Harriet Harman has written to broadcasters, asking that more older women be employed to fight against the ‘combination of ageism and sexism’ which she says currently takes place.
Speaking on Sky News's Murnaghan programme, Harman said: "It's just a bit of an old fashioned attitude and there's a whole new generation of older women who don't fancy the idea that they are written off and regarded as past it because they are past 60.
"There's quite an angry movement out there, we've got a Commission on Older Women and actually the economy loses out, public life loses out, as well as it being unfair and discriminatory."
She suggested, as chair of the Commission on Older Women's work, that changes need to be made.
Harman added that she thought the idea of Page 3 girls in The Sun newspaper was ‘ludicrously old fashioned’.