fuck ageing gracefully, we will age with rage, if we please.

I think the problem lies within the contradiction within wanting to age gracefully, while knowing far too well that we have no absolute idea what that even means when it comes to women.

Why do we talk about aging women, let alone doing it with grace? Which one of you do women owe grace to? Is it not terribly unfortunate that we’re expected to waste our prime years onto men and the undoing of all the traumas we’ve been through in this half function world built by them, that now even our process of aging must be graceful… to whom?

We don’t even see women that age in our society. We see mothers, and wives, and grandmothers. We see daughters, who aren’t old enough to take own the former roles — yet. These women do not ‘officially’ belong to society in ways where they contribute to its growth or it’s economy — they simply belong to men and to their families.

And so women do not live to tell their own stories, but to tell the stories of others.

We collectively refuse to talk about the real problem because blaming women is just easier — we’ve been doing it for generations and the narrative sells better than any new angle would… why bother?

First, ask yourself why we think women who marry younger men are somehow old enough to be their mothers but the opposite is evidently not shocking to us into writing essays about the audacity of these men? Why are we so comfortable watching love stories after love stories that show middle aged men with women young enough to be their daughters?

This isn’t a one man problem but a very accepted inherent bias — male actors all over film industries, including the ones we excuse because we love and adore, have repeatedly casted women in romantic roles that aren’t nearly close to their age. What happened to the careers of Juhi Chawla, Preiti Zinta, Madhuri Dixit, and the never ending list of female actors we adored with Amir Khan, Salman Khan, Akshay Kumar, and yes, as much as it hurts to add, Shah Rukh Khan? Why are some of the best of Bollywood’s jodi’s no longer desirable by an audience that clearly claims that they have no issues what so ever with aging women.

Apparently, this war with age is all in our heads — Society (and men) seem to have nothing to do with it at all.

You cannot have it both ways. You either think women should be comfortable in their skin and not have to be insecure about aging, or you think there’s nothing wrong with the casting of Jawan. and Sultan. and Welcome.

The second part of this multi layered issue is; we have no idea how beautiful women are supposed to age gracefully.

Is the fearless woman at 75 who chooses to be topless actually beautiful… or is she just brave?

Is the rich woman in her 40s who never gave botoxed her wrinkles beautiful, or is she just bold? Smart even, if she’s self made. Clearly beauty couldn’t have possibly got her so far if she’s got a brain… right?

If her parents are well off then she’s privileged and if her husband is successful then she married into it. If she’s self made and beautiful — well, she’s obviously just privileged, or wait, who did she sleep with?

If she’s everything you want her to be and she ticks all the boxes — she’s too clearly too plastic to be real.

We have no idea how beautiful women are supposed to age. We say we want a society where women can exist without so much self loath, but what do we do about it?

We actively go out of our way to make them feel insecure and ugly. We do quite the opposite of what we claim we want. We are hostile towards women, and we gaslight them into thinking it’s all in their head.

Are women supposed to age like they do in anti aging skin care and beauty ads? Or are we supposed to age like the women our favourite Heros romance (which evidently means the maximum women must age to be desirable is to be in their late twenties or early thirties, before they stop aging altogether)

Are women supposed to age in isolation, hidden away in houses and families? Because those are the only stories and narratives I am raised to aspire within.

Women do not exist the way men do, in their 50s and 60s as rich business tycoons, unwed or divorced, running businesses despite of the female pattern baldness and those lines on their forehead that nobody cares about because we’re more interested in what they say when they open their mouth to speak.

No, instead, as women we are stuck in a toxic cycle of wanting to remain young enough to matter and have a voice, only to then use that very voice to apologise for lying about the work we’ve done to our faces because you have the audiacity to ask us — instead of looking inwards and wondering what you’ve done on a daily basis to change something.

We do not want to ‘age gracefully’ anymore — my age is a reminder of how many more years women have lived to accomadate and make themselves smaller and smaller to fit into your boxes. We will age however the fuck we want to age, with rage and compassion and voices loud enough to tell you to sit back down and mind your own business.

Mind your own wrinkles, instead of having to worry about mine.