I have a question.

When exactly did getting older become a character flaw for women?

Because I swear a man can wake up one morning with gray hair, forehead wrinkles, a little belly and a receding hairline and somebody will call that man distinguished.

A woman gets one laugh line and suddenly everybody wants to discuss how well she’s “holding up.”

Holding up against WHAT?

Time?

Baby, time undefeated. We all going. 😂

But somewhere along the way, we created two completely different definitions of aging depending on whether the person doing it is a man or a woman.

Men are allowed to age into themselves.

Women are expected to fight aging like it broke into the house.

And God forbid a woman actually looks her age.

We’ll accept 48—as long as she looks 32.

We’ll celebrate 55—as long as somebody can say, “Girl, I thought you were 40!”

And I know that’s supposed to be a compliment, but think about what we’re actually saying.

Why would looking 55 at 55 be an insult?

Why does the compliment have to be that she successfully escaped looking like a woman who has lived 55 years?

Meanwhile, nobody looks at a 55-year-old man and says, “Oh my God! You look 39!”

Half the time that man looks every bit of 61 and nobody gives a damn. 😭

And it goes beyond looks.

A 45-year-old divorced man starts dating again and he’s “back outside.”

A 45-year-old divorced woman starts dating again and somebody wants to know why she doesn’t just settle down.

A 50-year-old man buys a sports car and he’s enjoying the fruits of his labor.

A 50-year-old woman puts on a bikini and somehow the internet needs an emergency meeting.

And dating?

Oh, honey.

A man dating a younger woman has been so normalized we barely blink.

Let a woman show up with a younger man and suddenly everybody becomes a census worker.

“How old is he?”

“How old is she?”

“What could they possibly have in common?”

Apparently the same shit a 58-year-old man and his 31-year-old girlfriend have in common, Patricia. Mind your business.

And that’s the part I want to talk about.

We tell women to embrace aging while simultaneously reminding them at every turn that youth is supposedly their greatest currency.

Then we act surprised when women become terrified of losing it.

Maybe women don’t hate aging.

Maybe women hate the way the world starts trying to reduce them once they do.

Because I don’t want “You look good for your age.”

If I look good, say I look good.

The sentence can end right there.

I don’t need the qualifier.

And I definitely don’t need to pretend I’m 25 forever to deserve beauty, love, sex, attention, fun, ambition, reinvention or visibility.

I earned every year on this face.

Every laugh line came from laughing.

Every scar has a story.

Every gray hair survived something.

So maybe instead of teaching women how to age gracefully, society needs to learn how to let women age freely.

Because I’m not getting old.

I’m getting more expensive.

— Sugar

UT. Without the I.