loved babygirl 2024. it perfectly delivered on what it set out to achieve. reminded me of mrs. fletcher 2019 and love and leashes 2022 a bit. we live in puritan era where ageism against women is at all times high so no wonder it made many people uncomfortable, but that's exactly why we need more female leads over 50 in the media and the dynamics that have been dominated by men for as long as patriarchy has existed.
generally speaking, i will always advocate for the stories that center women over 50, especially the genres that have historically excluded older women from their narratives - erotica, romance, fantasy, adventure.
our culture is overwhelmingly dominated by the narratives that dictate women over 50 to be invisible, expired and forgotten and this has an impact on every facet of our experience in society. ageism against women is the final boss of (often internalized) misogyny and is deeply engraved in the very foundation of patriarchy, conditioning us to have biases against stories centering older women. unfortunately, it's no surprise that internalized ageism in gen z women coincides with the rise of the tradwife movement and recently... the fertility contests on social media.
it all comes down to patriarchy reducing women's value to their beauty and allowing women to be beautiful only in their youth bc that's when they are fertile, reduced to being a means to fulfilling their sole purpose - reproduction.
this has never been the case with men. and this double standard is also deeply engraved in the foundation of patriarchy and systematic misogyny.
susan sontag's essay is still relevant:
for women, only one standard of female beauty is sanctioned: the girl.
the great advantage men have is that our culture allows two standards of male beauty: the boy and the man. the beauty of a boy resembles the beauty of a girl. in both sexes it is a fragile kind of beauty and flourishes naturally only in the early part of the life-cycle. happily, men are able to accept themselves under another standard of good looks — heavier, rougher, more thickly built. a man does not grieve when he loses the smooth, unlined, hairless skin of a boy. for he has only exchanged one form of attractiveness for another: the darker skin of a man’s face, roughened by daily shaving, showing the marks of emotion and the normal lines of age.
there is no equivalent of this second standard for women. the single standard of beauty for women dictates that they must go on having clear skin. every wrinkle, every line, every gray hair, is a defeat. no wonder that no boy minds becoming a man, while even the passage from girlhood to early womanhood is experienced by many women as their downfall, for all women are trained to continue wanting to look like girls.
older women have been relegated to the role of the mothers in the background. we have been brainwashed into feeling revulsion at the idea of older women leading our stories, but if we open our minds and allow some curiosity in, we will see that there is a great potential in placing older women in all the roles beyond motherhood and exploring this uncharted territory.
jacobvanloon
areudirty
andulkaphoto
origamiaround
