Is this really what 50something looks like?
Turns out you are allowed out of the house in your 50s, just as long as you don't look like you are
Kate Beckinsale turning 50, J-Lo turning 54 (both pics from Instagram)
Not in my house. No, in my house, THIS is what 50something looks like. 57 to be precise.
And please bear in mind, this is me wearing sunglasses so you can’t see my eye bags and wrinkles and keeping my mouth shut because I’m not a fan of my teeth! I had about thirty pictures taken, from different flattering (and not so flattering) angles and deleted about 27 of them. So this is actually what 57 looks like on a very good day with a heavy edit (but no filter or retouching).
I tell you this because what 50something looks like (for women) has been getting a lot of press this week. Thanks to Kate Beckinsale (50) and J-Lo (54) and their “wild” birthday parties, complete with twerking (Kate) and table dancing (J-Lo). Kate “looked sensational, showing off her incredible figure in a red velvet gown with sexy cut outs at the waist and a thigh high split that flashed her long legs,” while J-Lo was a “vixen in a glitzy backless silver dress.” Apparently.
The media, as you can tell, is massively conflicted by this turn of events, struggling to balance its default mode of all-out objectification with all this inappropriate behaviour from women who are “old enough to know better”. Objectifying women in their fifties is a comparatively new game for them and they’re not entirely sure what to do with it.
Anyway, this is not an excuse for me to rant about the media and the male gaze for a thousand words. (As if.) Because, the truth is, I’m conflicted too.
Or maybe not conflicted, just exhausted. Forty-odd years of pandering and internalising and self-flagellating, and now – just when I thought it was safe to leave the house looking like a bag lady – this?!
On the one hand, I am loving seeing women my age taking up space. Being visible at an age when society traditionally prefers us to shuffle off in a smock and knit (no diss to knitting).