Ageism Doesn't Wait for Gray Hair: A Conversation with Jay Turber

Ageism doesn't start in the workplace, it starts long before that. In this webinar, brewing industry professional Jay Turber shares her personal journey confronting age-based bias, from the family remarks that first taught her to "shrink myself because of my age," to the two-year fight to break into an industry that wasn't built for someone who looks like her.

Jay recalls walking into breweries to drop off her resume, watching women her age turn around and leave because "the staff behind the bar were all young, thin, and dressed in short shorts." As she puts it: "I have gray hair — I'm not changing that for anyone. And I'm definitely not wearing daisy dukes but, I will work circles around anyone in that building."

She'll also pull back the curtain on how hiring itself can quietly discriminate by age, pointing out that application fields asking for a "graduation year or certificate completion date... aren't about qualifications, they're about quietly filtering out older applicants."

Despite earning her Level 1 Cicerone Beer Server certification and volunteering to prove her work ethic, Jay faced "two years of rejection." But she didn't back down and today she has, in her own words, "a huge group of regulars — including a lot of younger men — who come specifically to see me." As one brewery owner admitted to her: "I'm so surprised that you are the one with the biggest fan club. I mean, it's great, but I never would've guessed it."

Jay is sharing her story because, as she says, "ageism is real, it's subtle, and it affects more women than we realize. I want others to know they're not imagining it and they're not alone."

Join us to hear Jay's full story, and her favorite reminder for anyone facing the same assumptions: "I've never been this age, and I didn't know there was a rule book. But, I never was one to follow rules society put in place for women, why start now?"