This is not a ‘then do this!’ post. This is more about, well, aging, death, society and the patriarchy. You know, the fun stuff. I’ll try to dissect the why, the interrelations between youth and beauty, and what that does to us.
Why do we want to look younger?
Western culture is obsessed with youth, and the look of youth in women. (I’ll only write about women and youthfulness in this post. It’s a whole other issue with men.) You’ll read the reason for this stems in biology. Younger women can bear children and fulfill a biological mandate to support the species, thus making the look of youthfulness more attractive for men.
There’re more facets here than I can explore. But in today’s society, the insistence that youth equals beauty has some sinister undertones, especially in the light of #metoo. Are younger women more attractive to men because they’re easier to keep in line?
Youth has the markers we deem as beautiful: that glow. The even skin. The shiny hair.
I’ve long ranted against the assumption that women want and have to be beautiful. (Why is that even important, and why can’t you be intelligent, funny, or kind instead?!) Just think for a second what it does to women to be hold to an absolutely impossible standard: youthfulness. We can’t (most of us can’t, but more about that below) hold back time, but are told again and again that society doesn’t value us when we age.
Youth and beauty give you incredible privileges. Beautiful women are perceived as better: from Greek philosophy we inherited the belief that beauty equals goodness. If you’re perceived as beautiful, you’ll earn more, get more tips, are perceived as more intelligent.
So, no wonder we want to be perceived as young when youth equals beauty, isn’t it?
That glow and charisma – how do I want to look?
I started to ask my friends if they wanted to look younger, and I can tell you, in some way or the other, everyone over 40 does. They’d maybe word it differently: ‘I want to look healthy!’ ‘I want to have that glow’ or ‘I want to look like I look after myself’.
Buuuuuuut… isn’t that just code for – young? Healthy-looking, blemish or melasma-free skin, glowy, groomed: that does read as young, doesn’t it? It is, in fact, what we think as beautiful: I read recently that wrinkles, actually, aren’t that much of an age signifier: that’s uneven skin. Age spots, scars, hyperpigmentation – while we can argue wrinkles away as smile lines, those are harder to overlook. Coincidentally, there’re absolute millions of cosmetic treatments out there for that. (And I’ve written about a lot of them.)
Health, Martha Stewart and being myself
Asked again, my friends would very often offer one variation of the adage ‘well, what’s the alternative to aging, eh?’ Or, would even claim that looking youthful means staving of decay and cheating death for a while longer.
But here’s the thing: the alternative to aging is not death. The alternative is somehow beating the progression of time. We’re talking about visible aging here, and we are all for growing older, until we really suffer the consequences: I’d propose that society absolutely has a place for aging women, as long as they’re able-bodied, white, thin, and adhering to all those beauty ideals. Sure, Martha Stewart gets a Sports Illustrated cover, but isn’t the joke on us because she doesn’t look her age? And isn’t that, somehow, even worse, because sure, you’ll be perceived as attractive at 70, but only if you manage the inhuman feat of trumping time? Helen Mirren, Cate Blanchett, Tilda Swinton, Emma Thompson, Jennifer Aniston – what role models. Here’s the punch line, though – they’re not allowed to age.
They all have that full hair, great teeth and girlish figure that are so very hard to maintain especially if you’re suffering from health issues DUE TO AGE. Picture a woman with insoles because she has arthritic knees, scars because she had moles removed (a skin cancer scare), with a tummy because she’s premenopausal and thinning hair (ditto). Is she still adhering to those parameters of beauty? Or – should she do more? Much more, to do something against that?
I’m wondering about this quote from M. Stewart herself: ‘I want to still look like myself, and that’s because I had some procedures’ (not quoted verbatim). I totally get it: when I look into the mirror, it’s a shock that not the twentysomething I feel like I still am in a lot of ways looks back at me. But should I chase her, nevertheless how much I changed mentally? (I mean, look at this baby in the cover picture above, barely 20 and not knowing a thing!)
The celebrity trap
Talking about celebrities: no matter if they’re actors, singers, models, princes and princesses – we want to be like them. We want to look like them. Always we wanted to look like them, no matter how: We want the white skin when it’s a signifier for not having to work and stay inside. We want the tan when it’s a signifier for taking holidays at exotic locations: we follow trends. And trends are unfailingly exported all over the world. Kim Kardashian’s butt became the epitome of beauty, and the industry followed: butt-lifting trousers, creams, and actual butt-lifts.
And all of that cost money, whether its teeth-whitening, hair-straightening or Botox. Whatever is perceived as luxury, we want it: and if you can’t keep up, you’re not ugly, you’re just poor! (Don’t forget that both ‘ugly’ and ‘poor’ come with their own flavour of morality and judgement: EVERYBODY can lift themselves up through hard work, don’t they?!)
And even if you can keep up (to a degree), the goal is always just out of reach. In an internet forum, I once chatted about ‘beauty splurges’, and one of the replies was ‘a nutrition coach, a gym membership, biannual Botox, lash extensions, monthly facials, and professional micro needling’.
But even she can’t compete with the real flex: the digital cosmetics, the step up from simple photoshop that utilizes AI to give celebrities the look they want when they’re on a screen. (Example: It was – allegedly – used for Jennifer Aniston for The Morning Show. In. Every. Shot. There’s software that makes her look – younger.)
And don’t tell me that my internet friend, who numbered her ‘splurges’, did all that just for fun. No matter that she could pay for that (good for her!), but did she all of that ‘for herself’? As ‘selfcare’? There’s such a thin line between selfcare and self-optimization, and everyone who was ever trapped in that hamster wheel of ‘younger! Thinner! Better!’ knows how quickly you’re sliding down a very slippery slope into compulsive behaviour.
The wisdom of crones
How to get out of the hamster wheel, then?
There’re women who cherish visibly getting older, claiming it gives them more freedom: less unwanted attention, more money and more time for other pursuits. (Do I want to add up both money and time I’ve spent on beauty products over the years?! Emphatically not.) I recently read an article about society not paying heed to the wisdom of older women and the first thought popping into my head was ‘what, now I have to be wise, too?!’
There doesn’t seem to be room for nuance. You’re either a wise crone who just uses Nivea every day and are above it all, or you’re the one with the micro-needling and personal trainer and Botox, great to look at, but seriously lacking in the wisdom department.
You know who doesn’t experience that artificial dichotomy? Men. Men just – grow old.
The game is always rigged against you, in a society that allocates you less worth and visibility and importance because you’re just growing old. No matter how free you feel, no matter how much you understand this, or fight against it – you’ll always lose.
Or seem to lose.
Who knows.
You’ll know.
