You’ve got it, go ahead and flaunt it
It’s amazing how much attention is being given to such things as age and size
these days. Of course, in the age of perpetual selfies I suppose it’s a given
that things such as those are important.
As I near one of those milestone ages, stories relating to people’s ages, or what they do or how they look at a certain age, tend to catch my eye. More often than not it’s because my first thought tends to be, “I didn’t know she was that old.” Or sometimes, “Why we’re practically the same age, what happened to me?”
It’s nice to see stories about young entrepreneurs and kids who can do amazing things for their youthfulness. I watched a video of a 9-year-old playing blues guitar as well as any of the old masters. While I listened, I recalled that, “At 9, I could tie my shoes.”
Those are wonderful stories because what these youngsters can do is astounding. They’re prodigies able to do so many things at such young ages, and you can’t wait to see how they progress in life, and wonder if this is what they can do now, what will they be able to do in 20 years?
I also like those stories about older folks, and my determination of what’s “old” increases every year. I now think the threshold is around 95. It’s great to see stories about someone in their 80s climbing mountains, and folks in their 70s running marathons and wrestling bears. What zeal for life they have that they’re still taking challenges, following dreams and not letting the grass grow under their feet.
Then, however, there are those stupid stories that express astonishment at what folks are doing at such ancient ages as 40. Women largely are the targets rather than subjects of these stories.
A recent one that stood out in my mind — and not for reasons you might think
— was physical trainer and TV celebrity Jillian Michaels doing a few nude photos
for a health magazine. (A couple of the shots were included in the AOL story I
read, and they were tasteful and not as revealing as you might think.)
The writer of the story, however, seemed astonished that Michaels not only did such a thing but also did it at the ripe old age of — gasp! — 40! If you’ve ever seen Jillian Michaels, she doesn’t look 40, at least not to me. And secondly, so what if she’s 40? I wish I’d looked that good at 40 — in a more manly way, of course.
What really bugs me is how magazines and websites and TV folks seem to think that after, oh, 29 women should be on their way to being crones, and if they’re attractive it’s an amazing feat, and if they do something like Michaels then they can’t believe their audacity. They also act as if it’s the first time they’ve seen anything like that.
There’s almost always an age reference tossed into any story or with photos of “older” women that sometimes is just short of being snarky. Other times it’s outright snarky. Why are they surprised that a woman 40, or 50, or 60, or even older, still can have grace, beauty, brains, and, yes, even smokin’ bods?
And by no means am I being sexist or chauvinistic or condescending. Let me tell you, age is not a factor for any of those things, in women and men. I know women who a lot of society might say are “past their prime,” but they are far, far from it in any way or form. In the vernacular, they rock.
Naturally, another factor that often slips into this mix is size, for men and women. I’ve harped about this before, but I want to just touch on it briefly. Age aside, not every woman looks like Jillian Michaels, just as not every man looks hunky like, oh, Jason Stratham. Yet so often you’ll see in stories references to size, and most of these are indeed snarky as far as I’m concerned. Unless that’s what the story is about, why include it or mention it?
The average size now for women in this country is 14. I’m not sure what it is
for men, there aren’t many reports I’ve seen about that although I admit I’m
obviously above average in the waistline. Just as I don’t consider age a factor
in attractiveness, neither is size.
There are some gorgeous women and, yes, hunky guys out there who aren’t rail thin. I think some don’t realize it, or believe it of themselves, but it’s true. Beauty not only is in the eye of the beholder, but in the mind of the individual, too.
My advice to everyone is regardless of age and size, you’ve got it, so flaunt it.
As I near one of those milestone ages, stories relating to people’s ages, or what they do or how they look at a certain age, tend to catch my eye. More often than not it’s because my first thought tends to be, “I didn’t know she was that old.” Or sometimes, “Why we’re practically the same age, what happened to me?”
It’s nice to see stories about young entrepreneurs and kids who can do amazing things for their youthfulness. I watched a video of a 9-year-old playing blues guitar as well as any of the old masters. While I listened, I recalled that, “At 9, I could tie my shoes.”
Those are wonderful stories because what these youngsters can do is astounding. They’re prodigies able to do so many things at such young ages, and you can’t wait to see how they progress in life, and wonder if this is what they can do now, what will they be able to do in 20 years?
I also like those stories about older folks, and my determination of what’s “old” increases every year. I now think the threshold is around 95. It’s great to see stories about someone in their 80s climbing mountains, and folks in their 70s running marathons and wrestling bears. What zeal for life they have that they’re still taking challenges, following dreams and not letting the grass grow under their feet.
Then, however, there are those stupid stories that express astonishment at what folks are doing at such ancient ages as 40. Women largely are the targets rather than subjects of these stories.
A recent one that stood out in my mind — and not for reasons you might think
— was physical trainer and TV celebrity Jillian Michaels doing a few nude photos
for a health magazine. (A couple of the shots were included in the AOL story I
read, and they were tasteful and not as revealing as you might think.)The writer of the story, however, seemed astonished that Michaels not only did such a thing but also did it at the ripe old age of — gasp! — 40! If you’ve ever seen Jillian Michaels, she doesn’t look 40, at least not to me. And secondly, so what if she’s 40? I wish I’d looked that good at 40 — in a more manly way, of course.
What really bugs me is how magazines and websites and TV folks seem to think that after, oh, 29 women should be on their way to being crones, and if they’re attractive it’s an amazing feat, and if they do something like Michaels then they can’t believe their audacity. They also act as if it’s the first time they’ve seen anything like that.
There’s almost always an age reference tossed into any story or with photos of “older” women that sometimes is just short of being snarky. Other times it’s outright snarky. Why are they surprised that a woman 40, or 50, or 60, or even older, still can have grace, beauty, brains, and, yes, even smokin’ bods?
And by no means am I being sexist or chauvinistic or condescending. Let me tell you, age is not a factor for any of those things, in women and men. I know women who a lot of society might say are “past their prime,” but they are far, far from it in any way or form. In the vernacular, they rock.
Naturally, another factor that often slips into this mix is size, for men and women. I’ve harped about this before, but I want to just touch on it briefly. Age aside, not every woman looks like Jillian Michaels, just as not every man looks hunky like, oh, Jason Stratham. Yet so often you’ll see in stories references to size, and most of these are indeed snarky as far as I’m concerned. Unless that’s what the story is about, why include it or mention it?
The average size now for women in this country is 14. I’m not sure what it is
for men, there aren’t many reports I’ve seen about that although I admit I’m
obviously above average in the waistline. Just as I don’t consider age a factor
in attractiveness, neither is size.There are some gorgeous women and, yes, hunky guys out there who aren’t rail thin. I think some don’t realize it, or believe it of themselves, but it’s true. Beauty not only is in the eye of the beholder, but in the mind of the individual, too.
My advice to everyone is regardless of age and size, you’ve got it, so flaunt it.
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Hi Sonny!
ReplyDeleteI want you to know I truly enjoyed reading this post as it speaks volumes without even the mention of all the madness that seems to be the medical professions greatest money maker; plastic surgery, Botox, gastric bypasses just to be rail thin, lypo, and even makeup gurus selling magic potions, and the list goes on.
This world has been obsessed with looks for far too long, no matter the age or size of a person, there's always been a strong sway to rule the way we look. Unfortunately, I don't think this will go away anytime soon and it will always be a way "shun" you might say those of us who aren't gods or goddesses whom are paraded around on the covers of magazines, weight loss commercials and/or exercising equipment and makeup ads. What's worse, the media promotes this harsher than usual now through reality television.
Too many people are absorbed into this media mania be it personally seeking to look a certain way or expecting others to look a certain way and through this we see not only adults being affected we see children affected as well. I don't know what's worse than a parent whose so absorbed under this spell that it creates a learned behavior in their children and even reaching as far as our communities and even governmental controlled agencies.
I think it's a sad day when a child is pursued by bullies, but worse even, when school staff target children because they aren't weighing in at the appropriate weight according to the CDC and locally your areas health departments. I can speak through experience as I had my two girls get letters home because they were too small and another because my son weighed too much (in elementary school). They proclaimed this was to help stop obesity and malnutrition however they never took into consideration my girls took after their father who to this day is skinny as a rail because of his high rate of metabolism, my son wasn't obese he just didn't meet "their" standards.
I think it's time more people supported age and size as a celebration of who they are and not who they should be like looks or age wise, but as you have shown the media will always find a way to snark if she/he's too old or he/she's too thin or too fat and each version in their opinions deserve a major "gasp"...probably because it goes against all they've been preaching as the gospel of good looks!
So I agree if you've got it flaunt. I'd like to add, if you don't have the media's short sided "it", you never ever should be ashamed of yourself because you don't look like so and so @ 40 or because you're blossoming at a different rate than your classmates. Each person is beautiful in their own way and that's what we should all flaunt :) I think it's up to us to set new standards that say it's ok if you're not Barbie or Ken who seem to be ageless but of ironically the picture of plastic perfect health!