Are you a rich and famous female superstar in your fourties and fifties and as visible as the stars over the Atacama Desert? Think Jen Aniston, J Lo, Halle Berry, Viola Davis, Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, Anne Hathaway, Angelina Jolie and so forth? You know, those women who have reached an age and stage in life where their fame is global and nothing about them is invisible, at least not to the outside world.
These are women who are not plaqued by feeling less than or unseen. They are intelligent, beautiful, talented, successful, loved, followed, revered. They have worked hard to become who they are, they have reached that stage in their lives, both personally and professionally where the assumption is that they are nothing but confident and content in who they are.
You would think that, right? Huh, maybe not so much. I just read an article with Anne Hathaway, who has been famous for longer than not and yet, at the age of fourty she has had to take stock of who she is, where she's going and what she's all about because she, who is no different than any other aging woman in our pressure cooker of a society, was wondering if she would just fade into the woodwork, as so many of us have wondered. This woman, who seemingly has it all is as vulnerable as the rest of us, if not more so as she is constantly scrutinized by the media and the public.
The ideals of feminine beauty exist in every culture. In North America our ideals seem to be grounded in youth. News Flash, we age. Somewhere along the way the signs of growing older start to creep in. The inevitable greying hairs, deepening wrinkles, waddling waddles and burgeouning bellies begin to sneak up on us and some days it seems the only thing thinning is our lips and our patience.
I mean, it's going to happen to all of us who have made it thus far but, can you imagine being a TV and Screen Star whose every detail is analyzed, inspected and dissected under the HD microscope? Is that cellulite on her thighs? Oh my, I think that's a moustache? Oooo, looks like a crepey cheek and saggy jowl is making an appearance and check out the nose hairs, yikes! I'm making fun but seriously, HD makeup was invented because old school makeup just didn't cover it anymore, literally!
Now, as a not famous woman in her early sixties I can absolutely konnect to this, well, not the HD part but all the rest. The years between fourty and fifty-ish had me feeling like I belonged to the "Fookawe Tribe." You know, that tribe of women who get to that part of life and wonder "Who the Fook Are We? "and we definitely belong to the" What the Fook is Happening?"sub-section of the tribe and that brings me to the invisible portion of this dia-tribe...get it? Tribe? I'm here all week folks.
It seems to me that many women feel they are fading into the sunset, ironically, at the same time those inevitable signs of aging are on your face and in everyone else's. How we look is obvious, but who we were, who we've become, what we've accomplished and what we have to give seems to have fallen by the wayside along with the not so perky breasts.
I get it. I felt lost in space. What happens now? Is this it? I felt like anything I had accomplished wasn't really important nor considered. How do women go from energetic, enthusiastic, useful, wanted and needed to "Hey, hello, I'm over here." The switch, for me, seemed to happen in a heartbeat, of which many of us now wear watches to monitor said heartbeats. What is it that has some of us feeling like we are disappearing into the ether?
The biological clock ticking for those who want children - Check! Career choices and opportunities lessening - Check! Children leaving the nest - Check! Peri-menopause and Menopause wreaking havoc with every system in the body - Check! The relentless influx of media undermining anything to do with aging - Check! Unless we look young, age-defying, fit and fierce we just aren't worth looking at - Check. This is all my own personal “fact” checking but the fact is, in a world where we are supposedly acknowledging aging as amazing, all the signs I'm reading say otherwise.
I worked in a skincare and wellness company for a number of years but for me, that was my education to feeling better about myself, about my wellness and about learning how to AGE WELL, not about anti-aging. My journey was the best thing I did for myself, not just in the physical sense but it taught me that I am relevant and I'm worth more than the skin I'm in. Although, please, make sure you look after your skin. It's just as important as looking after your insides. Anyhoo, another fact is the longer we live the more we will age, that's how it works, and instead of attempting to turn back the clock, isn't it better to keep moving forward with health and wellness of mind, body, heart and soul as the main focus instead of youth and beauty?
Of course it is and yet we are still inundated with the look younger, feel younger, younger is better narrative while, supposedly, anti-ageism is becoming a growing movement, albeit, an incredibly slow one. "Older" woman, and I use quotations because I don't consider women in their 40's older, but here we are, are being lauded for how brave it is to embrace natural grey. Greying is brave? We are applauded for unabashedly modeling fabulous fleshy physiques, brandishing baby-made bellies, replete with stretch marks, and reminding all we’ve earned every single ravishing wrinkle. We are being held as heroic for baring it all, meaning not wearing makeup, (I'm rolling my eyes here). We are bold and brash for wearing mini skirts over crepey thighs, super cool for still wearing harrowingly high heels (super silly to be honest) and Boom Shakalaka, we are no longer invisible, we are invincible!
We have come into our own and we should carry our aging like an Olympic gold medal. As women who have entered the Meno-zones, pre, during and post, we have found our confidence, our grace, our kindness to ourselves and our strength as a collective. We are having babies in our fourties, starting new careers in our fifties, breaking records in our sixties and modeling swimsuits on the cover of Sports Illustrated in our 70's and 80's. Is that progress? Perhaps, there is an argument for both sides but my jury is still out on that one.
Here's my question? Are aging women really being embraced and accepted? In a world of photo filters and the Housewives of insert city here... I just don't think so. Oh sure, it all looks good on Facebook, the older people’s media, but there is no question the age old zeitgeist of youth and beauty is not just a thing of the past. It’s alive and thriving as evidenced by the billions of dollars being spent in hopes of capturing it eternally. They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder but I would add it is also in the eye of the the acting industry, the beauty industry, the fitness industry, the fashion industry and of course, Big Pharma.
The latest weight loss drugs are a huge case in point. The newest development in diabetic drugs has caused a semaglu-tidal wave of users and is changing the face of diabetes and obesity, both literally and figuratively. (See OzempicFace.) Once again, we have what is being purported as a "miracle" drug for weight loss. Originally, semaglutide medicines were developed for those with diabetes, but it was discovered, with the newest versions, that they work remarkably well in assisting with quick weight loss. When the word got out that you can lose 15 to 20% of your body weight with a shot a week the frenzy ensued and today folks using the drugs are not just those who require it for diabetes but for those taking it specifically to lose weight.
We, myself included, are watching celebrities drop pounds and inches in very short windows of time and yes, they look great. They seem to be aging backwards. They are getting their bodies back and most say they are working on their lifestyle habits hand in hand with these drugs so they are achieving their optimum potential. The attention they are getting because they are looking so great, so young, so fit, so fabulous is enormous. We are constantly searching for the fountain of youth and maybe this time we've found it. But at what cost?
Here's the thing, bottom line, we may think we've come a long way in the age acceptance arena and we want to believe that we are being seen, but, in my humble opinion, it's just not the case and if history is anything to go by, it never will be. Oh sure, we are seeing more roles being written for older women on film, stage and televsion, but that's not moving the needle much, mainly because that's not real life. It's fiction, it's stories, it's facade and while art may imitate life there is a lot of artistic license that goes along with those stories.
In reality, trends that enhance our youth and beauty will always be followed by women, as they have been centuries. Dame Lesley Lawson, better know as Twiggy was a model in the sixties whose appearance exemplified that of an underfed, androgynous child. At that time the most powerful group of spenders were teenage girls and Twiggy became a phenom in the world of fashion because she had the "ideal" body image. Today, young women are no different, they've just changed the conversation on and what is considered beautiful. Think the Kardashian booty, (most asked for surgery in Brazil), Jolie's lips, (most asked for in fillers), the Megan Fox nose (most asked for rhinoplasty) and so forth and, with the advent of new technologies, we can do it all should we want to or can afford to.
So, have we really gone from invisible to invincible? I do think we are still being looked over as we always have been, however, I also think that the over-lookers are overlooking one important thing I keep hearing from other women who are of an age. There is a freedom that comes with aging and in that freedom, many of us get to a point where we just don't give a fook anymore. Fook being or feeling invisible. It just doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks. All that other stuff, that's a young person's game that we don't need to play anymore.
If you ladies want to flash us with your neon lacy shapewear, slap on the red lips, make reels modelling bikinis at size 22, shred a guitar ala Joan Jet, take pictures of your favourite flowers, sail across the ocean with just your dog and a picture of insert favourite human, dance on the streets of Lisbon with your girlfriends, strike a pose dressed like Wonderwoman or sing off key with your favourite rock star, just fooking do it and even if no one sees you, that's ok too, you just need to see and be happy in yourself.
Jamie Lee Curtis told Bruce Springsteen he needed to have afternoon concerts so she could be home by 7pm. Yes Girl, you tell the Boss whose Boss! Now that's being visible and invincible!
Ok, I'm done. Now I have to figure out where the fook I left my phone.
Love Kiki,
xoxo
Image from Wix Media
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Hurry, you ain't getting any younger, LOL!!!
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