I first noticed it a few summers ago, when I was 34 years old. It was a very hot day, one of those when you are urged to carry water bottles on public transportation, and I put on some clothes before heading into the city.
I put on a pair of jean shorts and a strappy top. But when I looked at my reflection in the hallway mirror and the sheer amount of skin showing, I stopped. “That’s weird,” I told my husband. “I just realized I haven’t been booed all summer.”
‘Isn’t that a good thing?’ she responded.
I’ve thought about it. “Yes and no,” I said. “I don’t think it’s because the war against sexual harassment has been won, but because I’m too old to be harassed now…”
A decade earlier, I wouldn’t have been able to create a “revealing” set so easily. When I moved to London, aged 25, I was shocked by relentless sexual harassment every time I left the house. Especially since I’ve never been the “pretty” one in my friend group.
However, during the summer, every morning I had to choose between the physical comfort of fewer clothes, knowing that I would be booed, catcalled, and sometimes even followed home, or the emotional comfort of a longer hem or sleeve. . Now that this year’s winter stubbornly persists, I feel no relief as I wrap myself in my puffer coat.
Young adult novel author Holly Bourne feels like she’s experiencing the beginning of the end of something, at just 37 years old.
As an author of young adult novels, I often work with teenage girls who complain that they can’t walk to school without being bothered by older men. They say her uniform is basically a giant target for honking, whistles, and perverted comments. Sexual harassment definitely hasn’t gone away.
Then, I realized that my new superpower of wearing a short skirt and remaining calm was not a feminist victory, but rather a newfound invisibility. Somehow, I had gone from one type of sexism to another. I’m only 37 years old and yet I feel like I’m suffering from the beginning of the end of something. My being-seen, the peak of my supposed attractiveness. And this will only get worse.
Actresses, pop stars, models, influencers – I notice they are much younger than me or look younger due to what I assume are cosmetic interventions. As plastic surgery and “touch-ups” become increasingly popular and socially acceptable, even sold as “empowering,” our perception of another woman’s age is changing.
I see famous women in their 40s and 50s who look younger than me. I didn’t think I’d worry about aging until I was at least 40, but those of us who don’t technically use surgery age faster because of the large number of people who do. I look and feel older because they have made themselves look younger.
So how can I, as a feminist woman, cope with my aging and how it affects the way society views me? The only older women I see in the media are the ones lauded and celebrated for defying the scientific inevitability of age: with surgery, expensive facelifts and creams, and a perfected teenage-like P.Volve body.
While it seems crazy to feel invisible at just 37, the way women frantically chase the perfect skincare regimen or receive ‘preventive Botox’ proves that we know the consequences of aging. Clearly I’m not the only one who feels concerned if women a decade younger than me are wasting so much money and time to stay visible. In fact, maybe I’m a late bloomer, since I just started worrying about it.
Will it be unfeminist of me to receive Botox? Or is it an empowering choice that makes me feel better? It’s a much harder question to answer as it becomes more personally relevant. I tried to draw lines in the sand as the lines deepened on my forehead.
I’ve succumbed to an increasingly complicated skincare regimen and now use retinol, but until now I’ve resisted plastic surgery.
A childhood friend I shared a birthday with died unexpectedly when I was 24, which changed my attitude toward aging. Every year, while my phone rings with happy birthday messages, his still-open Facebook page is flooded with RIP “I miss you” messages. It’s a sharp and devastating reminder of how many extra days of life I’ve had compared to him. It really contextualizes every wrinkle as the ultimate privilege. On every birthday, I reflect on the sunsets I’ve seen, the delicious foods I’ve eaten, the laughs I’ve laughed, the loves I’ve cherished, the juice of life I’ve drank, and I see them all etched on my face.
I try to see it for the beauty it is, as if my aging face were a passport collecting the stamps of life’s experiences. It’s a quieter kind of problem: the declining visibility of older women, one that’s hard to pinpoint precisely.
But, as I approach 40, I feel its gentle grip. I don’t think any of us really imagine that we’ll be older. And it hurts more than I thought, in fact I feel a slight panic. Invisibility is less explicit than the sexism I have experienced and more of a feeling.
There is a growing sense that I am less: now I collapse when I laugh, now my hair is sprinkled with gray. Society in general is less upset with me, in positive and negative ways. I feel it when I go to clothing stores that used to be my favorites and try something on. No one tells me that I can’t wear current trends, but I have a deep knowledge that I now look “bad” in these clothes. When I turned 35, I remember there was a TikTok craze where Gen Z girls were making fun of Millennial women’s fashion choices: our side parting and skinny jeans.
“Wait,” I thought, “women my age are now old enough to be ridiculed for our frumpy fashion.” And, as I felt my midsection and smoothed down my skinny jeans in embarrassment, I had to remind myself that this is, depressingly, how it works.
Women are frantically searching for the perfect skincare regime or receiving ‘preventive Botox’, even at the age of 37, proving we know the consequences of ageing, writes Holly Bourne.
Last year I became a mother for the first time and this feeling of invisibility intensified again. I felt like an emaciated nuisance pushing my stroller down the street.
And no matter how carefully I tried to steer my baby down narrow sidewalks, I couldn’t believe how many people were actively bumping into me and then giving me a look of disgust for taking up space. Now I am a mother, I see mothers everywhere, but no one sees me because I have become one.
The other day I couldn’t even recognize myself. I glanced at a store window and there was a moment of complete disconnection before I realized that the hunched, exhausted-looking woman pushing a stroller was me. I practically shook in shock.
I guess I’m lucky because I live two lives with my job.
I’m Holly, who is just another woman in the world. However, I am also a writer. A job where your appearance is (mostly) irrelevant and where the words you publish have tremendous and powerful visibility.
Issues of beauty cannot be addressed without acknowledging aging and how society still condemns women who dare to do so visibly by making them invisible. It’s a cliché in storytelling how mothers (or evil stepmothers) resent the beauty and youth of their daughters, and I wanted to explore the painful reasons why we strive to remain the most beautiful of all in my latest novel for teenagers, you could be so pretty.
Whether it’s a poisonous apple or freezing your forehead with injectable poison, it’s not pathetic that we persecute youth. We know the consequences of losing it. And unfortunately, women perpetuate this age discrimination as much as men, severing the ties that allowed the wisdom and experience of age to be passed on to younger generations.
You Could Be So Pretty is a post by Usborne