Anti-Aging? No. Pro-Aging.
By Karen and Erica
What does aging mean? Wikipedia says it is the process of becoming older.... . In humans, aging represents the accumulation of changes in a human being over time and can encompass physical, psychological and social changes. That seems to us a definition consistent with our experience.
What does anti-aging mean? According to Merriam-Webster, it is a term first used in 1943 to refer to skin creams used to prevent the effects of aging. That is—skin creams used to smooth out wrinkles. Wrinkles are, of course, only a tiny part of aging—not even mentioned in the broad Wikipedia definition. So really, these products should be called anti-wrinkle creams. And it is possible to talk about them that way. Check out this discussion from the Mayo Clinic.
But instead these products are marketed as anti-aging solutions. Obviously, as long as you remain alive you will get older, whether or not you have wrinkles. These treatments will not change that reality. All they can do, perhaps, is to change your appearance. So the real message is: if you don’t have wrinkles you will look younger.
So why would someone market an emollient that may affect appearance as an anti-aging product? We don’t know, but it is possible that a clever ad executive came up with the idea to scare women—even young women—into worrying about how they will look when they get a couple of years older and so buying products they might otherwise never consider. To suggest that once women look older, they are pretty much done, regardless of their other attributes—even though for men, experience and gravitas might make a few wrinkles an asset.
We dislike the term. We think anti-aging can be accomplished in only one way, and that way is not very palatable to us.
We also dislike the concept. We worked pretty hard to get to the ages we are now. We’re pretty proud of that.
In short, we are pro-aging.
A while ago, several magazines and brands declared that they would no longer use the term anti-aging. We liked the way Allure magazine addressed its decision, and we applauded the move by everyone who followed suit.
Does that mean we are opposed to taking care of ourselves? Not at all. We think we look our ages, and our ages look fine. We work out, we try to eat well, we (often) obey our doctors, and we take care of ourselves. Do we want to look like prunes? No. (There are of course many ways to prevent looking like a prune, avoiding the sun being probably the most effective. And no, we were not perfect in that regard.)
We’re happy to maintain nice skin—but we know we can’t have young skin. And we do not want to look like we are twenty five. We are proud of our years, and we think every one of them shows on us. We reject the idea that if one of the manifestations of those years is a few wrinkles, we are doomed. As we reject the idea that if we lack wrinkles, we can remain young. Being pro-aging means we think looking like healthy women in our sixties and seventies, and older, is exactly how we want to look.
Younger women are told early that they have a sell-by date, and the only way around it as they get older is to pretend they are younger than they are. Older women are told they are past their sell-by date and the only thing they can do about it is to take measures to hide the physical manifestations of living successful and complicated lives. Neither message has any place in the modern world.
So let’s think about how we talk about aging, especially when it comes to women, and let’s drop the anti-aging term forever. Those who worry about wrinkles should keep challenging them, but we should refuse to permit wrinkles to define older women and set their worth.
We are multifaceted creatures, and with or without wrinkles we are glad to be alive.