Misageyny: Equality Law and the Bias Against Older Women

Learning from black and trans feminist thinkers whose concepts of intersectionality, misogynoir, and transmisogyny enable us to identify interrelating oppressions, I propose a new term – misageyny - for the combination of ageism and sexism to which older women are subject. Misageyny is rife. From menopause discrimination at work, to Gregg Wallace’s “middle-class women of a certain age”, older women are mocked, erased and marginalised in almost all spheres of life. This blog post explores a range of manifestations of misageyny – in employment, access to healthcare, and media representation – and considers the possible implementation of the prohibition of dual discrimination at s.14 Equality Act 2010 as a means of addressing it. To effectively tackle this compound bias, we must first be able to recognise and name it; I aim here to give us a tool with which to do so.