Have We Truly Come To Accept Ageing And The Changes It Brings?

The world used to go on about 'don't ask a lady her age' when I was growing up. These days, I hear this phrase far less. Does it mean that we are more easy with the idea of being/not being a certain age-bracket? Or have we eased up on hiding our age because we are more and more able to look 'youthful' for far longer than the generations before us?

When we don't mind saying we are forty-five, or thirty... is it about our ease with our age, and what it implies for our body, and our physical form, and the place of all that in the scheme of things? Or is it really the knowledge that even at forty-five we can elicit the comment, 'you don't look a day older than thirty...?'

Have we truly come to accept ageing and the changes it brings, or it is that we have got better filters than ever, on our cameras and our minds, and therefore find it easier to claim ageing agnosticism? What is it that we have come to terms/not come to terms with? And what is, or isn't, the issue at hand - being older, or how older woman are thought about by some others in terms of sexual attraction and desirability? Could it be that, we too still acceed to that discourse, despite saying age is just a number? Doth the lady protest too much, then?

Have we truly come to accept ageing and the changes it brings, or it is that we have got better filters than ever, on our cameras and our minds, and therefore find it easier to claim ageing agnosticism?

What were the assumptions underlying the idea that to ask a woman her age was somehow impolite, and that to expect a woman to answer factually was not right? At what age did this rule start applying, and till when was it valid? What was there to hide, really, which necessitated this usage? Was it to be circuitous and seemingly avoiding making calculations of a certain kind, related to a woman's fertility potential? Was it to avoid the instant judgement of how many years a woman had remained unclaimed on the marriage market? Was it to avoid being instantly slotted as past-the-prime, of no longer being optimum mate material, or of carrying child-bearing potential?

It could have been all of that. And have we really moved on, despite or in spite of IVF and Embryo banks and surrogacy and Botox and body sculpting and honeymoon stitches? Why the insistence of the whole world treating every age the same? I am not the same from one day to the next, so why carry the notion that I must look the same years down the line, forever 21 once I reach a certain age?

Why the insistence of the whole world treating every age the same? I am not the same from one day to the next, so why carry the notion that I must look the same years down the line, forever 21 once I reach a certain age?

What is really being said, when it is said that women of a certain age are 'invisible' in the world? Invisible to whom, and to what intent? Is that sort of visibility really something one even desires? Because if it is simply a matter of being noticed and being attracted and liked and appreciated, I can vouch for so many of us having felt visible at every stage of our life, age no bar. But if seek the same male gaze, and treat the desire we prompted at twenty with the desire one evokes at forty, I guess things will be different. But then again, would I  judge my worth, my attraction and desirability, with the yardstick of how much men notice me and acknowledge me as a potential mate at different ages?

What is really being said, when it is said that women of a certain age are 'invisible' in the world? Invisible to whom, and to what intent? Is that sort of visibility really something one even desires?

At the ripe old age of fifty, I do not agree with all the noise that is made about the 'invisibility' of older women. Simply because I do not look at 'visibility' in the same way as is implied in those claims. If a man of fifty wants to date a woman of twenty or thirty or whatever, isn't that is his choice? I know of men of thirty, wanting to date a woman in her forties or fifties. Obviously, she is visible to them. Indra Nooyi is very much visible now as she was in her younger days, for yet another set of reasons. My daughter's music guru is past sixty and her professional and personal visibility is global. My visibility since my forties has surpassed anything in my twenties and thirties for various reasons, mainly to do with the way I began to look at myself and my life, than how and where was the focus of the gaze of others. Are we to feel invisible just because a man does not feel attracted to us romantically or drawn to notice us for our looks or the allure of a mate-worthy body? The question for me today (and I regret that it wasn't always so) is simply this  -  do we really 'see' ourselves, and  are our bodies still 'visible' to ourselves in ways that are affirming, accepting, and appreciative?

My visibility since my forties has surpassed anything in my twenties and thirties for various reasons, mainly to do with the way I began to look at myself and my life, than how and where was the focus of the gaze of others.

A few days ago I read an article where French author Yann Moix, 50, told a glossy magazine “Come on now, let’s not exaggerate! That’s not possible … too, too old.” He was talking about older women and love. Moix then added that women in their 50s were “invisible” to him. And he didn't just stop at that. There was more coming.

“I prefer younger women’s bodies...The body of a 25-year-old woman is extraordinary. The body of a woman of 50 is not extraordinary at all."

Now, those words say many things, but mainly what they tell me is how happy I am to not be a 25-year-old woman on such a man's radar. This is a fifty-year-old man reducing a woman to just her 'body', and passing judgements on women's bodies like they were some assembly line item of food production. Let us never do the same to ourselves.

Let us not be afraid or ashamed of our age or our bodies, because  it is through them that we live and love.

Age may be a quantity of time, but it is no depreciation chart for the lovability of any body's 'extraordinary' quotient. Love isn't something transacted in numbers, with quantified measurements. It is our quality of awareness, experiences, learning, loving, and living, which make each moment expand or shrink to nothingness, or stretch into eternity. Let us know and honour the extraordinary in our hearts, in our bodies, at any age. Because we are not someone's plaything or  specimen for evaluation. Let us not be afraid or ashamed of our age or our bodies, because  it is through them that we live and love. We are invisible at any and every age only to those who have some serious blinkers on. Let us not be blind to ourselves.

Kiranjeet Chaturvedi is a trained sociologist and a well-known author. She also facilitates writing workshops and courses run by Write & Beyond. The views expressed are the author’s own.

PC: Samuel Zeller, Unsplash