I'd really like to show women my age - who've had children grow up or lost husbands or retired after working all their lives - that there are options. There are choices. We don't have to just sit around and be invisible.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I like to describe myself as a proudly visible member of the most invisible segments of our society - older women.
We live in one of the most complex ages for young, professional women.
I want to do roles that take women a step farther. I don't want to be slotted into anything. But if I get a brilliant role which requires me to be a mother, then I will do it. But I want people to see that a woman could be anything at whatever age, even if she is married or has two kids.
When I retired, I was at an in-between age. I wasn't a child anymore, I wasn't really a woman yet, and they weren't really writing scripts for that age.
Some women say as they get older they're no longer noticed: they disappear. Men, for instance, don't see them. Nobody wants them. That doesn't happen to me because of who I am. Not because I'm any more scintillating company, but because I'm Ruth Rendell.
Market research shows that older women like seeing older women in ads, and that younger women do, too - because they see them and are not frightened of growing older.
In my business, guys may age, but it's not even a question they're valued. But women my age are supposed to disappear.
I hope to find the roles that are age appropriate but not yearning to be younger, or parenting ad nauseam.
I've noticed women my age and a little younger, anywhere from 35 to 50, saying, 'Who would want to bring kids into a world like this?' Or, 'I don't want to spend my life that way. I want to do my artwork.' And they're very unapologetically stating this.
There's a terrible truth for many women in the picture business: Aging typically takes its toll and means fewer and less desirable roles.