much like unicorns, King Arthur or affordable housing. We really need to get past this idea in fiction that the only people who have sex are hot, lithe 20-somethings. Desexualising women characters at a certain age is a trope as old as time. And while sex in middle age might not be as frequent, athletic, or experimental, there’s something warm and comforting about seeing a mature woman character throwing caution, self-awareness, and their extra-high waisted knickers to the wind. Libido and sexual desire wax and wane over a lifetime. But to write mature women as desexualised beings is dismissive and reductive.

Be realistic. Be respectful. Don’t be gross.

There you have it. My take on aging. As I bring this piece to a close, it seems pertinent for me to say that, obviously, I haven’t read all of the books. There are magnificent examples of middle-aged women in fiction – they’re just far too infrequent for my liking. Here’s to writing powerful, capable, strong women over 40 – wrinkles, mood swings, and comfortable underwear included.