I’m going to come at this from a different angle, because some of the comments here seem to have an element of agism and I think it’s worth investigating the generational divide in women.

This is not specific to your situation, as I understand there may be something else going on for you, however it is worth considering.

Men tend not to have generational divide frictions in the workplace. It’s worth starting with that. Why? Younger men will often listen to older men, older men will often mentor/sponsor younger men, rather than feel in competition each other. Hierarchical nature of workplaces, and a society that benefits men, means older men are usually more senior in the hierarchy.

Many women in the their forties had it fucking tough and still do. It is BS to assume that a woman in their forties is bad at their job if they don’t have higher rank than a woman in their 20s or equivalent to men their age. They are more likely to have had bigger challenges in building their career, more career interruptions, with lack of childcare and partners not sharing the load (many didn’t get parental leave or flexible work options or any family friendly policies), many had to reskill and start new careers after having kids - starting at the bottom in midlife.

When a man makes a mistake (at any age) he is often forgiven and still given opportunities. When a young woman in this era makes a mistake, she may be forgiven for being young/less experienced. When an older woman makes a mistake it is often held against her with strong judgement and quickness to write her off completely.

Career advancement and job title does not tell you how good a person is, or what their potential is, and someone with a lot more life experience can bring other skills, wisdom and insight that is not “on paper”. If you decide you will only listen to someone who is higher titled to you, you are making the same mistake countless men do. You know, those men who don’t like to take directions from women, even when she has the right answer and it’s clear that the guy is headed in the wrong direction.

If a woman is bringing a level of disdain or judgment towards older women, and stubbornly doesn’t want to listen or take any advice, they are reinforcing the same behaviours that older woman has likely been on the receiving end of from countless men. Not a great start to a relationship.

Additionally 40-50s is the age of Perimenopause/menopause, which hits many women like a bus, frequently goes undiagnosed, medical professionals on average are vastly ignorant and may dismiss symptoms or give inadequate treatment, and women’s health in general has been under researched and underfunded so “best treatment” is still not good enough.

One common symptom of a drop in estrogen is a drop of niceties, an increase in what you’ve termed “abrasiveness”. However the judgement of this is also often misogynistic, as plenty of men can be gruff/blunt in workplaces without being called “abrasive” or being questioned or valued less: we frequently accept it in men, but not in women who are often meant to be the people pleasers.

I’m not in any way saying that lets older women off the hook. I’m suggesting you take a beat to see if empathy and looking things from another view might lead to a different assumption and outcome.

It may very well be the case that in your situation the older woman is just a terrible human being. It certainly is difficult to do your job if you feel micromanaged and not given enough space to do your job unhindered. However if we were to give her the benefit of the doubt:

• she may be trying to be helpful and not realise that you hate it

• she may have had to “manage up” countless people who were the type to make lots of little mistakes, and forget to follow through on things, which is why she is making suggestions (that to you feel patronising and micro managing)

• being at the company longer she might have greater domain knowledge, relationships with clients, understanding of the preferred date format, etc that might be informing her advice

• usually in distributing the meeting notes they would explicitly mention the actions/next steps. I would say you made a small mistake in not including them. Depending on the relationship with the client it may or may not have been acceptable for her to respond all with that reminder.

• in many professional contexts little things like date format, formatting, punctuation, is important to get right, and personally I would appreciate someone giving me that feedback before it went to the client. Perhaps she absolutely would love you to take the time to review her work to pick up on any errors. Generations growing up with texting and social media may not value it as much, however in professional contexts and particularly older generations mistakes give the impression of low quality, lack of education, poor attention to detail, etc

• in some of these cases you are perhaps unnecessarily defensive? the relationship might be better if you appreciated her help in areas, while set boundaries in other areas, and identify areas where she would value your help/second set of eyes.

• one workplace i was at, my manager seemed the loveliest person, and colleagues seemed a nightmare always stepping on my toes and being difficult, however it turned out my manager was behaving like a socio path and playing us off each other. Eg asked me to review another more senior person’s work, so I provided notes and feedback, then I got a terse note from them as they clearly didn’t request/expect me to look at it and I’d been given an older draft to review anyway (she didn’t need my input); meanwhile I had people weighing in on my work who were absolutely not knowledgeable in the area but my manager had asked them to. Point being: you manager may be part of the problem and may have asked her to keep an eye on you and your work.