Why Is It Harder For Women To Age Than It Is For Men?

Released on September 20, The Substance shocked the movie industry and was responsible for addressing sensitive issues in society in an extremely impactful way, which generated numerous discussions on these topics.

The most relevant problem that was addressed in the film and that will be the subject of discussion in this matter was how women have to do everything to be young and beautiful, and even if they try to postpone aging, a woman’s age will always arrive first. 

“At 50 years old… it stops”

Women go through judgments that men have never thought about. It is not new that the simple fact of being a woman limits us to some things, but recently even the right to grow old has been denied us. 

Society has created stigmas for all ages of a woman, which are usually followed strictly. At 13 you want to look older, you want your breasts to be larger, and you should behave in a certain way so that boys consider you feminine enough.

At 25 you are at your best, but you must control yourself so as not to lose shape, because what man will want you if you are overweight or with some stretch marks? You must remain perfect all the time, always with a smile on your face, doing what they want you to. 

At 50, the glamor of being a woman disappears. You no longer have the perfect body and the aging marks begin to be part of you. Younger girls will see you as if you couldn’t even be considered on the same level as them. At this time, you have two options: try your best to look young again, doing botox, surgeries and radical changes to hide your real age or accept that it is the end of your pretty life, you’re old now, and everyone’s going to look at you pretending that you have nothing more to offer. And none of them are the real solution.

“The standard of beauty is youth, if you’re not young you don’t deserve attention anymore.”, once said the Brazilian actress Mônica Martelli.

On the other hand, society does not impose such pressure on men so that they do not look older and still states that the older a man gets, the more interesting and charming he becomes.

In Western society, women have expiry dates, when they stop looking like “dolls”, they lose some functions and are no longer so important. 

“People always ask for something new, it is inevitable”

The job market has never been kind to women. The demands for them to stay in a job position are not limited to the ability to do a good job and it extends to a woman’s appearance and age. 

In The Substance, the idea that the main character is too old to be treated like a beautiful woman and to have a job that puts her in evidence is what completely centers the plot of the narrative. Demi Moore plays Elizabeth Sparkle, a 50-year-old actress who has had a glorious career in her youth and has fallen into public oblivion over the years. 

After she departed from film screens, Elizabeth used to be the presenter of a gymnastics program for television, from which she was fired on the grounds of being too old for it. “People want something new and you can no longer offer it to them”. The one who says this is Harvey, head of the network, who at practically the same age as Elizabeth, dares to call her old and say that what was good about her is gone over time. 

“You WERE amazing”.

The industry’s search for the youngest, most beautiful, most feminine and most smiling woman causes several issues for every girl. We cannot go out of the standard, we cannot be in a bad mood and the most problematic of all, we cannot be part of the life cycle, we have no right to age. 

The idea that a woman can’t do certain things at a certain age is already rooted in people’s thinking, while men will never have their position questioned because of their age and will not be able to feel that time has destroyed their professional and personal lives. 

Elizabeth is a very representative character, she exposes the thoughts of a woman who is losing space because of her age and takes the search for youth to extreme levels. This role also has significant weight for Demi’s career, because just like the character she plays. The actress went through the process of being intensely loved by fans during the beginning of her career, playing prominent roles and after the age of 30 many thought she had disappeared from the screens, but Demi was always there, with secondary roles, for the simple fact of being older. 

“You can’t escape from yourself”

We will get old. And even if society tells us this, getting older is not synonymous with disability or disease. 

Aging is one of the most beautiful parts of life and for us to enjoy this process, we must punctuate what makes it so difficult. 

Women get sick of getting old because they are suffering from not corresponding to what is expected of them. We rarely put ourselves as priorities in our lives, and the feeling of living to please someone is what makes us spend our whole lives worrying.

It is the pressure that is put on women that makes us see the moments of our lives differently, that makes us unable to enjoy all the stages of life like a man, and it is certainly this concern to be forgotten, to become irrelevant, that makes aging for a woman completely different from how it is for a man. 

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The article above was edited by Larissa Buzon.

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• entertainment
• life
• The Substance