Beyond the Maiden: Reclaiming the Power of Womanhood at Every Age

Society has long been obsessed with the maiden. From the moment a girl blossoms into adolescence, the world begins to celebrate her. She is youth, beauty, possibility. The spotlight lingers on her from about 14 to 29—those years where she is deemed most desirable, most fertile, most valuable.

But what happens when the clock ticks past 30?

Suddenly, the language changes. At 35, you’re told you’re a geriatric mother. I know—I laughed in the face of that term when it was used about me at 37. The idea that somehow, a woman becomes “high risk” the moment she steps into the second half of her thirties is not just outdated—it’s damaging.

If you’re in your 30s, trying to conceive and not yet pregnant, the narrative tightens like a noose: Your eggs are poor. Your AMH is low. Your time is running out. The pressure is suffocating. And for what? Because someone, somewhere, decided that the only valuable thing a woman can do is reproduce quickly and early?

Then, when you reach menopause—another powerful threshold—you’re cast aside entirely. Society doesn’t know what to do with the menopausal woman. She becomes invisible. Unwanted. Deemed of little use. But this couldn’t be further from the truth.

Because here’s the real story: the woman who has walked through fire—through heartache, healing, joy, loss, and growth—is the woman who now holds the most wisdom. She is the most dangerous to a system that benefits from her staying small. And she is also the most powerful, because she no longer seeks permission.

It is time we stopped clinging so desperately to the maiden archetype—injecting our lips, lifting our breasts, hiding our wrinkles as though ageing were a failure. It’s not. It’s a becoming.

Women are conceiving well into their 40s. The highest rate of unassisted conception in the UK right now? Women over 40. Why? Because they’ve been told they can’t. And then they do.

My grandmother birthed my father at 47—and he turns 90 this year. That was almost a century ago, without supplements or Instagram gurus or fertility tracking apps.

So yes, you can do it. But here’s the part no one tells you: you must clear what needs clearing—in your mind, in your body, in the beliefs you’ve inherited about ageing and worth. You must reject the narrative that says you’re too old, too late, too far gone.

Because the evidence? The evidence says otherwise.

You are not running out of time. You are stepping into your time.

So open your mind. Peel back the narrative. And choose to believe, perhaps for the first time, that your power is not behind you.

It’s now.

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