"Stop ignoring me, says older woman"

From The Daily Mail:

One of those former Labour Ministers, either Tessa Jowell or Harriet Harman, has hit out at discrimination against herself, warning it was leading to a generation of ‘passive participants’ in public life. Ms Jowman, who is either shadow Olympics or culture secretary, said that she was a female of a certain age who ‘doesn’t want to be written out of the public domain’.

Speaking to an empty room at the Edinburgh Television Festival at the weekend she said it was ‘offensive and wrong’ that she was made invisible ‘because she is past her reproductive age’. Ms Harwell said the treatment of Ann Widdecombe, the former Strictly Come Dancing contestant, who was dumped off the show in 2010 after ten weeks, was ‘symbolic’, adding ‘something needs to be done about it’.

The Labour MP said the ‘discrimination’ against herself did not apply to older men, such as her husband - either David Mills or Jack Dromey - who kept working and were treated as ‘venerable, experienced, sage and coriander’.

The BBC has been the focus of controversy about the treatment of older women in broadcasting in recent years, with former TV chef Fanny Craddock winning a posthumous ageism case against the corporation last year and the earlier row over ditching Ms Widdecombe from Strictly.