On Young Woman Privilege

Of course you're going to age gracefully. You're 27.

I was listening to the most recent episode of Feminine Chaos, and not to give away the secrets that only a paid subscriber should know, but Phoebe Maltz Bovy brought up a really interesting topic during that episode: when a woman says “I would never do (insert cosmetic anti-aging procedure here)” and she’s, say, 29 or 32, should anyone really listen to her? Not that she’s definitely wrong and she’ll definitely use Botox eventually, just that…maybe her “I would never” opinion on such matters at this point in time is not relevant?

Actress Sydney Sweeney, who is only 28, feels confident that she would never. As she was quoted in Page Six, she plans to “age gracefully” and never opt for any anti-aging procedures, even Botox or fillers. How courageous! Unlike this maverick here, I was planning to age ungracefully. At the age of twenty-three, I looked at a photo of Donatella Versace and thought, That’s how I want to age, but MORE desperate and distant from humanoid.

Joking, of course. Everyone wants to age gracefully. If I could choose between naturally looking forty when I’m sixty, or looking like a haggard lizard with gigantic allergic-reaction lips, obviously I’d pick the former. Because what “gracefully” really means is aging well, but doing so in a way where you either hit the genetic lottery and you didn’t need any work, or you got work and nobody can tell. Aging gracefully almost never means being fifty-seven and looking sixty-three because that’s just how your genetics shook out.

Claiming that you won’t get any procedures done “because you want to age gracefully” (especially when you’re a Hollywood star) is pretty laughable. What if Sydney Sweeney’s graceful procedure-free aging (assuming this happens) makes her look…not so graceful? Perhaps I’ll be wrong, and she will gladly settle into aging—not just charming little expression lines, but hollow cheeks, turkey neck, sagging jowls, boobs that reach her bellybutton, and other less endearing signs of aging which can’t be staved off with a healthy lifestyle. Perhaps she will be open to these things even if it means she no longer gets the exciting, sexy roles she gets now, and she has to play Peter Parker’s great-grandmother once she is visibly over the age of forty. And I would commend her for that! But honestly? I have my doubts. She will likely only age gracefully (ie: not get any work done) if the natural course of her aging is genetic-lottery-tier.

And it’s understandable that right now, she thinks she will fall into the genetic lottery category! Young women (and I acknowledge some might still put me in this camp, I’m only 36) often imagine themselves aging really well. But “aging really well without intervention” and “looking ridiculous with lots of unnecessary plastic surgery procedures” unfortunately aren’t the only options. And I just can’t trust anyone’s “I would never” if they believe those are the only possible paths.