The New-Look Midlife

How did it make you feel seeing 47-year-old Gwyneth Paltrow’s abs through the featherweight fabric of her Fendi dress at the Oscars in February, or 50-year-old Jennifer Lopez looking fitter than a 25-year-old in a studded leather bodysuit and chaps at this year’s Super Bowl half-time performance? Did you admire, envy, support or spit? As women in midlife, we should be applauding Gwyneth and J-Lo, shouldn’t we? We should be praising the fact that women over 40 are now taking centre stage rather than being pushed into the background. We should be admiring their vibrancy, agency and potency. We should be celebrating that this is what midlife looks like today. Shouldn’t we?

Yes, we should. But what we shouldn’t be doing is comparing ourselves to them. Just because Gwyneth has a six-pack, J-Lo has rock hard thighs and Victoria Beckham is as lithe as a gymnast doesn’t mean that the physique of a professional athlete is the benchmark for women in middle age. Celebrities put as much effort into looking good as they do into their careers because we live in an image-obsessed, tabloid-ruling culture where women in the public eye are picked apart every day for entertainment. In 2016, actress Jennifer Aniston penned a powerful essay for The Huffington Post in which she railed, “I’m fed up with the sport-like scrutiny and body shaming that occurs daily under the guise of ‘journalism’ … and ‘celebrity news’.”

A woman’s value to society has always been measured by her appearance, and there’s a part of me that for one moment thought the J-Lo’s of the world reinforced this. But blaming a woman who looks incredible and wants to show it off for what really are the effects of a patriarchal dictate that has existed for thousands of years is mean-spirited and wrong. Part of the problem, of course, is that as children, boys are taught to compete while girls are taught to compare. According to Psychology Today, women have “an innate drive to know where we stand in the beauty race.” Dr Renee Engeln adds that “We’re great at fighting back against media images, but we’re often fighting back after we’ve already lost the battle...the comparison process happens so quickly and effortlessly that it’s difficult to stop.”

Why didn’t anybody tell us when we were young girls that “Comparison is the thief of joy”, as US President Theodore Roosevelt put it?

These new frames of reference for midlife can’t all be about peachy-plump skin and killer bodies, can they? As wonderful as these women look, the kind of exercise and diet regimes they follow in order to look better than Barbie dolls – when in reality every fibre in a middle-aged woman’s body is yearning to spread out beyond her stretchy activewear – are gruelling and punishing. J-Lo, for instance, doesn’t consume carbohydrates, caffeine or alcohol, and her morning circuit workout involves a 400m run, 15 kettlebell swings, 10 push-ups, 15 over-the-shoulders (I’m not even sure what these are) and 15 bent rows using dumbbells, according to Harper’s Bazaar. She completes this circuit four times in 20 minutes before finishing with a plank hold. Yes, she’s truly amazing, but I don’t want a tight butt that badly.

If you look beyond our eonline celebrity culture, there’s a multitude of inspiring women projecting alternative and intriguing images of what midlife looks like. In her book, Midlife, photographer Elinor Carucci presents a series of portraits and images that represent a refreshingly honest and captivating account of a woman in midlife. In the introduction to the book, American author Kristen Roupenian described the photographs as an “intense, exhausting self-monitoring that can feel like an inescapable part of owning a female body.” At 50, Carucci bravely reveals the reality of a woman’s body as it ages naturally and it’s a beautiful reality; tender, honest, seductive.

Whether you’re in awe of Gwyneth’s abs or admire Elinor Carucci’s curves, each of these women is contributing to a new narrative around how women look and behave in midlife.

Invisible Woman Syndrome loses its credence a little more each time a woman in midlife or beyond uses her voice or her appearance to defy traditional expectations of females over 40.

And this should be celebrated, whether their way is your way, or not. Drawing comparisons is futile, although a hard habit to break. I read a terrific article on Oprah.com recently, in which the author explained how she silenced her comparing mind by becoming “an appreciator” of other women. “I’ve discovered...that women can be lovely in many ways – as many ways, it seems, as there are women. It’s easy to be very happy, noticing things to admire rather than looking only for ways to be admired.”

Yes to that. It’s the flip-side of the “exhausting self-monitoring” that comes with being a woman in her 20s. This has lessened significantly for me since I reached midlife and I’m grateful for that. I’m enjoying the degree of invisibility that comes with being 45. It doesn’t feel like a negative, it feels more like a release. I enjoy not caring whether men notice me or not (and mostly they don’t!), I relish feeling unobserved, and I like not caring that there are plenty of women around me who are younger, thinner and better looking. Good for them. They should enjoy it for as long as it lasts. I’m content to be the admirer rather than the admired right now.

What I do fear in midlife, though, is becoming irrelevant; not having a role or voice outside of my own home. That’s a far more frightening prospect than no longer being subject to the “male gaze”. I’ve been single for several years and have no desire to be in a relationship so that simply doesn’t impact on me. But to feel unheard would be a much more difficult prospect to deal with. That’s why platforms like this one are so important; the evolving model of what midlife looks like can’t just be an aesthetic one, it has to be an intellectual one also.

In Hitchcock’s 1938 film The Lady Vanishes, the middle-aged governess, Miss Froy, who looks suitably beige and pedestrian, vanishes from a train, and when the disappearance is investigated, her existence is denied by everyone who saw her except one woman called Iris. So far, so predictable – the older woman is used to anchor the plot but is then surplus to requirements on screen. However, in a wonderful Hitchcockian twist, Miss Froy returns to the screen and reveals her true identity – she’s not a fuddy-duddy, forgettable governess after all, but an intrepid British spy.

The moral of the story? Don’t judge a book by its cover, or a middle-aged woman by her years. I know I’m speaking to the converted here, but good to say it all the same.

Marie Kelly, July 2020.

Are you feeling more body positive and emotionally secure in midlife?
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