Staying fierce with the Fierce 50 Movement

 

Following on from the Fierce 50 Campaign launched by a group of bloggers (including overthehilda) worldwide on February 20^th – the 50th day of the year – I am delighted to announce that the Campaign has now become a Movement.

We are calling on all women all over the world to join and support each other in this new Midlife. We are still very much alive; many are beginning new careers; some are retired and enjoying travelling; others are helping to care for grandchildren. Whatever stage you are at, you need support and friendship.

 

Over The Hilda

One of my reasons for starting my blog was that I felt we ‘older women’ needed to talk more. We needed to share our experiences on growing older: what worked, what didn’t (I am talking products here, not bits!), health tips, fashion finds, advice for empty-nesters and new grannies! I could not truly relate to the gorgeous younger bloggers out there.

Magazines

When it comes to magazines, it is even worse. It is seldom that an older woman graces the fashion pages. ‘Irish Country Magazine’ did recently feature the gorgeous Celia Holman-Lee on the cover, but it is a rarity.  Yes, there is the token feature on concerns such as menopause, but not much else.

So why do brands and magazines generally ignore the over-50 woman?

We may no longer have youth on our side, but we are not dead yet and we still have a lot of living to do. We also have more spending power than we ever had and we still want to look good and feel good. Magazines need to realise that we are an important and growing demographic. We need more representation. With that in mind, I have decided to feature an over-50 woman once a month on my blog, so read on.

 

My Irish Over-50 Blogger Friend

KERRY MANNING

I met Kerry at the launch of The Irish Blogger Agency a few months ago, in Dublin.

The only other over-50 blogger in Ireland that I know of (so far), I was immediately drawn to her fun attitude. A South African by birth, she has been living in Ireland for some 14 years now.

She started blogging because she always loved writing and felt quite passionately that she wanted to inspire people who were perhaps not feeling fabulous, and inspire them to push through their problems and feel great.  Kerry writes from personal experience; she’s been through a lot: health, relationships and other stresses that affect so many of us.  Pain is part of her daily life due to arthritis and fibromyalgia, but she’s determined nonetheless to be fabulous despite it all.

She describes herself as a plus-sized woman proud of her bumps and lumps and wrinkles.  They tell a story of the journey she has been on and the wonderful road ahead.  She is supporting the ‘Ireland’s Got Curves’ event in Dublin in April and has decided that she will embrace fashion blogging also.

As the ‘big 50’ was approaching, Kerry wondered if it was worth pretending it wasn’t happening.  A chance conversation with a woman who had skipped her 50th reminded her that there are no ‘do-overs’ in life.  The fact that she was 50 and in a good place was something worth celebrating and there was no good reason that 50 should mean anything other than being fabulous!

Get up every day and try again, she says!  She has written about how to be fabulous (http://fabuliciousfifty.com/how-to-be-fabulous/) and in many cases, she reckons it is a ‘fake it until you make it’ situation.  For Kerry, there are 6 principles of fabulousness – positivity, inspiration, motivation, networking, creativity and appearance. Her advice is to tap into these things and simply embrace your own uniqueness. It is time we were allowed to simply ‘be’.

Although she can no longer work full-time, Kerry has accepted this and embraced it and is excited about having a ‘portfolio career’ as a personal branding coach, a blogger, a speaker, an author (by the end of this year) and an artist. And a year ago, through the medium of Facebook, she founded a group called ‘Fabulous Woman’ which brings wonderful woman from all corners of the world into a network that is simply Fabulous.

I love her honest accounts of her dating escapades and she offers some sensible advice to anyone who is heading down that road again. You can find Kerry here www.fabuliciousfifty.com

Join

If any of you women out there would like to join or support The Fierce 50 Movement, let me know. We need to wake up the world to the fact that we will not be ignored, we are not invisible, we will be heard. If you did not read my last post please do, as there is a link to the rest of the Fierce Fifty …..and please share with any of your friends who might be interested. If they are not on FB, you can sign them up to my blog posts via e-mail on www.overthehilda.ie

Stay fabulous no matter what your age!

Hilda