Still a long way to go
There is no place for sexist or ageist remarks in this day and age.
AN acquaintance of mine, a charming woman who lives in Kuala Lumpur, is 62 but looks 42. Her secret? Each night she smears mud from the Dead Sea onto her face, holds the muck in place with a cling film mask, and goes to sleep on her back, with her arms clamped firmly down by her side.
She wakes up in the same position, without a hair out of place. When she removes the cling film in the morning, her unwashed face resembles a dry, cracked riverbed during a long drought.
I’m not sure about the effectiveness of the Dead Sea stuff ( it could be sludge from the bottom of the Klang River for all she knows) but I’ve heard that sleeping on your back will help keep your skin as smooth as a baby’s bottom. It seems that squishing your face into your pillow every night is akin to ironing wrinkles into your skin.
I’ve tried sleeping on my back, but I couldn’t get comfortable and had difficulty remaining asleep once I’d managed to drop off. After a few nights fighting the urge to roll onto my side, I was so sleep deprived I looked as if I’d aged at least 10 years in the same period.
While this nightly ritual goes on in my friend’s house, her husband brushes his teeth, and then snuggles up to his pillow, with a total disregard for his wrinkle- inducing activities. A few minutes later, while his wife carefully positions her mummified face skywards, he is fast asleep.
How ironic that she is doing this to stop her husband from straying. What double standard has she imposed on herself that says that it’s okay for her to be paranoid about her appearance, while her husband can develop a beer gut big enough to eclipse his feet, and turn his face into something resembling an elephant’s wrinkled bottom, and still consider himself a babe magnet.
A few weeks ago, at the exact moment when this acquaintance was drifting off to sleep, a stir was brewing at the Rio Olympics. Gabby Douglas, an African American gymnast, came under fire for her hair, lack of patriotism for not putting her hand over her heart during the US national anthem, and for not smiling enough when her teammates were performing.
Take it from me, there was nothing this girl could have done right, despite winning a gold medal. It was the same story at the 2012 Olympics in London, where her less than perfectly coiffed hair came under strong criticism and totally overshadowed the two gold medals she won.
Since when is a woman’s hair more important than her achievements? It’s not as if the judges deduct points for flyaway hair, or the uneven placement of hairpins, or a parting that’s slightly off centre.
To even make it onto your country’s Olympic team is a huge achievement in itself. Gaby took up gymnastics at the age of six. While most other kids her age were probably staring blankly at a screen of some sort, she was committed to hardcore training in the gym. The sacrifices have been enormous.
Unfortunately, Gabby will forever be known as that gymnast with the untidy hair. Even worse, most of the people who criticised her appearance were female.
A few days after Gabby was being torn to pieces, I found myself sitting in a workshop. All was going well, until the facilitator, a man in his forties began talking about a certain type of software that could make our work easier.
“I had a woman in her fifties pick it up without any problem,” he announced. “If someone like that doesn’t have a problem, you should all be okay.”
“Someone like that?” a little voice screamed in my ear. As a woman in her fifties, I felt insulted. So I did the only thing I could do under the circumstances. I felt beneath the table I was sitting at, until my fingers found a little button. I immediately pressed it, and then watched as the facilitator hurtled through the ceiling and into the outer atmosphere, where I believe he’s still in orbit.
Well, at least that’s what I would like to have done. The day after the workshop, I was asked to complete a survey, so I took the opportunity to mention, ever so politely, that the facilitator did a great job but he should refrain from making sexist/ ageist remarks.
Women have come a long way in the past 50 years, but the wheels of change turn slowly. Some of us still feel it’s okay to have double standards when it comes to what’s acceptable for men, and what’s acceptable for women. And what gives some women the idea that it’s perfectly fine to tear another woman apart for something as trivial as appearance, whether she’s won a medal or not.
I’m off to bed now – where I have lovely plump pillows to cradle my face.