Best Before: Do Women Have An Expiration Date?

Age is just a number—until it becomes an expiration date. What does this mean and how do older women feel about it?

BY: JAYME LUTZ

Art by Jayme Lutz // The Underground

“[I first thought of my age] when I turned 50, because I realized my life was more than half over,” says Luanne, a woman in her 60s who works in a managerial position as a lead registered practical nurse. 

Luanne elaborates, saying, “chances are I'm not gonna live to be 100. So it's like you start to review your own mortality. That's half a century is kind of like, wow, that's a big milestone for sure.” 

Women today are faced with extreme pressure to delay aging. A pending and invisible expiration date weighs heavy on their chest, unknown to them when they’ll be targeted for their inevitable aging. 

I spoke with four women spanning from ages 36 to 87 about the trials that come with aging; our discussion proved that this expiration date is boldly branded onto them in different ways. Whether that be through insecurities with their appearance, not being represented in the media, or societal pressures, Audrey, Carly, Tina, and Luanne explore what it’s like to be an aging woman.

Expiration is simply “the end of a period of time.” Often used on food products, an expiration date signifies when the food is good until. This idea of expiration is also a form of ageism, and many women feel the need to change themselves before they hit their invisible expiration date. 

“I realized I was aging when I hit 17,” says Audrey, an 87-year-old homemaker. “I got married and was with my first husband, and I remember planning when to have a baby. I didn’t want to get too old and not have a baby to show for it.”

Audrey continues, “I think women have a lot to face growing up, there’s a lot of pressure from everything and everyone. I look back now and wish I let myself breathe. The world kept telling me to grow up but I just wanted to be a kid.”

The physiological signs of aging in women have been reported to signify their loss of femininity, sexual identity, social power, and social visibility. Constant advertisements for anti-aging products, celebrities getting plastic surgery, and middle-aged actresses being cast as older ages or not at all set a standard for everyday women. You must buy this cream to get rid of your wrinkles. You must get botox and fillers. You must fit yourself into designated roles.

In the media, once a woman ages, she is easily deemed replaceable. In an analysis of the careers of over 6,000 actors and actresses done by TIME Magazine, they found that “male actors see their careers peak at the age of 46, [while] female actors reach their professional pinnacles at age 30.” In the entertainment industry, most actresses begin to expire by the age of 30. 

Older women have started to disappear from film as they’re replaced by younger counterparts. There are women like Jennifer Lawrence, who at 25 played a 34-year-old woman in Joy. In the film, she also plays the character when she’s 40. At 23, Lawrence played a middle-aged love interest in American Hustle, opposite Christian Bale, who was nearly 40 at the time.

There are also women like Maggie Gyllenhaal, who at 37 was considered “too old” to play opposite a 55-year-old actor. Olivia Wilde was told at 28 that she was “too old” and subsequently turned down for the role of Leonardo Dicaprio’s wife in The Wolf of Wall Street. She was replaced by 22-year-old Margot Robbie. 

Natalia Borecka of Lone Wolf Mag says, “as a 30-something year old actress you’re too young to play really old parts, and too old for everything else. In Hollywood, it’s virtually unheard of for a 35 year old to actually play a 35 year old on screen.”

The entertainment industry has a serious issue with representation. Older women are not deemed valuable past a certain age cut-off. Once a woman ages, her roles are no longer based on talent but on whether or not she looks innocent, young, and sexy at the same time.

“I definitely don’t see myself on screen,” says Tina, a 40-year-old that runs her own daycare. “I don’t remember the last time I saw a woman with saggy tits in a movie. Where are all the saggy tits? We can’t all look like Jennifer Aniston or Jennifer Lopez.” 

Films are not the only place women face ageism and have to battle against what society deems as an expiration. Appearance-wise, age shows itself in fine lines, wrinkles, loss of collagen, and greying hair. To combat these physical signs of aging, women will reach deep into their pockets to buy anti-aging products, change their hair colour, or get plastic surgery. 

The beauty premium explains that attractive people are more likely to be considered for jobs and other opportunities. Physically attractive peoples are judged to have higher confidence, better social skills, and qualities such as being more competent and trustworthy than their less attractive counterparts. 

Physical attractiveness impacts how people are judged in regard to social opportunities, relationships, sexual behaviour, and employment. This focus on looks isn’t just about what a woman wears or what colour she might paint her nails, but is also about the appearance of aging. 

There are some women who don’t buy into the anti-aging hype, like Carly, a 36 year-old that works part-time as a front desk receptionist office assistant at a chiropractic clinic and as a virtual assistant handling social media accounts and graphic design. 

“I’ve always taken note of TV and magazine ads touting the latest products to be the best anti-aging product,” says Carly. “I’ve never really stressed about it and have only noticed a few small changes to myself in the past few years...I’ve researched and purchased a few anti-aging products but I try not to go overboard.”

Art by Jayme Lutz // THE UNDERGROUND

Wanting to alter the appearance of aging makes sense when women are bombarded with the idea that being young is equated to being beautiful. Research suggests that cosmetic and skincare companies thrive off women over the age of 40, especially with anti-aging moisturizers, serums, and eye creams. It has also been found that the likelihood of purchasing anti-aging products is linked with greater aging anxiety and higher importance of appearance. 

“I’ve used the same product for, I swear, around 40 years,” says Audrey. When asked what she uses, she says, “It’s actually Vaseline. I use it every day, along with a few others, but Vaseline moisturizes and I swear it helps my wrinkles. I wouldn’t want anyone to see my face without it.” 

When asked why not, Audrey says, “Let’s just say I’m doing you all a favour.”

Along with anti-aging products, studies have indicated that women who use hair dye to mask their grey strands do so to appear more youthful and resist stereotypes associated with older women. These stereotypes can include, but are not limited to, “[perceiving] older women as physically vulnerable, socially needy, unattractive, and less useful than their younger counterparts”. 

“I started dying my hair five years ago,” says Tina. “I wanted to go blonde for the first time in my life. It makes me feel a lot more confident. I started to turn grey in my late twenties and heard blondes have more fun. I don’t know about that but I do know I feel younger.” 

In the cosmetic surgery industry, there has been a surge in procedures due to age discrimination. Researchers concluded that “looking young” and “as young as I feel” are common reasons for cosmetic procedures, and suggest that there is often “a disassociation with one’s ‘older identity’ and a refusal to accept the aging process.” Cosmetic surgery is a way for women to control their aging process and try to renew their expiration. 

“Older women’s knowledge is not necessarily valued in the same way as that of their male counterparts—a patriarchal value system tends to exclude ‘old people’ when they are women,” writes Connie Cliff of the international law firm, Gowling WLG. 

Luanne remembers facing this patriarchal system around ten years ago. While car shopping, she found an orange Charger she wanted to test drive. Indicating this to the car salesman, he replied with, “Well, maybe you should bring your husband back [to test the car].” Luanne was stunned; she couldn’t believe that this man would assume her husband knew better than her about the car she was going to buy and drive herself.  

“So I said, do you think that I can’t pay for this car myself?” Luanne says. “That I don’t have a full-time job? Just because I’m a woman, I need my husband to come back with me?” 

“You’ve lost a sale that you’ll never get from me anyway,” says Luanne. 

In the workplace, research shows that “as men age they are viewed [as] more valuable and competent” and that “women lose their credibility with every new wrinkle.” 

Women fear the idea of expiration because as they age, they aren’t taken as seriously in a professional setting. Women already have to face sexism in the workplace, but on top of that is the pressure to adhere to certain looks and attitudes to remain youthful. 

Women also feel more forced to dress a certain way for work. The Ontario Human Rights Commission writes that women “may feel pressured to agree to sexualized dress requirements to get a job or because they fear losing tips, shifts, or even their jobs”. 

Reports show that women early in their careers are subjected to more assumptions that their familial obligations will interfere with their work. When their children grow and they re-enter the workforce, they find their careers to be halted by a lower tolerance for aging women at work. 

Carly understands the pressures of aging all too well. She has felt compelled to conform to things because of her age, including marriage and currently, being pregnant with her second child.

“I have many friends who were married with kids before I was ever engaged and [I] felt left behind, even though I had a stable relationship throughout my 20s,” Carly said. "I also have a health issue that makes me high risk when pregnant, even though I’m in relatively good health. Being over 35 and expecting doubles that high risk. I was nervous about having another child after turning 35.” 

Society presents all types of expirations for older women. Women are told that aging isn’t valued, and then are forced into using anti-aging products, undergoing cosmetic procedures, experiencing sexism and ageism at work, and facing societal and biological pressures related to life choices.

Despite the adversaries that older women face, Audrey, Carly, Tina, and Luanne all agree that aging birthed them a new outlook on life. 

“I hit 60 and I finally started to stand up for myself and be more assertive, I stopped letting my fear of looking old and mean hold me back from being assertive,” Audrey says. “I wish I realized it sooner.” She concludes that although the pressure of aging took a toll on her, she’s since become more comfortable with herself. 

“I’ve gained much more confidence in myself and my abilities as I’ve aged,” Carly says. “I feel I’m much more capable as a 30-something that I was in my 20s. I speak up more, offer my opinion without apology, and I’m taken more seriously because of it.” She explains that she’s less stressed about her body and weight and is now more confident in her own personal style. 

Luanne says that she’s never felt pressure to conform to what everyone else thought was normal, and won’t begin to any time soon. 

“Would [changing myself for others] have made me a better person?” she says. “And would it have been a lie? Yes. Would it bring me instant happiness? Listen to your world.” 

After explaining the idea of an expiration date, Tina says, “I’m not expiring any time soon. I’ve just begun.” 

When society faces women with so many different oppositions to aging, older women constantly find themselves on a shelf behind shinier, flashier, and younger women. We need to stop treating women as if they have expiration dates, that they’re considered less than because of their gender or age. 

Years of experience, growth, maturity, and value should not be thrown in the trash because of a made-up expiration date fuelled by society’s distaste for older women. Audrey, Carly, Tina, and Luanne represent women who have taken aging and turned it into something much more positive than society allows. They gained strength with age and wove it into who they are, taking it all in stride. 

These are the attitudes women need to be looking up to.

By Jayme Lutz // THE UNDERGROUND