The New 40? I Want the Old One Back

T.Chong says:

05:56am | 22/10/09

Why the self imposed anxiety and doubt? Why base your life on the standards of “womens magazines” editors, gossip writers, PR hacks from cosmetic companies and the like? What is the compulsion for so many women to be herded into following the latest fleeting trend or fahion spruiked by varios vested interests?
Why is it so hard for so many women to accept, that if they are lucky, they do get to grow old?
No use blaming men.
It is women who are unable to face reality
that over time the human body changes.
The inability to accept reality seems to be one of the most insidios aspects of so many women in western societies.

Von says:

06:40am | 22/10/09

Yes such a waste and no matter how diligent you are around your daughter she’ll have picked it up,if not from yo uthen from your friends or TV.
Such a tough time for women getting older with all the expectations,mostly self-imposed.Foget it all and grow up and into it!

Alison says:

08:28am | 22/10/09

I think perhaps the goalposts keep moving because we take them with us. Much as it would be lovely if a certain number of candles on a cake equalled a jettisoning of certain patterns of thought and ways of thinking about things, unfortunately it’s just not so. If we want to let go of these destructive thoughts, we need to make a conscious effort to do so. And, if you work out how to do that, please let the rest of us know, because I’d love to do it too.

How will we ever get to be crazy old ladies wearing purple hair and rainbow caftans if we don’t go through comfortable middle age first?

T.Chong - I can’t see anywhere this writer is blaming men for this situation. While the anxiety and doubt is somewhat self-imposed, the saturation coverage of unattainable beauty standards (hello, Ralph Lauren!) and fashion’s unwillingness to cater for anybody not stick-thin, tall and white and 23 years old certainly doesn’t help matters.

KSL says:

08:51am | 22/10/09

Great piece, Jayne. Such a premium is placed on how a woman looks (more so than what she does) in our society that I think that some degree of body angst is unfortunately par for the course for most females at least at some stage of their lives. I have a physique best described as “mantis” and have never dieted, but I do remember those Dolly calorie counters and how seriously we all studied them in year eight… I also remember, very clearly, the moment I realised in my mid-twenties that women’s magazines, with all their comparisons and impossible standards and impossibly beautiful models, were making me anxious and vowed to stop reading them. But the idiocy of the importance we all place on physical appearance was really brought home to me this last month, when two close friends from the same circle of friends were both diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent mastectomies. That makes a total of five women I know well who have lost a breast (and in one case both) since turning 40, and (as Pollyanna-ish as it sounds) has put my niggling feelings of inadequacy about my own rack well and truly into proportion. For now, I am truly just grateful to have a healthy, fit, strong body that does what I want it to- but it’s a sad reflection that it has taken the illness of close friends to make it to this point.

Jodie says:

09:07am | 22/10/09

If only gossip writers, editors, PR hacks and cosmetic copmanies would keep their ‘standards’ to themselves, and women weren’t bombarded every day wth unrealistic, photo-shopped images of idealised beauty. ‘Charm is deceitful and beauty fades’ says the good book, but with Botox, the decline is indefinitely delayed. Ah, T. Chong, it’s not that we are unable to accept reality, it’s that we see it only in the mirror, and not reflected anywhere else it society.

Jess says:

09:35am | 22/10/09

Sounds to me you like you still need to grow up. You can only be comfortable in your own skin when you’re happy with it. That approval comes from within, not from outside. Get over it and just live your life. I turned 40 two years ago and that’s what it meant to me, being able to stop worrying about what other people think and how I’m regarded, and just being me in my own skin. You’re the only one who can do that.

Mr Subramanian says:

11:33am | 22/10/09

Jayne, I suspect that by the time you get to 50, research will show that the women who feel freed from social pressures such as fixation on appearance will be 60… perhaps it’s less about the age, but about the generation, and how only a certain number of them are escaping the cultural mindset at each milestone?

Nerida says:

12:19pm | 22/10/09

T.Chong, I think you’ve convinced us all with your spurt of irrelevant fragments of an argument that your reality is the questionable one.

What Jayne is trying to say is that she is trying to feel old and greatly looking forward to it, but societal pressures aren’t allowing her to do so in a comfortable way. With our emphasis on certain values today, Jayne is having trouble playing the 40 year old that she wants to.

Of course it is true that acceptance of yourself comes from within yourself. But unfortunately, just by merely being involved in society’s day-to-day grind, our ideas of what we should accept and reject about ourselves are constantly being pulled & tugged & prodded at. It’s difficult to find the balance between staying in touch and staying true.

Thanks for the read, Jayne. I like your style.

papachango says:

12:40pm | 22/10/09

blah blah social pressures blah blah it’s society’s fault blah blah unrealistic expectations blah blah women’s magazines blah blah

Seriously, HTFU and stop whingeing. Despite the current alarming tendency towards a nanny state, you live in a free country where you can pretty much wear what you like and live your life as you see fit. Plenty of people, male and female, embrace getting older and wiser.

You just have to remember that you are an individual.

T.Chong says:

01:56pm | 22/10/09

Nerida, Im trying to say / ask, why do you let yourself be judged by the fleetingness and flippancy that seems to control so much of so many womens lives.?
Youre right, may argument may be fragmentary, just like the thinking of those who believe that the day to day “tugging and prodding” some how prevents you being who you are.
Think for yourself,set your own standards ,rather then the standards of Dolly mag.

delperro says:

03:08pm | 22/10/09

‘But we’re all individuals.’
The piece says something about commericalisation, cosmetic and otherwise. It also says something about print media and the way it shaped culture, identity and image in a business model driven by advertising.

Jayne, what does your mag do about body image for parents?

pippy says:

03:40pm | 22/10/09

Great piece Jayne, I believe most women in the western world can relate to the concept. We’ve been groomed since childhood to believe there is a ‘right’ way to look and feel. As a result, we spend years comparing ourselves to other women and media images, inevitably coming up short. It doesn’t matter how great our parents were or how good a role model our mother was, the world has conspired against her ideals! I agree with Alison, it’s a mindset, and to break the habit of a lifetime may take some work. It’s about observing the way we speak to ourselves internally and answering back, ‘there’s that bullshit again, trying to tell me I’m no good.’

We could all use some perspective. I recently read 1000 Splendid Suns and it opened my world. My priorities immediately shifted; you can’t read a book about the plight of women in Afghanistan and continue to worry about the extra kilo you may or may not be carrying. Annoyingly, my bad mental habits slowly crept back and, really, it’s a moment by moment battle to stop the flow of negative self-talk, focus on the positive, have perspective…. oh dear, i’m tired now…

Stefano says:

06:44pm | 22/10/09

YOU’RE WORTH IT!!

Perhaps. Perhaps not. But you believe it, anyway.

And you’re sucked in. So easily.

That message is one that my mother and grandmothers never heard nor needed to. A couple of the above posters also know that.

Jayne Kearney says:

09:38pm | 22/10/09

Being individual; finding acceptance within yourself; embracing getting older; finding perspective and even H(ing)TFU are all the goals which are driving my mid-life crisis. It’s the nirvana of which I speak and those who have attained such things have much to feel happy (and possibly a little superior) about. I’m fighting hard to get there.
The thing is I am very aware of the way advertising and marketing work and yet still I buy it. Dumb? Maybe. But I think that’s an easy answer to a complex question - one people like to dismiss with the ‘blah blah - get over it’ argument. Maybe we’re blah blahing in the hope that we can nudge a paradigm. As delperro says, it says something ‘about print media and the way it shaped culture, identity and image in a business model driven by advertising.’ In other words - it works. Hell, some of my heroes are spin doctors and mad men - they do amazing work. But what happens when you are on the other side of the machine? Stefano - perhaps your mother and granmothers didn’t hear that message because it wasn’t invented then - or at least not to the level it is today. My education about the media didn’t really begin until I was finished high school - how many of those messages were absorbed in those formative years? It’s why I teach my kids to ‘look behind the curtain’. Hope it helps.
As to what my magazine does for parents and body image, delperro? While I haven’t implemented anything specific (but nice suggestion) I am happy to say we have never used the term Yummy Mummy - at least not on my watch.

Lisa says:

08:24pm | 23/10/09

Female insecurity about body image is related to a rather passive sexual view of ourselves… a cultural view which magazines strongly reinforce every time they use photoshopped images without crediting the photoshopping. These lies speak a thousand words, regardless of the fluff articles about lipgloss models looking ‘strong’ . A strong cultural tendency towards a promiscuity amongst the young (yes, Cleo magazine, I am talking about you) further reinforces women’s sexual anxieties, sexual competitiveness and, perhaps, an underlying sense of powerlessness masked by the ‘sexual power’ of (comparative) body consciousness and objectification.

Sara Donald says:

01:34pm | 26/10/09

Hey Jayne,
Lovely, well-written piece with meaningful insights and anecdotes. My 40 b’day swings around in two more years. am already planning a huge bush dance bash. can’t wait!! hope to see more of your stories on the web. By the way, gorgeous pic of you.

stephen says:

03:18pm | 26/10/09

Hell, what’ya say to a 40 year old woman ? Jeez !!