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We are socially conditioned to equating youth with beauty and beauty as an accomplishment.See, it’s not your fault that you want to hold on to youth in a world where “you don’t look your age” refuses to retire as a compliment. We are socially conditioned to equating youth with beauty and beauty as an accomplishment. We end up as victims of the beauty industry that loves thrusting a twenty-something gorgeous woman in our faces, whose sole purpose in life is to stand in front of a mirror and look for dark spots and fine lines. After frowning for a few seconds, she proceeds to find her saviour in a jar of patchouli infused with a million herbs. At least the beauty industry is clear about its objective of exploiting our insecurities that they helped create in the first place. The media, meanwhile, loves bombarding us with toxic messages that are disguised as empowering. How is a woman supposed to feel when her favourite “feminist” magazine can’t make up its mind whether to make their reader feel confident about her size 18 and her newly acquired frown lines, or direct her to a step-by-step guide to “How to puncture holes in your body and squeeze out the icky fat without dying”. The subliminal message is: If you are fat or wrinkly or unfortunate enough to be both, you are a badass… who doesn’t take care of herself. Even women who genuinely couldn’t care less must be subjected to this walk of shame. Remember Helena Rubinstein who once famously said, “There are no ugly women, only lazy ones!” It doesn’t help when you hear much older women complain about how they are treated as invisible, especially by men – the feeling that you are no longer vital or important or noticeable to others. It hits you in areas where you feel most vulnerable – your physical appearance. But you know what will feel better? Kicking these outdated notions of beauty firmly in the arse. Why not think of your crow’s feet and greys as sieves that filter out assholes who think women serve only one purpose – to be someone’s eye-candy. It’s way more satisfying to be a woman whose beauty is defined by her charisma, awareness, and her achievements than a skin-care regimen that reads longer than the Mahabharata. Isn’t it every woman’s wet dream to be noticed for who she is and not the way she looks?
“There are no ugly women, only lazy ones!”So puhleeez, can we stop feeling sorry for something as natural as ageing? Freed from the gaze, many of us start looking inwards, work on our character, experience our own agency, and start thinking of ways we can impact others through our words and actions. Working on “how you see yourself” than “what you see in the mirror” teaches you to love yourself, and understand and value your unique body and look after it accordingly. In fact, this is where we can draw inspiration from our men. No matter how big their paunch, how roomy the bags under their eyes, they always see a drop-dead gorgeous man staring back at them from the mirror. They never let themselves forget that they are god’s gift to womankind and expect women to dissolve in gratitude when they are at the receiving end of their advances. Maybe we can start by retiring “you don’t look your age!” as a compliment.
