In defence of women over 30

Don’t tell anybody, but I went a little crazy the other day. 

Not rob-a-bank-crazy or post-naughty-photos-of-myself-on-Idris-Elba’s-fan-page-crazy. Nope. 

I bought some pants, and they weren’t the black ones. They were the snappy electric blue ones. Because I’ve decided that being in my forties doesn’t mean I have to give up on being noticed. 

I mean it: I’ve had it up to my crow-footed eyeballs with wearing black 24/7 and living life as the Invisible Woman, just because I was born before the advent of the Internet and remember Anna Paquin as that little girl in The Piano, pre-Sookie Stackhouse. 

Yes, I get that we live in a youth-dominated culture.  You would have to be blind, deaf and a Kardashian not to know. 

I mean, when Taylor Swift can put out an album with her birth year as the title (1989!) with a straight face, you know the young’uns are ruling the roost.  Never mind that whole push a few years back that said that 40 is the new 30. Yeah, right.  And cellulite is the new black. 

The fact is this whole obsession with youth; particularly feminine youth, mystifies me. 

What is so much better about lacking experience, discretion, and laugh lines?  Why is it that a butt you can bounce a quarter off of and breasts that haven’t yet become acquainted with a waistline still trump every other female attribute? 

I assume it’s the same thing that makes ad companies choose prepubescent girls in hyper-sexualized outfits to sell us almost everything, while the only thing women over 40 are peddling are adult diapers and life insurance. 

Even if older women miraculously appear on magazine covers, they are: a) famous and b) air-brushed to kingdom come, as if wrinkles were an affront to polite society. Craziness. 

Why is it that in 2014, women of a certain age and (er) epidermal elasticity are still regularly relegated to the background, like so many bruised bananas in the great Fruit Bowl of Life? 

Why can men be seen as compelling and powerful, no matter their age?  Sean Connery is almost 80, and women still think he’s all that and a bag of chips. Who decided it doesn’t work that way for women? Why is it the Law of Toyland that we automatically become less attractive and less noticeable once we hit 30? 

Aren’t Canadian men educated, liberated and aware of the perks of appreciating women who are less…perky?  After all, these women have careers, homes, vehicles and can tell the difference between a Cabernet and a Shiraz. 

Or are older females the societal equivalent of broccoli?  Are we passed over just because Canadian men have been conditioned to want (youthful) eye candy instead? Really? That feels very high school to me. Junior high school, even.  And I don’t think anyone wants to go back there. 

Which brings me to Renee Zellweger and her poor face. 

A talented actor who won an Oscar for her work, Ms Zellweger is a beautiful and charismatic woman with a goofy grin and the tendency to look as if she’s about to burst out laughing. Which is why I was absolutely horrified when I saw the inimitable Miz Zee online recently, looking like she’d been dragged backwards through several Botox clinics. 

No more squinty eyes, pink cheeks and lopsided grin. She is now a near-perfect, expressionless canvas, who attributes it to “…living a different, happy, more fulfilling life.”  Uh huh. On that basis, the Dalai Lama should look like Brad Pitt. 

Call me Mr. Magoo, but Ms Z.’s had plastic surgery, and lots of it. Don’t get me wrong: I believe Renee Zellweger (anyone, for that matter) can do whatever the heck she wants to herself — 'wants' being the operative term. I simply have a hard time believing that she has erased every bit of hard-won character in her face just for kicks. 

It seems to me that the logical assumption is that this already-beautiful woman is scared of looking her age. I guess no matter how talented, beautiful and well-known you are, it means nothing if you aren’t on the sunny side of 30. 

And that’s what bugs me. 

If someone like Renee Zellweger feels insecure enough to endure surgery just to look marginally younger, then what chance does Jo Doe have to feel comfortable in her own (less-taut) skin?  If money, talent and fame can’t buy confidence, I can guarantee you credit card debt, endless housework and the stress of raising children sure won’t. 

Trust me: it’s not that I picked the blue pants because I’m trying to look younger. It’s just that I don’t want to be handed a bill of goods that tells me that in order to be accepted in society, I have to resign myself to being ignored. I refuse to fade quietly into the background, at least not without a fight. 

And a jazzy pair of pants.

Jo Holness is a writer in Winnipeg.