Terrific article in The Guardian yesterday (7th April) by Kira Cochrane who asked the question "Why do women in the public eye feel they cannot age?" and charts the slow but constant growth of 'ageless women' (that is women who seem to stay weirdly wrinkle free from 35 onwards forever) in the media and public life. It's a subject we've discussed a couple of times before here.
The big bad wolf for Cochrane is not just cosmetic surgery, which we get the feeling is going out of fashion as too crude and homogeneous in its out come, or the many expensive plumping chemicals you can inject into the face, such as the wrinkle filler Juvederm, (hyaluronic acid), Restylane Vital (hyaluronic acid) and Botox (botulinum toxin). It is the underlying insecurity that women in the media feel that makes them resort to these 'quick fix' shots to stay relevant that Cochrane exposes as disturbing.
Our favourite paragraph from the article involves a quote by Susie Orbach, the feminist writer, who highlights what we at The Women's Room have been banging on about for so long. She says that not so long ago, women over a certain age were simply supposed to disappear, something this current generation of feisty, educated, financially secure women are very unlikely to want to do. "Thirty years ago" she states "a women of my age (she's 62) wasn't really in public space or contributing- you were terribly exceptional if that happened". Cochrane concludes that us older women are therefore "in the earliest stages, historically, of negotiating how to stay in the public eye."
We at The Women's Room would extend that feeling and say that we are at the early stages of reinventing what it is to be women of forty plus in today's world in all aspects of life, from movie stars to mothers, great workers to wives. We are making up the rules on how a new generation behaves and looks ladies, and do we really want to be slaves to any more procedures? Frankly it's all we can cope with waxing/dying/filing/painting and exercising.
Read Kira Cochrane's full article here age shall not wither them and then send us your thoughts.
PS We are blogging from a foreign beach this week and holiday newspapers have changed, we're getting a fabulous version of all our UK favourites here which we almost prefer to the normal version. The Guardian comes A3 size, with a bound spine on recycled paper and large text (good for older eyes). Fab.
