I’m 37, but already feel invisible. I seem to be ageing faster ... because I haven’t had any Botox
IFIrSt noticed it a few summers ago when I was 34. It was a blazing hot day, the kind where they urge you to take water bottles on public transport, and I threw on some clothes before I went into the city.
I stepped into a pair of short denim cut-offs and a strappy top. But, as I took in my reflection in the hallway mirror, and the large amounts of skin on show, I stopped. ‘ that’s weird,’ I told my husband. ‘I’ve just realised I’ve not been catcalled all summer.’
‘Isn’t that a good thing?’ he replied. I thought about it. ‘Yes, and no,’ I said. ‘I don’t think it’s because the war on sexual harassment is won, just that I’m now too old to be harassed…’
A decade previously, there’s no way I would’ve thrown together a ‘revealing’ outfit so easily. When I moved to London, aged 25, I was shocked by the relentless sexual harassment whenever I left the house. especially as I’ve never been the ‘pretty’ one in my friendship group.
Yet, during summer, each morning I had to choose between the physical comfort of less clothing, knowing I’d get catcalled, whistled at and sometimes even followed home, or the emotional comfort of a longer hem or sleeve. Now as this year’s winter stubbornly hangs on, I feel no relief as I pull my puffy coat around me.
As a bestselling author of young adult novels, I often work with teenage girls who complain about how they can’t walk to school without older men bothering them. they say their uniform is basically a giant target for honking horns, wolf whistles, and pervy comments. Sexual harassment definitely hasn’t gone away.
So, I realised my newfound superpower to wear a short skirt and remain unbothered wasn’t a feminist win, rather a new invisibility. Somehow, I’d grown out of one type of sexism and into another. I’m only 37 and yet feel
I’m grieving the beginning of the end of something. My being-seenness, the peak of my supposed attractiveness. And it will only get worse.
ActreSSeS, pop stars, models, influencers — I notice they’re either much younger than me, or seem younger due to what I’m assuming is cosmetic interventions. As plastic surgery and ‘tweakments’ become increasingly popular and societally acceptable, sold as ‘empowering’ even, our perception of another woman’s age is shifting.
I see famous women in their 40s and 50s who look younger than me. I didn’t think I’d worry about ageing until I was at least in my late 40s, but those of us not using surgery are technically ageing faster due to the vast amount of people who do. I look and feel older because they’ve made themselves look younger.
So, how do I, as a feminist woman, navigate my ageing and how it skewers the way society sees me? the only older women I see in the media are the ones who are lauded and celebrated for defying the scientific inevitability of age — with surgery, expensive facelifts and creams, and a honed P.Volve body resembling a teenager’s.
While it seems insane to already feel invisible aged only 37, the way women frantically chase the perfect skincare regime, or get ‘preventative Botox’, shows we know the consequences of ageing. I’m clearly not the only one feeling concerned if women a decade younger than me are chucking so much money and time to stay visible. In fact maybe I’m a late bloomer, as I’ve only started to worry about it recently.
Will it be unfeminist of me to get Botox? Or is it an empowering choice that makes me feel better? It’s a question that’s so much harder to answer as it becomes more personally relevant. I’ve tried to draw lines in the sand as the lines deepen on my forehead.
I’ve succumbed to performing an increasingly complicated skincare regime, using retinol now, but I have so far resisted plastic surgery.
A childhood friend I shared a birthday with died unexpectedly when I was 24 which changed my attitude towards ageing. every year, as my phone pings with happy birthday messages, his still-open Facebook page floods with rIP messages of ‘I miss you’. It’s a devastating, acute reminder of the number of extra days of life I’ve had compared to him. It truly does contextualise each wrinkle as the ultimate privilege. On every birthday, I reflect on the sunsets I’ve seen, delicious meals I’ve eaten, laughs I’ve laughed, loves I’ve loved, the juice of life that I’ve drunk, and see them all etched on my face.
I try to see it for the beauty that it is — like my ageing face is a passport, collecting the stamps of life experiences. It’s a quieter type of issue — the diminishing visibility of older women — one that’s hard to put a precise finger on.
But, as I edge towards 40, I feel its gentle grip. I think none of us really imagine we’ll get older. And it hurts more than I thought it would, in fact I feel a mild panic. the invisibility is less explicit than the sexism I’ve experienced, and more of a feeling.
there’s a growing sense that I’m lesser-than now I crumple when I laugh, now my hair is speckled with grey. Society generally feels less bothered with me — in positive and negative ways. I feel it when I go to clothes stores that used to be my favourites, try something on. Nobody is telling me I can’t wear the current trends, but there’s a deep knowingness that I look just ‘wrong’ in these clothes now. When hit 35, I remember there was a craze on tiktok where Generation Z girls mocked the fashion choices of Millenial women — our side partings and our skinny jeans.
‘Hang on,’ I thought, ‘Women my age are now old enough to get ridiculed for our frumpy fashion.’ And, as I felt for my middlepart and smoothed down my skinny jeans in shame, I had to remind myself this is, depressingly, how it works.
Last year, I became a mother for the first time, and this feeling of invisibility intensified again. I felt like a haggard nuisance pushing my buggy down the street.
And, no matter how carefully I tried to steer my baby around narrow pavements, I couldn’t believe how many people actively bumped into me, then flicked me a look of disgust for taking up space. Now I am a mother, I see mothers everywhere, but nobody sees me because I have become one.
the other day, I failed to even recognise myself. I caught a glimpse in a shop window, and there was a moment of total disconnect before I realised that the hunched, exhausted- looking, woman pushing a buggy, was me. I practically flinched in shock.
I guess I’m lucky in that I live two lives with my job.
I’m the Holly who is just another woman in the world. However, I’m also a writer. A job where your appearance is (mostly) irrelevant, and there’s a tremendous, powerful, visibility in having words published.
You can’t address beauty issues without acknowledging ageing, and how society still condemns women who dare to visibly do it by, well, making them invisible. It’s a cliche in storytelling, how mothers (or evil stepmothers) resent their daughter’s beauty and youth, and I wanted to explore the painful reasons why we strive to remain the fairest of them all in my latest teen novel, You could Be So Pretty.
Whether that’s a poisonous apple, or freezing your forehead with injectible poison, it’s not pathetic that we chase youth. We know the consequences of losing it. And, sadly, women perpetuate this age discrimination as much as men can, severing the bonds where the wisdom and experience of age could be passed down to younger generations.