Appearance, Aging and Shame
From our earliest conscious moment, we all live lives based on conformation to expectations; our self-worth and our shame is so tied up with meeting — or not meeting — those expectations.
Telegraphed or overt, expectations on us for our existence in the world are there from day one. We pick up on those messages from the world via our family, peers, the social structures we participate in, and the media we are immerse in.
Expectations of who we should be, who we need to be.
Society’s expectations on women constitutes a long list, exacting and often contradictory. Be friendly, kind, smart but not too smart, nurturing, supportive, self-sacrificing, and endlessly patient. Have a sense of humor (read: when the joke’s at your expense, not by mocking fragile egos), be a great girlfriend, wife and/or mother, be an excellent worker but in a way that doesn’t bust any balls or egos. Oh, and by all and any means, be as attractive as possible while you’re at it.
In reality, ‘attractiveness’ is a social construct and, for the most part, a man-made one. I would posit that in this male-centric judging of women, “attractive” = sexy. And while we may have forgotten due to it’s overuse, sexy means “appealing in a sexual way”; in current parlance, ‘fuckable’.
Women showing visible signs of aging are usually no longer seen as sexy or worthy of the male gaze. This graceless state of obvious female aging is a like a social faux-pas, requiring of a gentle nudge from the social arena, or derision and harsh attack if she doesn’t have the sense and decency to go quietly. Scorn, ridicule and public shaming rain down as quickly as a troll’s wee typing fingers if she continues to behave like one possessed of beauty and self when society has deemed her no longer desirable.
Physical signs of age are like an embarrassing indiscretion, stigmatizing our bodies. “She’s showing her age” is a familiar remark that implies that it is somehow shameful for a woman to age. Tasteless, unseemly, like a run up the back of ones hose. Doesn’t she know? Someone should tell her; she needs to fix that or hide it.
Shame
Looked at from a strictly psychological perspective, shame is a painful negative evaluation of self. It is felt by all humans, with the exception of those identified as extreme sociopaths, devoid of empathy and remorse.
Shame is a toxic emotion that eats away at our self-esteem, and can induce anxiety, sadness, depression, loneliness, and a withdrawal from society. When we are feeling shame, we are more likely to engage in self-destructive behaviors. Prolonged, unresolved shame has deleterious and potentially permanent impacts on both our physical and mental health.
One of the foremost researchers into shame, Dr. Brene Brown, found 12 categories of shame emerged from over a decade of research and these were shame around:
- appearance and body image
- money and work
- motherhood/fatherhood,
- family
- parenting
- mental and physical health
- addiction
- sex
- aging
- religion
- surviving trauma
- being stereotyped or labeled
Aside from the other issues life has thrown at us to deal with, for women in midlife and onward, we are potentially susceptible to a veritable bouquet shame, and this has been recognized under the umbrella of age-related shame.
Age-related Shame
Age-related shame is a real phenomenon that is the result of embedded cultural ideals and messages. Gendered ageism exacts an incredible toll on women. In our ageist culture with its intense obsession with all things youthful the result is a shaming of women for physical signs of age.
We age-shame men when they chase inappropriately younger women. We age-shame women when they age.
Age-related shame pervades our culture so insidiously we don’t even realize it’s there. The threads of shame lace their way across our subconscious, weaving through our unexamined sense of self. As women, our appearance has been stitched tightly to our sense of identity and self-worth.
Whether we are conscious of it or not, women’s bodies are a public entity that are objectified, held to is unrealistic standards, and policed by the outside world.
I’m not going to go deep on this here but if you are at all in doubt of this phenomena, witness the shit-storm of very vocal outrage when a female celebrity’s image shows any sign of imperfection, let alone (shudder) age. It’s like she (read: we) OWES it to the world to either show up perfect or just don’t show up. Whether she is an entertainer, a public figure or average person, the go-to disparagement to negate her statements or actions in the world is to attack her appearance, her face and body, and what she is doing or not doing with them.
This has intensified in the last generation through the sculpting of our perceptions and impossible norms by popular media. Because it is so pervasive in our society, even we women have it hard-coded into our psyche, judging ourselves and other women by these standards. We have all been so co-opted in this pervasive mentality that convinces us that we are less valuable with each passing birthday. We effectively collude in shaming and disempowering women — ourselves — in our disdain of age and aging from the safe vantage point of relative youth.
The Rub
This cognitive dissonance makes it all the more challenging when we come to realize, almost unforeseen, that purely through passage of time, we have slid into the ranks of ‘older woman’, losing an unwinnable battle of judgement. Our collusion continues in our shame-based denial of aging.
For our own well-being, it’s important to get age-related shame out in the open and to build what Brene Brown calls ‘shame resilience’.
You get beyond shame when you identify it, talk about it with empathy and self-love, and when you own it — accepting and maybe even embracing it.
