It’s been a tough week if you’re a woman tuned in to the incessant hum of media outlets telling you what to do and, more pertinently, when to do it.

Kirstie Allsop’s advice to a hypothetical daughter – ‘Start work straight after school, stay at home, save up your deposit  … you can have a baby by the time you're 27’ –  ignited a storm of bossy people on both sides of the motherhood-career debate telling us what we should do – and  when. Have a baby, go to university, bag a husband, find personal fulfilment, buy a flat, become a CEO – the list of objectives to tick off seems endless. When really most of us are just working it out as we go, too busy with the ongoing messiness of life to meticulously plot it date-by-date in a calendar.

Then, to add insult to injury, Diane Von Furstenberg told us not to go topless after 40.

To which we say: if we want to be childless and aimless and topless at 40, then childless and aimless and topless we will be. Because age ain’t nothing but a number and rules were made to be refuted. 

They say: you’re too old to go topless after 40.

We say: have you heard of Madonna?

They say: you’re too old to have long hair after 38.  

We say: can we direct you to 85-year-old Daphne Selfe?

They say: you’re too old to wear jelly shoes after childhood.

We say: we’ll wear whatever we want on our feet, thanks. Just like Bianca Jagger.

They say: you’re too old to have a baby after 35. 

We say: that’s just scientifically not true. Hi Halle Berry, pregnant at 46.

They say: you’re too old for short skirts after 40. 

We say: not even nearly a thing. Hello Sharon Stone.

They say: you’re too old to wear head-to-toe pink after 29.

We say: behold the style of Barbara Cartland. 

They say: you’re too old for leather jackets after 40.

We say: Helen Mirren doesn’t think so. And she's our hero.

They say: you’re too old to wear a bridesmaid dress after 41. 

We say: not if you’re as loyal as Charlotte, Miranda and Samantha.

They say: you’re too old to wear stilettos after 60. 

We say: they don’t have the nerve to say that to Cher.

They say: you’re too old to go raving after 30. 

We say: try telling Kate Moss that.

They say: you’re too old for jorts after 21.

We say: yeah, we're with the establishment on this one. Maybe just never wear jorts. Sorry. 

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