If it wasn’t for Tosca Reno’s illuminating column back when I worked for Oxygen magazine, I would’ve never found out that it was not appropriate to wear a short skirt past the age of 35. Wearing a short skirt was deemed especially bad if your ass was sagging (due to lack of exercise, you loser worm) or whatever other, terrible old-person thing has befallen you.
Myself, at that time, I was still a few years away from disappearing into the sure oblivion of my 30s senior years; I was in my 20s, copy-editing that kind of magazine wisdom for living, my first glamorous job out of university. I worshipped magazines, loved the feel of their slick pages, the aspirational content, glamour, the haunted (and haunting) beauty of fashion models, the quizzes, advice, celebrity stuff, the ads, the perfume, the luxury of it all. I grew up in a communist regime and the arrival of glossies was one of the first signs that times were changing; they signalled that things could be better, that the world was prettier, that I could be better and prettier too (if I read them).
As it’s been noted many times already, forever and to death, magazines have a dark side, having made millions of women feel insecure about not just their bodies but also their relationships, their habits, their parenting, their careers, their homes and so on—everything that a woman could judge herself (or other women) for. The same glossy pages that elevate you, can just as easily bring you down, all the way down to depression, anxiety and all kinds of insecurities. Magazines are hugely responsible for eating disorders—they’re definitely responsible for mine as it was an article in a magazine I read at 14 that told me I could throw up my dinner or not eat dinner at all to make sure I didn’t offend the world with my developing body. I grew up a beautiful child but now that we had magazines I became aware of the fact that I could become a monstrosity if I didn’t make sure my thighs and thoughts aligned with the beauty canon.
I still fell in love with magazines, and I wanted to work for them so I worked for them and copy-edited absurd articles where over-exercised columnists were happy to tell other women what was wrong with them, whether it was their age, their eating habits, their body or who knows what else. I don’t remember what else but everything. (Since that time, Tosca Reno has reinvented herself; she’s been a healthy-eating guru for the past 15+ years. She’d probably be quite upset were someone to dig out a couple of the gems from the past where she’d frequently shame her own formerly curvy self and curvy selves of other women. But the early 2000s were wild, wild years where that kind of content was normal and where we, the minions of media, were too scared or too oblivious to say that it was not normal. I mean, you had to be there.)
While I think we’ve become a lot nicer about what our bodies supposed to look like (like whatever your body actually looks like, basically) and it’s good to see this reflected in representations in media and advertising, age is still something we feel shame about. We do. I know we’re trying to embrace older women by, for example, embracing the graying hair (silver hair is a whole movement—yes because we need a fucking movement to normalize something that’s natural, sigh), and we like to praise older actresses taking on sexy roles (but then again, why is it so hilarious that Ryan Reynolds talking about Betty White being his celebrity crush is indeed hilarious?), and we constantly tell ourselves—and the world—that age is nothing but a number… but is it? Is it?! The last time I tried to sign up for an online fitness app, I had to check the second-last age box category, which was 36-44, meaning that 45+ up is the final category, as in… you die? (What’s up, numbers?)
Anyway. Point is, we all still feel guilty about getting older. We still look—okay fine, I still look—at clothes as whether they’re age-appropriate or not. My love for Adidas is a bit of a fuck-you to the label’s youth-celebrating culture; this year at the advance age of 44, I bought a one-piece body suit and I’ve been boldly rocking it. (But why do I even need to mention it or say “boldly?” Because I’m programmed to feel ashamed for being 44.)
The truth is, even when we mean well, we all use the passive-aggressive (to me) “you don’t look your age” compliments when talking to women. And with Botox and fillers no longer relegated to celebs, getting older (and looking it) is now more-less confirmed as unacceptable if you’re a woman (a man too, but let’s face it, Gerri in Succession is considered “a million years old” by Logan Roy who himself is at least 20 years Gerri’s senior)(I know they’re not real people but they represent real attitudes quite well which is why the show is so relatable even though none of us are billionaires).
The other day, I glimpsed an ad on Instagram. I genuinely gasped. I thought it was one of the meme accounts I follow or some National Geographic/ nature account. On closer inspection, I realized that it was a lingerie ad. The model was older and possibly not youthanized by plastic surgery. I saved the picture. I checked out the retailer. And I suddenly channelled Tosca Reno and scolded that woman in my mind for daring to show an ass that wasn’t perfectly bouncy and round. I was shaken up by having my youth-poisoned tastes so challenged. But also, I was also in awe of the ad people *daring to make something quite beautiful—and normal!—acceptable and definitely not inappropriate.
But also, I was embarrassed that I gasped.
*I mindlessly typed “daring” and debated taking it out, but I think this nicely encapsulates the issue here too.