Jacqueline Freeman is a strong voice in a growing global conversation about ageism – and it’s something she has directly experienced…
There is a contradiction in today’s workforce that’s becoming increasingly hard to ignore. At the point that people reach peak judgement, experience and maturity professionally, many are being pushed aside because of their age. It’s unfair. And it makes no sense.
Aucklander Jacqueline Freeman has become one of the most visible global voices speaking to this issue. In just 11 months, her LinkedIn platform, #58andUnapologetic, has grown to more than 20,000 followers. It is, organically, now in the top 1% of all LinkedIn’s 1.2 billion accounts, and is in the top 0.1% on the subject of ageism. Across LinkedIn, television, print and digital media, her message has reached more than 7 million people.
The First Spark
Six years ago, after finding she was no longer being interviewed for roles that she was highly qualified for, Jacqueline stopped waiting and built her own path instead. She started her own business.
Through Lone Wolf Media, she now has a portfolio of advisory and contract work across multiple organisations.
As part of this, she’s General Manager of Communications at ThinkTV (which helps businesses optimise their TV advertising). For them, she worked on a campaign around how audiences are valued, and she challenged a long-held industry norm.
This norm was that many media plans are written for 25- to 54-year-olds. Her point was that it doesn’t make sense to ignore people 55 and over.
The data was clear. People aged 55 and over make up around 23% of the population and hold close to 60% of the country’s wealth, yet they’re consistently overlooked.
She wrote about that in a LinkedIn post. As part of the post, she wrote: “This is me. The person media forgot. Why? Because I’m not 25 to 54. Out of range. Out of sight apparently.”
A Post That Struck a Nerve
This reflection on her own experience resonated far beyond the audience she expected in the New Zealand marketing community. Instead, it travelled far more widely, generating more than 180,000 views and significant engagement.
“I expected conversation. What I didn’t expect was confession.”
She was inundated with direct messages. Many described similar experiences. Others simply said they felt seen for the first time.
Think contracts not renewed, roles not offered, applications unanswered, redundancies that didn’t make sense. And the removal of opportunities like promotions or responsibilities within existing jobs.
The pattern was consistent, and it extended far beyond one sector or geography. “I had said what it feels like to be capable and invisible at the same time.” It’s a line that has since been echoed back to her by people across industries and countries, many of whom had struggled to explain the same shift in their own careers.
Lived Experience, Not Limitation
Jacqueline’s perspective is grounded in lived experience, but it is not defined by it.
With more than 30 years of experience in media and communications, she built a senior career while raising two children on her own. In her mid-40s, that trajectory was interrupted when she developed a severe form of osteoarthritis that progressively limited her mobility and ultimately required both knees to be replaced. She became the youngest person in New Zealand to undergo the procedure on the same day.
Jacqueline worked right up until the surgery and approached rehabilitation with a clear expectation of returning to work.
While recovering in hospital, she was dismissed from a senior role within a large organisation employing around 6,000 people – a role the chief executive had previously described as one of only three the company could not do without. Her manager arrived with flowers in one hand and a letter of disestablishment in the other.
“I was fully capable of returning to work. In fact, I was better than before, I had my mobility back.”
Jacqueline was shocked. Devastated. Angry.
Jacqueline returned to media in a senior role but a level down, hoping to lessen the risk of redundancy which was becoming more prevalent in big media roles. She was made redundant along with every other senior leader in her level at the same time as facing a major life event.
Her teenage son was the victim of a serious assault, and she stepped away from work to support his recovery.
The redundancy, although very disappointing, allowed her the space to care for her son.
“My focus was where it needed to be.”
The Sound of Silence
Jacqueline was out of the workforce for a year. When she was ready to return, the opportunities that had once been available were no longer open to her. The roles she was very well qualified for did not lead to interviews.
It felt like a quiet dismissal.
“I hadn’t lost my capability, wisdom or experience. The only difference was my age.”
“I’d gone from being highly visible to completely invisible.”
She felt she was the most valuable she’d ever been in her life, yet was considered past her use-by date based on society’s standards.
And she noticed a shift – that many people were having this experience.
Building a Movement
Jacqueline didn’t set out to build a movement, but she has: #58andUnapologetic.
In the past 11 months, she has written 95 LinkedIn posts on ageism – some aimed at employers and recruiters, others at people living through the experience themselves.
What has given the platform its force is not simply the number of posts, but the similarities in the responses. The stories arriving in her inbox aren’t isolated accounts. They point to something systemic. People being pushed aside because of their age, some as early as their 50s.
As she reflected on the responses coming in, a pattern became clearer. This gap between capabilities of people 50 and older – and employers’ perceptions of their capabilities – now sits at the centre of her work.
#58andUnapologetic is challenging one of the last acceptable forms of discrimination: ageism. “It’s giving a voice to hundreds of millions of capable, experienced people pushed aside by ageism.”
The movement has since extended beyond LinkedIn. Jacqueline has launched the podcast 58 & Unapologetic, where she continues the conversation in a longer form, including telling her own story. Guests have included Ashton Applewhite, author of This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism, one of the most recognised voices globally on the subject.
Assessing Ageism
Ageism rarely presents itself in overt or easily identifiable ways, Jacqueline says.
“It’s not something that could be easily pointed to or formally challenged. Instead, it reveals itself through outcomes, in who progresses and who does not, in the absence of opportunities, in the decisions that are made and those that are not, and in how value is assigned within organisations.”
“At a time when work is becoming more complex and decision-making carries greater consequence, the removal or pushing aside of experienced people raises important questions about how capability and worth are assessed.”
It’s important to both keep, and hire, people who have built their experience over decades.
There’s also a broader impact that is less often discussed. “Younger generations entering the workforce are missing access to people who can guide them, not only in technical skill, but in judgement, context and the ability to navigate complexity.”
What the data is telling us
The idea that capability at work declines sharply with age is not supported by what we now know.
Research by the International Monetary Fund shows that people are reaching their cognitive peak later in life, with older generations demonstrating stronger cognitive performance than those at the same age in previous decades.
One finding is particularly telling. A 70-year-old today has the same cognitive capacity as a 53-year-old did in 2000 . “That’s not a marginal shift. It’s close to a generation,” Jacqueline says.
And recent research found that humans’ cognitive ability is at its best between the ages of 55 to 60.
The study’s lead author, Dr Gilles Gignac, told The Times that “the mix of accumulated knowledge, judgment and life experience is what shifts the overall peak of human functioning into the late fifties”.
Jacqueline wrote about the cognitive peak in a LinkedIn post that got a lot of attention. “I talk to people about this cognitive peak all the time. It uplifts them – particularly women – partly because they feel it in themselves.”
And pushing people out at their cognitive peak is wasteful and counter-productive. “When we’re being aged out, we’re actually at our most valuable.”
Why throw away wisdom, skills, and experience? “Gen X is the most educated group in history. We’ve experienced everything from the analog age right through to AI. People worry we can’t ‘move with change’, when we’ve actually been through more change than any other generation.”
“We’re rock-star employees. The misconceptions that we’re difficult, we can’t learn, we’re stuck in our ways, we cost too much, it’s all rubbish. They’re all stigmas.”
Worse for Women?
Ageism affects both men and women, but it often presents differently.
For women, it can begin earlier and last longer. “Women can begin to feel this shift in their mid 40s.”
Jacqueline has written about this directly via a LinkedIn post. “If society can convince women that ageing is something to fear, it keeps us in our place. Compliant. Apologetic for taking up space.”
However, she also sees that changing. “We’re not stepping aside. We’re not going anywhere.”
Valuing Value
Through 58 & Unapologetic movement, people are realising that they’re not the problem – the system is. Reading Jacqueline’s posts, and the comments beneath them, people are recognising their own experiences – and recognising that it’s not just them going through it.
As the conversation continues to grow, so too does the core question it raises about recognising value. Value not just personally, but also economically.
Because the world is moving toward a significantly older population. By the mid-2030s, people aged 50 and over will make up a dominant share of the workforce across many advanced economies. Surely, people should be encouraged to stay in work to offset a growing imbalance between workers and retirees.
And if you reach your cognitive peak in your 50s, you’re likely very sharp at 65. “But unfortunately, ‘65 and out’ is still a belief system.” It’s often considered your “expiration date”, because people qualify for superannuation then. But many people don’t want to retire at 65 or can’t afford to.
The question is no longer whether the over-55 group matters to the workforce. “It is whether organisations are ready for what that actually means.”
“What are organisations losing by overlooking experience at the very moment it matters most?”
* Follow #58&Unapologetic on LinkedIn or Instagram. Listen to Jacqueline’s podcast 58 & Unapologetic here and visit 58andunapologetic.com to join the movement
*Look out for Part 2 soon, about the impacts of ageism on mental health and Part 3 on possible solutions to ageism. If you have a personal story to tell, please email hello@capsulenz.com!