A (psychology) love letter to… Sue Perkins

I enjoyed reading the love letter to Taylor Swift in this month's Psychologist magazine, but I have to admit it really didn't mean much to me. I can sing along to some of Swift's songs and I enjoy them, but unlike the author, I really have no significant connection to her, I can't relate in the same way. The soundtrack to my youth was Blur and Oasis, Madonna and Kylie were making a resurgence, and Mr Brightside was fast becoming the new last dance at every disco. This disconnection seems to be an age thing. After all, Swift is only 33 years old: she's talking to a place in time that I passed through before she crafted the lyrics that would have helped me process it.

This got me thinking. At my mid-life, who do I admire? Whose psychology can I connect to and to whom would I write my love letter?

The answer – Sue Perkins.

The reason – perhaps it's worth hearing a brief flash of a story of what it is like to be a middle-aged woman. I recently went to buy some sunglasses. I was salivating over some gaudy Oakleys when a shop assistant in her mid-20s kindly steered me towards some extremely tasteful tortoiseshell Ray Bans, the kind that Jackie Onassis might have worn. A complete assumption that my time of life is for being tasteful and elegant when I went in looking for something just a bit livelier and more interesting, something that would stand out.

According to research, at this mid-point in my working life, I am dangling on the precipice of being 'past it', seen as cold and unfeeling (Chatman et al., 2022), and heading into increased obsolescence as I face into the looming chasm of perimenopause, deepening gender and age discrimination, brain fog and hot flushes. I am looking ahead to the darkest period of my life – late forties to early fifties is apparently universally when people are most miserable (Graham & Ruiz Pozuelo, 2017). What have I got to look forward to?

Enter Sue Perkins and her recent Netflix show: Perfectly Legal. She blows the lid open on middle age, menopause, sexuality, childbearing, neurodiversity, self-acceptance and designer tan lines. Travelling around South America, she explores the concept of having fun from multiple lenses, trying to learn what she can from unfamiliar cultures to challenge her outlook and decisions. Her comedic brilliance is on display as she completely annoys the hell out of her security consultant, accusing him of sucking all the fun out of going into a gang controlled Favella in Rio de Janeiro with his safety briefing on how to respond to gunshots. My favourite section is where she heads into said Favella and delivers her own rap song about her untamed lady parts (note: much ruder in the show…) to a crowd of hundreds of super cool revellers, a key feminist antidote to the rapper before her who focused unrelentingly on men's genitalia.

This is feminism. This is representation. This is mid-life women, this is newly discovered neurodiversities that went undiagnosed in a male world for so long and the confidence that understanding brings. Fed up with being trapped in a societal box and taking the fact that we have little to lose now to break out of said box and declare to the world that we're here, and we're fabulous, and we're worth noticing.

I flag that we're worth noticing, because the experience of so many women is that we fade into the background as we age (King, 2012). No longer worthy of attention within ourselves now that the sun is setting on our childbearing years. Unless, that is, we can stay younger through surgery, botox or lies… We all need to aim to be a GLOW (Good Looking Older Woman) or a MILF (Google it… or maybe not…), the wisdom and weight of our experiences is woefully undervalued when pitted against the weight of the male gaze. I am reminded of the famous quotation from The Importance of Being Ernest: "Thirty-five is a very attractive age. London society is full of women of the very highest birth who have, of their own free choice, remained thirty-five for years."

Sue is a beacon, throwing off the traditional shackles of prioritising the glare of celebrity over good sense and personal, one may even say agentic, choices. She describes herself on X / Twitter as: 'mutton dressed as mutton', I would add – she's not dressing as 'mutton' as traditionally boxed by society, but by what she wants to wear and how she wants to present herself. She's redefining 'mutton'. She is undeniably herself, and I love her for it.

Sue is a few years older than me. When I was at university, Mel and Sue presented Light Lunch on Channel 4 which we students watched as religiously as we tuned into classics like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Friends. Mel and Sue were both silly and irreverent, hilarious and with very handy meal tips, which, frankly, we students sorely needed. In my thirties, I have fond memories cosying up with my young family to enjoy some wholesome viewing of the Great British Bake Off, which has never been the same since they left. And now on Taskmaster, currently the best series ever IMO, largely because we get to see unfettered the crazy, brilliance and creativity of Sue let loose on the bonkers tasks that are presented to them (head tossing anyone?).

What Sue is doing for middle-aged women is much needed. We aren't necessarily the sensible, tasteful, jealous and cold clichés Hollywood movies and traditional fairy tales paint us, or at least we don't have to be if we don't want to. Some of us still have just as much craziness in us as when we were twenty. For sure we have less time and energy, but more money and a lot more life experience to draw upon. To paraphrase and even update the classic Scissor Sisters lyrics: Take Your Mama out all night… but let her show you what it's all about… and for goodness' sake, don't buy the cheap champagne, we want to drink the decent stuff.

I bought the Oakleys.

Dani Harris

HCPC Registered Occupational Psychologist

References

Chatman, J. A., Sharps, D., Mishra, S., Kray, L. J., & North, M. S. (2022). Agentic but not warm: Age-gender interactions and the consequences of stereotype incongruity perceptions for middle-aged professional women. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 173, 104190.

Graham, C., & Ruiz Pozuelo, J. (2017). Happiness, stress, and age: How the U curve varies across people and places. Journal of Population Economics, 30, 225-264.

King, J. (2012). Discourses of ageing in fiction and feminism: The invisible woman. Springer.

Editor's note

I received some interesting reactions to the original Taylor Swift love letter. Many people loved it; one commented along the lines of 'given the issues facing the world and psychologists, this is what The Psychologist is publishing?'

My answer is an unapologetic yes, that this gets to the heart of what we do as a magazine. It's about variety, and content that will engage as well as inform. So absolutely I do think there's room for some fun, grounded in serious science, alongside the more professional and societal topics we cover. 

When I mentioned this to Dani, she responded beautifully, that we are 'building a community, and community is more multi-faceted and inclusive than a cold, rational science journal'… and that, as a community, 'shared observations and humour are key to building sustainable bonds'.

So I would love to receive more of your psychologically-informed letters of appreciation, to public figures or others in your life. I'm always on the end of an email, at [email protected].