Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Feminism: chat

Flip

1 2 3

Original poster

Sad and also filled with impotent rage. Why aren't we allowed to age?

73 replies

glovesoflove · 15/12/2010 13:20

Why is Botox and all that crap becoming such a norm? A friend who lives in London tells me that within her social set they are all obsessed with the topic and all starting to have this shit done - she is 34 ffs, and not exactly ignorant of feminism etc. She's just said "I want to look young" so I asked why, she said "because it's nicer" but managed to avoid elaborating.
I did get a bit cross, it was on IM so maybe she thought I was having a go at her, I wasn't but when I think about it, I just think why can't she resist? She KNOWS it's rubbish, she's cleverer and way more successful than me and she's just got married and started her own company, it's not like she's "competing" for anything.
I did say the only cure for ageing is death. She changed the subject :)

I'd love to hear from some of you about this, it's really really making me angry!

OP posts:

snowflake69 · 15/12/2010 16:14

I have never met anyone that has had botox. I think it looks scary when you see it on tv. I think the best thing to look nice throughout your life is to use suncream and dont smoke. You can still look nice naturally in old age. I know some older people in their 80s that still look nicely turned out without any surgical intervention or botox.

Tell her botox doesnt make you look nicer in my eyes. Not from what I have seen on tv of ones that go wrong anyway!

GrimmaTheNome · 15/12/2010 16:25

Of course we're allowed to age in the real world outside of 'London social sets'.

I'd rather look my age with smile lines than look like a plastic doll - why, "because it's nicer"

StoodAProleyCattleShed · 15/12/2010 16:28

A friend of mine has botox and she spent £10,000 on a face lift last year. I think it's absolutely fucking nuts, but I'd never criticise her decision. It just makes me angry at the whole crappy ideology behind it all.

sethstarofbethlehemsmum · 15/12/2010 16:54

But outside the London social sets a very large number of women still dye their hair rather than go grey.
I rather think I am in a minority at the school gate in having visible grey hair - and we are not the most fashion-conscious bunch of mums at dd's school.
So not wanting to show your age is not something confined to a narrow group of people.

If any individual makes the choice to get Botox though, she's doing it in a context - perhaps she is afraid she will be overlooked at work if she allows herself to age. (I wonder how the Miriam O'Reilly sex discrimination case is going?)

there is so much prejudice against older women; this is the thing we really need to worry about, I think.

DuelingFanio · 15/12/2010 16:56

I know someone who has botox and she's only early 30s. Thing is she is going to just look awful by her mid thirties. you only have to look at most celebs who have had it to realise that these treatments are really quite aging. IMO.

colditz · 15/12/2010 16:59

Hmmm. I regularly have ranting fits about cosmetic surgery, but I do dye my hair. Then again, I believe it to be harmless, and it certainly doesn't mean a GA, risk of infection and 3 weeks off work.

ElfPantsAtMidnightMass · 15/12/2010 17:05

A friend's mum got a course of botoxing from her husband for her 40th birthday.

Love the namechanges everyone btw. Is that you Proles?

TBH people everywhere have tips and treatments to make/keep them young. Am thinking of the Indian men who henna their hair to keep it thick, and the lovely grandmother in Persepolis who dunks her breasts in cold water every day.

But for women the consequences of not doing these things are much worse, because our value is so strongly associated with our appearances. Old bat, old bag, old hag, old biddy etc. Versus "older man"

StoodAProleyCattleShed · 15/12/2010 17:10

'Tis I

just realised who you are - excellent namechange!

sethstarofbethlehemsmum · 15/12/2010 17:15

Dyeing your hair is obviously nothing like as invasive, expensive, dangerous or any of the things that Botox is. But it is done for much the same reason, isn't it? And increasingly by men, but still mostly by women.

ElfPantsAtMidnightMass · 15/12/2010 17:18

Oh good! I thought you'd gone as haven't seen you around for a while.

Thanks - love yours too

StoodAProleyCattleShed · 15/12/2010 18:21

I've been catching up with studying so I haven't kept up with the section lately (been reading but not posting much). I've just started a politics module and there's a whole section on the body coming up: should give me a chance to get my femmo hat back on good and proper!

breathtakingben · 15/12/2010 18:23

The older woman is (assuming she's a fully developed adult woman, the more likely she is to die during pregnancy or childbirth, so it's in a man's interest to attempt to breed with younger women, who are more likely to provide healthy healthy babies, and live through childbirth to care for their babies.

Women aren't allowed to age because men will pay less attention to them if they do, causing the women to struggle to compete in life.

TrillianAstra · 15/12/2010 18:25

You are "allowed" to age, and I challenge anyone to try to stop you!

TrillianAstra · 15/12/2010 18:25

You are "allowed" to age, and I challenge anyone to try to stop you!

strandedatseasonsgreetings · 15/12/2010 18:29

OP I am with you completely on this. There was an article in the latest edition of Red by a woman called Karen something or another all about how she's been having plastic surgery, botox etc for years and isn't it great? She is trying to imply that it's now so normal that anyone who doesn't have it done must be really out of touch.

Like others on this thread I still don't know many people who have had botox. But I suspect it's going to start happening as the younger generation think it's a normal thing to do.

To me all this cosmetic surgery, a bit like technology, is just happening too fast. So instead of us gradually accepting something over say 30 or 40 years, we are going from the point of botox being for a few wierd Hollywood actresses to All Of Us in the space of two or three years. Which is shocking really.

I have no idea if that makes sense, sorry. Very tired today....

ValiumShimmer · 15/12/2010 18:33

Yeah what is the 'cost' of not ageing? that you won't have the attention of men??

I do try to look as good as i can by not smoking and running and eating healthily, so I'm not without vanity, but I agree with the op. The fewer intelligent women go along with this bullshit, the less pressure on us all.

ValiumShimmer · 15/12/2010 18:33

Sorry I meant 'what is the cost of ageing?

sfxmum · 15/12/2010 18:35

I regularly see a celeb who does Botox she is younger than me, she looks frankly scary, dh who seldom comments on looks says she freaks him out, he was not aware she is well known

I always find it odd when people speak of biological imperatives of procreating with younger females and so on

am I the only one who thinks that sex drive increases with age? quite mismatched with the men of the same age I think

SantasMooningArse · 15/12/2010 18:41

Locally it's a bit of a joke that the GP offers a private botox clinic and the standard school [pick up involves a walk from parking to tan centre to Botox clinic.

Sadly an awful lot of the mums do seem to use it- becuase they say their h's expect it, it's a trade of for the nice house / gym membership lifestyle many of them have.

Those of us that are a paler shade or have a wrinkle / wear non designer clothes tend to get sniped at but sod it, we'eve got our own little exclusive group now where we laugh back. I'd rather be me than orange.

ElfPantsAtMidnightMass · 15/12/2010 18:47

Also men's fertility drops with age, as with as impotence etc becoming more of a problem.

tabouleh · 15/12/2010 20:18

I don't know anyone personally who's gone down the botox/plastic surgery route.

I also think it's crap.

I am happier now I've stopped reading women's magazines.

stranded - you need to ditch Red!

A lot of the time I bought them as I like something to read when travelling/having lunch on my own etc and internet surfing is too open ended IYSWIM.

So what I do is I have an ipod and I have a blog reader, tis fab, once a day you can just press the button for that app and it updates so that you have all the new blog posts read to read when you are not in a wifi spot.

An anecdote to the culture of feeling crap about your appearance is operationbeautiful.com/.

Another good one is theshapeofamother.com/.

When I went to the FiL conference I could just tell that I wasn't being judged on my appearance - there just wasn't that type of atmosphere in the room.

Slightly adapting the quote I linked into this thread from a feminist magazine:

You are what you think and what you do about what you think.

You are not what you look like, what you wear, what you buy or who you fuck.

Minione · 15/12/2010 22:15

One of my best friend's has had botox, she is 31! Can't say she looked any different tbh but I just thought why? Sadly, I think this is becoming more of the norm, I've also worked in a school where several members of staff had breast implants!

Agree about avoiding women magazines - Good Food doesn't normalise plastic surgery!

Ormirian · 15/12/2010 22:18

The bar just keeps getting higher doesn't it

And not just about ageing, about grooming and hygiene and the rest. Now you aren't fit to be seen unless you are not just clean and dressed, you have to be shaved and plucked and cleansed and moisturised and dyed and trimmed and botoxed and made-up and skinny and dressed in the right clothes for your age and shape.

If I cared that much about any of it I'd be too scared to get out of bed in the mornings.

fluffles · 15/12/2010 22:22

i don't read women's magazines (except cooler cooler and women's adventure) and i have never had a plastic surgery conversation with anybody i know, i don't think anybody i know would want to have surgery or botox. i am 34 and more worried about being dismissed as 'not senior enough' at work, rather than not pretty or young enough!

i'm dark blonde so no greys but i work with people who show grey hairs and wear interesting clothes, little makeup and comfortable shoes.. (and no, i'm not a social worker )

i really think that the 'mainstream' culture of our media is not as all-prevalent in the real world as the media likes to think it is.

MaxineQuordlepleen · 15/12/2010 22:34

As a social worker, I'll try not to feel oppressed by that comment, shall I Fluffles?

Flip

1 2 3