Kate Smither, AKA The Tall Planner, has hit the diversity trifecta. In this powerful piece, she discusses her experience in adland over the years, and particularly of late. But while Smither’s own “FKDUP trifecta” has changed her life, there’s still plenty to come.
This is me, female over 50 and disabled.
A trifecta of diversity, admittedly it’s a fairly FKDUP trifecta, but life has become this trifecta now none the less.
It’s a combination of the invisible and visible that makes me vulnerable… not to mention more than a little bit worried about writing this. It’s taken a while…
I’ve been thinking about this since the theme of International Women’s Day came out: accelerating action. It got me thinking about all the things we don’t talk about, that as women we are deeply hesitant to talk about, in case we are seen as somehow less than superhuman. But from what I figure, being less than superhuman means being human and I am very ok with that. Trifecta and all.
As women we tend towards downplaying and defusing of everything from a compliment to an achievement. Not all women obviously, but certainly I do. As women we often tend to choose “not to” do something. Not to speak up, not to claim what is ours, not to act.
Not to be visible because visible is vulnerable.
And as much as I hate talking about personal things… For me right now, it is a choice of being invisible or being vulnerable. I’ve actually learned that both visible and invisible have different levels of uncomfortable vulnerability and both are equally exhausting. But in my case, I have three things that simply make me me now, affectionately I call it my FKDUP trifecta.
Kate Smither, Female, 50+, disabled.
Let’s go….
This Is Female
It seems the obvious place to start but even just owning “female” let alone “female in advertising” takes a certain something. Especially when you are the non-stereotype of female success. You haven’t done it whilst balancing kids or husbands.
Interestingly, coming back to OZ, more women than men ask me at events or on first meeting “Are you married?” Or “why aren’t you married?” And “what no kids? Why?” It is like they can’t comprehend a reality where those two things didn’t get overcome to have a career. I even once I got told how lucky I was not to have had children because it meant I’d go into menopause later than they would.
Not entirely sure what to do with any of that.
But I am aware that the competitive nature of women in the industry is far more aggressive in Sydney than in my experiences of Melbourne, London, New York, Paris or anywhere else I have travelled with work.
It’s probably deeply unpopular to say, but in my experience, women having the backs of other women in Sydney is sadly more the exception than the norm.
It’s probably also deeply unpopular or me being (once again in the words of Fleabag) a bad feminist, to say that my career was made in the large part by taking the chances and opportunities I was given, taking the chances given to me by men. I chose to take those chances and made them my own. I may have been the only woman in a meeting, but I was figuring out what I could learn from being in that meeting. Thankfully amazing leaders have backed me and made space for me to grow and follow my career path.
I mentor and talk to a lot of young women coming up in the industry and I always tell them much the same thing, that at some point they need to figure out what kind of “woman in advertising and female leader” they want to be. It sounds awful, but I don’t think figuring out how to use the system not rail against it, is a bad way to go. Early on I got told to never do the typical “female leader” things, not to make the tea or coffee in the meeting not to worry about how everyone is… I never really bought into that and to be honest I’m over 6ft tall and female and if making someone a cup of tea means they’d listen to what I had to say, then I didn’t really feel like I had compromised my principles at all.
This Is 50+
Katharine Hepburn famously said “I have no romantic feelings about age. Either you are interesting at any age, or you are not. There is nothing particularly interesting about being old-or being young for that matter.”
And at 51, I am going to choose to reframe age as experience and own all 51 of my interesting years. It is the experiences I have had throughout them that makes me love what I do. Applying them, being curious about them and now, with a whole new level of lived experiences every day I get to experience the world in a whole different way.
Age has never been a big thing for me… number that is offset by an outlook and an attitude. It is how you see yourself in your mind. I think my “in my mind” age stopped around my mid 30s and I still see the world as an adventure and find everything interesting.. There is a disconnect when I tick the bracket that says 50+ though. That feels way too grown up
Sadly, in our industry what you don’t see a lot of is women over 50 or women over 50 who happily own being over 50. I’m sure that there are some who are out there, but don’t, if you know what I mean.
I affectionately say I am too old and too female for advertising, I probably should stop saying that though, as it perpetuates a myth that I hope won’t be the case in the near future.
But as of today, advertising is still very much a young person’s game despite the fact that at 51 I have had around 27 years experience from all over the world. That should be worth something but as female and 51 it diminishes in relevance somehow.
I hope that if more of us in advertising are happy to own our age, we can create an industry that thinks skills and experience first and age (or gender) second.
But it will take a big reframing. A brilliant colleague told me recently, I am the solver of 150+ client problems in the last five years as The Tall Planner, so over 27 years of career it stands to reason that (give or take) I am the solver of around 800. So yes…age is a number, but it should be considered as an experience number. Not reflecting how many years you’ve lived for but how many experiences you’ve had.
This Is Disabled
Peggy Lee famously sang “is that all there is? If that’s all there is my friends, then let’s keep dancing” Oddly enough, that song has been in my head for over a week.
Since I was diagnosed with MS, I think I have found a new appreciation of stoicism.
MS to me is so fascinating. Not for all the quirks, pains, tests and symptoms, they are very unfun but for how it appears. Suddenly and with no apparent reason. It’s the gift that keeps on giving as it changes how it manifests daily.
I say about MS, there was nothing I did to deserve it, nothing I did to cause it and nothing I can do to make it go away. It’s MS, that’s all there is…. Peggy Lee would be proud.
In my case it took around 15 years of “it should be there but we can’t find it” to get to “after 2 bouts of optic neuritis and finding some spots (as I technically call them) on your spine, no doctor in the world would question me putting you on medication”. That was back in around 2017/2018. Technically I now had Remitting Relapsing MS. Practically nothing had changed, I felt no different. Apparently Remitting Relapsing is the nicer kind of MS, which makes me feel pretty horrible for anyone with the progressive kind, because if this is what it is and it’s remitting,… the progressive must be a total bitch.
Everything stayed boringly stable until 2023. Those who know me know 2023 as the year I rolled my ankle badly. a couple of times, The tip that something else was going on should have come when I had to get pulled out of a garden bed by a passer by and his King Charles spaniels. He was on the phone at the time and I’ll never forget him telling me, his mate said to say, “Don’t worry love, I’ve fallen into more garden beds than I can count”. Trouble was this was about 3pm in the afternoon and I was sober…my legs had just stopped working and I couldn’t stand up.
I learnt after many more scans, that was what a major relapse was and that’s what happened when new “spots” had developed on the base of your neck.
Until then I didn’t really think of myself as sick. Actually, I still don’t think of myself as sick I forget a lot that this is pretty hectic as a disease, and I can’t do all the things I used to do. For me, it falls into the “I’m not dead and lots of people have it worse” category.
New medication, which was a whole lot more intense, was dosed onto and then taken since the start of 2024. New medication that smashed me around a bit and made me physically weak and unable to walk further than the end of the driveway in the early days. It’s why I was a bit MIA in 2024. But learning to walk again and getting a handle on it was actually quite satisfying. I wasn’t being beaten.
I’ve gone from not being able to walk around the block to doing what I call blue truck days where I can walk a km and a bit to the blue truck in the rock garden…ironically the one I fell into and I can do that all without a walking stick or any kind of brace on my ankle. My genetic stubbornness is happy. That will change at some point, but for now…it is what it is.
Don’t get me wrong I can’t walk as far as I used to, or as well as I used to.
Steps with no railing, stools or chairs with no arms give me small shivers of dread but I can usually figure most of it out. Amazingly people don’t look confused when you go up stairs sideways. The things you learn. You don’t realise how steep Sydney is and how unfriendly things like the public transport is until your balance and mobility is slightly compromised. And if figuring it out is my reality, I guess I’m lucky, there are many who are stuck with no option whereas I play a very determined mental game which often includes me telling my feet they’re ok. Basically, I am the same as I always was, doing the things I always did, working, seeing friends and family, laughing as much as possible, just walking like an idiot, I think I can say that given it is self-referential.
The MS is also back in its remitting stage, and I plan to stay there walking like an idiot for as long as I can.
I have made the decision to not care if I end up the size of Pavarotti and hobbling or rocking a walking stick if that means nothing has progressed in MS terms then I am more than all good.
One of my all-time heroes Chrissie Amphlett had MS and she spoke it and her diagnosis in many interviews, one to channel 9 just before she went on tour….
“It is not a death sentence… I have learnt a lot about the illness,” she said.
Amphlett (was) about to go on tour with The Divinyls and said she wasn’t daunted.
“I’m looking forward to having something to do and to sing…. it’s been good for me this MS… it has focused me.”
So that is what it is, something that will hopefully make me more focussed and stronger and that I will die with, not die from. I might just stick with brand strategy, the focus is excellent for that, not sure the world is ready for The Tall Planner rock’n’roll tour just yet.
