Are Women Really Aging Out of Their Careers?

A woman once told me I was going to “age out” of the news business.

She was about ten years older than me, and I believed her. There were days I would swipe my key card at work and genuinely feel relieved when the door opened.

That sounds dramatic now, but I think a lot of women understand the feeling.

Maybe nobody has ever actually told you that you’re too old. But you start noticing things.

You’re suddenly one of the oldest women in the room. Someone younger gets hired. You wonder if you’re still considered relevant. You feel this pressure to keep up, keep saying yes, keep proving that you’re still ambitious.

I thought about all of this when I sat down with Brooke Burke.

Brooke spent years at Dancing With the Stars. She won the show, then became its host. Her contract was being renegotiated, her dressing room was being painted for the next season, and then she got a call telling her she wasn’t coming back.

And her mind immediately went where so many of ours would.

Was I good enough? Was it my age? Were they just looking for someone different?

That’s the strange contradiction of getting older at work. You have more experience than you’ve ever had, but you can somehow feel more pressure to prove your value.

And I wonder how many women are exhausting themselves because of it.

How many of us are afraid to slow down because someone younger might pass us? How many stay in jobs that no longer fit because starting over at this age feels too risky? How many are quietly wondering how much longer they’re going to be wanted?

Brooke eventually had to accept that she might never get the explanation she wanted and ask herself a much more useful question:

Okay. Now what am I going to do?

I spent years worrying about aging out of my career. Now I’m much more interested in what women can grow into because of their age, experience and everything they’ve learned along the way.

Maybe getting older at work shouldn’t be about desperately trying to hold onto your seat.

Maybe it’s about realizing you have more options than you thought.

Brooke and I talk about getting fired, the fear of aging out, rejection and figuring out what comes next on this week’s episode of The Tamsen Show.

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