The world tells us the worst possible thing a woman can be is old. The world is deluded.

Growing old is not something to fear.

I woke up and my head was pounding. Not a dull pound either. A large, thumping, painful all encompassing thudding feeling. If a doctor had asked me to identify specifically where it ‘hurt’, I would have just made large circular motions around my skull.

It hurt everywhere. Too much red wine with dinner; Shiraz is always my downfall.

My husband is in a similar world of pain, so refuses to get out of bed and come with me when I attempt to rouse him around 8am. But I don’t care – I know the only cure for my headache is the delights of greasy bacon, fried eggs and warm coffee. As I stagger up the street, I see a group of 19-year-olds who haven’t hit the pain point yet. They’re still kicking on from the night before, unlike me they’re capable of pushing past the fatal 3am mark and on towards dawn.

One of the women shrieks and giggles as she holds back the hair of her friend, who is vomiting daintily in a public bin. She looks up to catch me staring at them and – noting my decade or so’s seniority – mutters audibly “Ugh, Claire, promise me we’ll never be THAT sad and old”.

The world tells us daily that the worst possible thing a woman can be is old.

Ask a group of 50-something women to describe how strangers perceive them and they’ll inevitably respond with one of three ‘i’ words: ignored, irrelevant, or invisible. The way we treat mean women, rude women, or lazy women pales in comparison to the special dismissiveness, and occasionally disdain, reserved for women of a certain age.

There is no trillion dollar global industry devoted to helping women be kinder or appear smarter. Just as there is no trillion dollar industry devoted to helping men look younger than they are.

Because being an older man is a good thing.

Older men are distinguished; they have worked hard for their success. They command respect and are deserving of power. The lines on a man’s face are a mark of experience and authority, in the same way that the lines on a woman’s face are associated with the loss of status and sexual desirability.

Western civilisation is supposedly infatuated with youth but in truth it’s only the youth of women we’re truly obsessed with.

It is an obsession born from the role women have played since the dawn of civilisation; bringing new life into the world. Youth and beauty are inextricably linked with female fertility and in times gone by, that fertility was absolutely fundamental to a woman’s status. Once a woman’s breeding days were over, she automatically became less important because her primary purpose no longer existed.

But the days of living in a cave are well and truly behind us. And in an era where not every woman wants or can have children, when there is access to surrogacy and IVF, where women graduate from universities in higher numbers than men, where women are living longer and participating in the workforce at record levels, why on earth does age remain the key determinant of female worth?

When I look around, the women I admire most are not 20 or 30-somethings, they are much older. Often they’re in their 40s but they are more likely to be in their 50s or 60s. They are powerful women who are taking to the Australian and world stage in a most magnificent way.

The faces (but far more importantly the minds) of Hillary Clinton, Angela Merkel, Michelle Bachelet, Katie Couric, Margaret Chan, Ellen Degeneres, Gail Kelly, Melinda Gates, Meryl Streep, Sheryl Sandberg, Indra Nooyi and Adrianna Huffington are far from invisible.

Closer to home, the likes of Heather Riddout, Liz Broderick, Julie Bishop, Gina Rinehart, Catherine Hamlin, Virginia Trioli, Catherine Livingstone, Julia Gillard, Cate Blanchett, Lisa Wilkinson, and Quentin Bryce could never be ignored. Quite the opposite, in fact. These are women who, through their daily contribution to Australia’s prosperity, governance, society and commentary, demand recognition.

But what is it that makes my friends and I, mostly in our late 20s (the epitome of our youthful, fertile years) so admiring, envious even, of women whose ages should supposedly render them irrelevant? It comes down to one simple word:

Power.

These women have a power that younger women don’t; a power that has previously has been the exclusive domain of men. And it isn’t the transient, ultimately less valuable power of sexual allure. It is a power that comes from courage, from confidence and from experience.

These are women who are comfortable in their own skins and who are accepting of the choices they have made in life.

These are women who live with certainty and purpose. These are women of conviction.

Women who worry less about what others think of them and more about how they measure up against the expectations they set for themselves. Women who will not be brought to their knees (or in my case, to the couch with a blanket, tissue box and Netflix) because everything seems so hard; the wisdom of experience means they have probably seen worse.

The only thing of value that these women have less of than women my age, is time.

And that is simply an unchangeable reality of life.

As one of my 20-something colleagues put it “they no longer have to worry about whether they’ll meet someone, whether they’ll have children, whether they’ll buy a house or what they will do with their life”. There is a deep power that comes with the removal of social uncertainty, particularly for women, who are subject to all sorts of impossible expectations.

The world tells us daily that the worst possible thing a woman can be is old.

Well, the world is deluded.

Because being a woman in her 50s or 60s, a woman at the peak of her power – a power that is earned, rather than the aesthetic power she is born with – cannot be a bad thing.

I want to be around these women with power. I want to see more of them on my TV screen, hear more about them in podcasts and read more from them on the internet. I want to be accepted and admired by them. I want to talk to them and I want to learn from them.

I want to be just like them.

Want more? Try these:

The world’s ‘Most Beautiful Woman’ is over 40. But is that really a good thing?

“Kate Middleton has grey roots and so do I. Get over it.”

“Cindy Crawford in her underwear is the most terrifying thing I’ve seen this year.”