Fit is a Feminist Issue Friday Link Round Up #107: Aging and Beauty

Today we bring you a collection of links and quotes on the subject of women, beauty, and aging:

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May be an image of 1 person and eyeglasses — Jamie Lee Curtis

More quotes from Jamie Lee Curtis that have been making the rounds on social media:

“I have been an advocate for natural beauty for a long time, mostly because I’ve had the trial and error of the other part.

“I did plastic surgery – it didn’t work. I hated it. It made me feel worse.

“I tried to do everything you can do to your hair. Personally, I felt it was humiliating. I would go into a hair salon, the smell of the chemicals, the feeling of that colour on my hair, sitting under the hairdryer – it was like, for what?

“So very early on in my career, I had a perm and then had to dye my hair for a movie, and it burned my hair off my head! And the first time I cut my hair short I went, ‘Oh! Oh my god. Oh wow! I look like me!’

“Since then I stopped dyeing it, and then I’ve been an advocate for not f**king with your face.”

“The term, anti-ageing… what? What are you talking about? We’re all going to f**king age! We’re all going to die? Why do you want to look 17 when you’re 70? I want to look 70 when I’m 70.

“The current trend of fillers and procedures, and this obsession with filtering, and the things that we do to adjust our appearance on Zoom are wiping out generations of beauty”

On cosmetic surgery: “It’s also very dangerous. It’s like giving a chainsaw to a toddler. We just don’t know the longitudinal effect, mentally, spiritually and physically, on a generation of young people who are in agony because of social media, because of the comparisons to others. All of us who are old enough know that it’s all a lie. It’s a real danger to young people.”

A poem:

I WANT TO LOOK OLDER

I want to look like me,
but I want to look older.

I want to look just like myself,
but with wrinkles.

I want to look the same but wiser,
I want to look the same but softer,
I want to look the same but more peaceful, serene almost, yet with a glitteringly life-filled laugh that could cut through the gloomiest of atmospheres, like a hot knife through butter.

No need to tell me I look young or younger, if you must comment on my ageing journey, tell me I look like myself, but older.

Because not only is this true, it’s the biggest compliment I could receive.

It took me a long time to really become myself,
why would I want to look like someone else now, why would I want to hide how far I have come and how blessed in time I have been?

I want to look like me,
but I really do want to look older.
Not everyone gets to.

By Donna Ashworth
from
UK: To The Women: words to live by

Another quote:

‘Women have another option. They can aspire to be wise, not merely nice; to be competent, not merely helpful; to be strong, not merely graceful; to be ambitious for themselves, not merely for themselves in relation to men and children. They can let themselves age naturally and without embarrassment, actively protesting and disobeying the conventions that stem from this society’s double standard about aging. Instead of being girls, girls as long as possible, who then age humiliatingly into middle-aged women, they can become women much earlier – and remain active adults, enjoying the long, erotic career of which women are capable, far longer. Women should allow their faces to show the lives they have lived. Women should tell the truth.’
Susan Sontag – The Double Standard of Aging (1972)