"The invisible woman might be the actor no longer offered roles after her  40th birthday, the 50-year-old woman who can’t land a job interview, or  the widow who finds her dinner invitations declining with the absence  of her husband. She is the woman who finds that she is no longer the  object of the male gaze—youth faded, childbearing years behind her,  social value diminished. Referring to her anticipated disappearance on  her upcoming 50th birthday, the writer Ayelet Waldman said to an interviewer, “I have a big personality, and I have a certain  level of professional competence, and I’m used to being taken seriously  professionally. And suddenly, it’s like I just vanished from the room.  And I have to yell so much louder to be seen. … I just want to walk down  the street and have someone notice that I exist.”