Botox & frozen faces

[Expressionless]

If you have Botox to the parts of your face that mean you’ve rendered yourself unable to move large part of your face or have very little movement in your eyebrows / around your eyes, does it not bother you that you essentially look frozen and expressionless?

At the end of the day, most of us, would like to reduce fine lines and wrinkles - we live in a world that holds women to ridiculous youth standards - basically we all feel we shouldn’t age and that an ageing face is the worst possible outcome. But at what cost does this come?

Watching almost all TV / films now means any woman over about 25, maybe 30 at a push essentially has a frozen face and quite literally can’t show emotions properly. Most men don’t do it, so it’s definitely a sexist standard.

Women saying they ‘do it for themselves’ - well okay, but only because you’ve been conditioned to find ageing abhorrent.

Why can’t we just be left the fuck alone, to age and have faces that move and show our expressions and feelings. Like we have for 1,000’s of years.

Likewise, I agree with many of your points.

It’s a difficult topic to debate - and whilst I agree men’s attitudes need to change, I think we should be able to debate this without shutting down the conversation because some PP’s prefer to twist the debate into an attack on women who opt to have tweaks.

Yes, those of us who have one, tend to find it located in the head.

About as nice as OPs post!!

What is there to debate? It’s non of your concern what someone does with their own face.

If you think women stopping anti aging procedures is going to lead to older women being valued, or improve things even a little in that direction, you're dreaming.
Older women are devalued because they can't reproduce and are not as sexually appealing to men as younger ones; and what we do bring to the table, our knowledge, skills, wisdom and confidence is seen as a threat.
This has been the case long before botox was discovered, and has not become worse because older women now have the choice not to have visible wrinkles. If anything, there's a positive direction of travel resulting from women banding together and insisting on our rights. Their appearance is irrelevant to this. And your attempts to demean and belittle women who want to look a way you dislike is divisive and making easy scapegoats of other women for an issue they didn't cause.

There’s plenty to debate..

Decisions based on societal pressure affect everyone. Especially the young and impressionable. This has led to more and more young people tweaking their faces and bodies to feel accepted or worthy.

I’m not debating individual’s actual faces, more the trends and pressures that lead women down that path and the increasingly extreme methods being used to achieve self-worth.

So, other than insulting and blaming other women (hardly an effective way to increase the self worth you feel is lacking) what do you suggest is done to address the root cause of the issue?
I'm assuming you've started other threads where you talk about the positive things we can do to increase the respect in which we are held as we age? About how we can uplift and advance each other so that our appearance becomes a much less significant part of our lives? How we can support older women and create positivity around their life stage?

Aging is a privilege, not all of us get to grow old. Botox doesn't change the age of the heart or other organs, it won't prolong your life in any way.

I personally accept ageing, and I haven't felt that it holds me back at work. I don't like the idea of having poison injected into my face, and some of the women I know who do it, now have their 20 year old daughters doing Botox and fillers. I feel they have set a bad example. Also do we even know the long term impacts of Botox, this might only come out in 20 years time..?

I can think of better things to spend my money on. I do yoga, pilates, bike rides, and lots of dog walks. I try to stick to a healthy diet. For me this is better than Botox, and I happily accept my facial lines as part of growing older.

If I think stopping.. Well, I don’t actually😑

You’re not wrong though about older women and devaluation / reproduction / sexual appeal.

But the argument that their appearance is irrelevant is wrong - it’s entirely relevant because older women are now going to greater extremes to appear younger due to this exact issue.

I’m not demeaning anyone, this is actually the ‘scapegoat’ argument to try and derail the debate about beauty standards and it’s highly divisive on your part.

The value of women shouldn’t be based on a youthful face gradient.

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If you want to get Botox, OP, just do it. You have to go at it pretty hard to get the spoon with hair look and a good practitioner won't allow it. Just do minimum dose and see how you go. If you don't like it, it'll wear off in a few months. It's not a moral failing and it's entirely possible to get Botox while loving your family, doing Pilates and whatever else you've been told is somehow incompatible with a minor cosmetic procedure.

Exactly. On an individual basis, people deciding to have Botox seems fine. But at a society level it means that women are no longer allowed to be wrinkled. I think it’s setting a bad example for the next generation.

People saying that they don’t want to stop ageing and they just want to look ‘fresher’, that is a load of nonsense. Of course it is because they are the age they are that the unwanted wrinkles are appearing.

No. You are confusing your dislike if how some women respond to an issue with the cause of that issue. You should be focusing on how to remove the cause rather than criticising the response if you are serious about improving things for women.

Some PP’s are getting defensive because it’s a provocative topic and understandably want to feel good about their choices. Fair enough, that’s surely obvious and expected.

You can keep trying to accuse me of being specifically insulting - doesn’t make it true, but it is quite boring and doesn’t really add to the debate much.

I don’t have all the answers - but I believe that we can be better role models to our children. I don’t want to tweak my face as I don’t want my daughter to think that’s an inevitable part of ageing as a woman. I would be very sad if she grew up thinking her face needed altering to be accepted. Chances are she will get plenty of that from socials, so I need to do what I can to provide an alternative route and be an example.

The pressure for young people to stay young forever is now worse than ever.

Aging is not good and signals dysfunction. Our children may benefit from current technology and may age more slowly, giving them more useful years of life.

Right now, it’s mostly cosmetic—there’s limits to how far we can push back aging, but hopefully in the future it won’t be. (Not that there’s nothing we can do, but we hope it can be more dramatic in the future).

i don’t understand people who are like, what’s wrong with aging? Like … I even feel sad to see my pets age.

C’mon OP it’s really not complicated - we live in a very competitive society where being young and attractive conveys so many benefits for women - they are treated better, have more options in dating, by gaining a higher status partner etc.
Whereas being an older woman means being invisible and disregarded.

Older men are also largely invisible, but they get to optimise in other ways; by having status or money.

You can rail against it if you like, but don’t expect it to change anytime soon.

You could similarly ask why people buy big expensive cars they don’t need, or wear designer clothes etc. The fact is conveying an image of being attractive and succesful means people are treated better.

I don’t understand the anger at women for playing the game, when the benefits are so obvious.

its not so simple. Plenty of unscrupulous people in the industry, plus other treatments like fillers are more unpredictable and can migrate.

Even the best injector can make mistakes or have unforeseen side effects. There’s an element of risk to any procedure

One doesn’t equal the other, no matter how many times you try to put me in that box.

I/we can debate, without being named the agent of change for all women.

However, no change will come without debate.

(Note - there’s a lot of ‘you’s’ in your posts, you are, you should...)

And that's an entirely valid personal choice for you to make. Where I take issue is with your overly simplistic analysis of a complex problem. I think your pronciple is sound, but that you have taken a wrong turn on this, because as I said in my previous posts, you are confusing response with cause.
If you think its 'boring' to be told not to jnsult the appearance of other women, then too bad. It's an awful thing to do under the guise of feminism. If this is truly about the principles behind it, you lower your own tone by bringing in aesthetics.

Well yes, because I'm talking to you!

If we can’t point out negatives of people’s choices then people will always make bad choices under the impression they are great which doesn’t sit well with me - called it lying when I was a child. And it becomes part of the cause

I’ve considered it but holding off as long as possible as I’m 43. I expect to have it by 50. Many of my friends who look very naturally beautiful have it (I was surprised but I can see it makes a huge difference to how aging affects them and their confidence). I started taking powdered collagen in my coffee (very skeptical but after 2 months I can genuinely see my skin looks younger). Once I passed 40 ageing really hit. Until you’re there you don’t know how you’ll feel.

lip fillers however, they really change your look significantly so you look like a different person. I’m not deaf but realised recently how much I lip read while having conversations in noisy environments and I had no clue what lip filler lady was saying because her mouth didn’t move as it should.

I mean women can have natural faces and movement. Nobody is saying they can’t.
Women can also have Botox or fillier or anything else they want to pay for. I don’t know why women get so triggered by other women’s choices

I actually agree with most of this - but that doesn’t make it right or positive.

Also, I’m not angry at women for ‘playing the game’, that’s an obvious result of the way things are🤷🏻‍♀️ Although the more people doing it, the harder it gets for those who don’t and the more normalised it becomes.

I’m angry that as a society, - one in which we have a far greater understanding of human psychology, health and wellbeing, than at any other time in history, we are still obliging these sexist standards and the fact that the methods are becoming more extreme, less reversible and aren’t reducing in line with our intelligent understanding.

So women who have anti ageing procedures do it be more appealing to men?

I’m angry that as a society, - one in which we have a far greater understanding of human psychology, health and wellbeing, than at any other time in history, we are still obliging these sexist standards and the fact that the methods are becoming more extreme, less reversible and aren’t reducing in line with our intelligent understanding

I just don’t understand this. Men want to look younger too. In many industries, like media, politics, C-Suite level positions, looking younger is a signal that you have energy and creative drive.

Many do get Botox injections and mess around with hormone disrupting hair growth procedures, hit the gym (and inject GLP-1s) and maintain tans.

There are unfortunately a lot of men who truly don’t care what they look like, but usually they have a lower status to match.

And why should women be as slovenly and disgusting as those types of men? We have higher standards and I’m tired of apologizing for that.