Ageing is not Failing

 

Why are so many older women hateful to the younger ones feeding into the general assumption that women of a certain vintage are crone – like with a marked aptitude for being wicked, witchy and worse? In the age of fairy and fable, the evil older stepmother/witch/Queen from Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and Snow White plotted desperately to get rid of their younger, more beautiful rivals and went up in a puff of smoke or croaked miserably after their dastardly schemes were foiled. In India, every single mega serial features a mother-in-law who is irredeemably evil and commits herself towards making life miserable for her winsome daughter-in-law. All these characters are uniformly filled with hatred and consumed with envy because their youth is gone for good.

As if often the case, the myth creates the reality, begging the question…How is it that we have bought into the manufactured myth that ageing naturally is a crime or a disease and it is the woman’s fault for allowing it to happen? Let’s face it, women are routinely villainised if they dare to show up anywhere without looking unrealistically youthful and picture perfect having signed a demonic pact with a plastic surgeon or been liposuctioned to near nothingness. Of course, the netizens also delight in trolling the ethereal types like Aditi Rao Hydari, Samantha, Jahnvi Kapoor by digging up before and after pics and endlessly discussing who got botox, fillers, rhinoplasty, lip enhancements, etc. done. Not only is a woman expected to never age or gain so much as a kilo, but she is supposed to make it all seem effortless.

Every time, one opens Instagram for a bit of doom-scrolling, tons of fitness influencers and wellness gurus bombard the feed with instructions to reverse ageing “naturally”, and get rid of the neck hump, puffy face, dark circles, crow’s feet, wrinkles, and unsightly flab with a plethora of home remedies and yoga infused with tai-chi moves. Of course, if you resist their blandishments and don’t have the funds for cosmetic surgery, the threat of being driven into irrelevance in the personal or professional spaces looms. If the ever regal and gorgeous Aishwarya Rai was sneered at for “waddling” on the red carpet and condemned for daring to embrace her curves having failed to do yoga and pilates with the fanatical devotion of Shilpa Shetty what can mere mortals expect?

We are told that nobody wants to “do” or have anything to do with an ageing woman, so it is best if hideous hags disappeared into the darkness. But women are being robbed of their best years when hard earned strength, character and killer confidence more than make up for the lack of a waistline or youthful radiance. If we were truly evolved surely, we could value older women for their experience and battle scars and encourage them to share their lessons instead of constantly being cruel, prompting them to be cruel in turn. As for older women, it is best to give in to the natural urge to not give a rat’s hairy behind to those who simp for superficial primping and be smart enough to be better not bitter.  

This column was originally published in TNIE Magazine.