30

I have come to the conclusion that I and everyone else has been drip fed the notion that everyone after 30 ceases to be beautiful and youthful. I can remember countless jokes on TV where the much older male character would be dismissive of any woman over 25, as if their use ended the day they had their next birthday. I've spent countless hours obsessing over turning thirty and why it was a terrible thing, and finally, I’ve decided that everything I know about ageing and beauty is complete bullshit, and here's why.

The notion of being young meaning being desirable is an entirely patriarchal standpoint, what it really means is “breeding age”. Now I have never been one to want children, the biological clock really means nothing to me, a lot of the time constraints placed on women on how they should live their life is largely due to expectation to reproduce. The idea that women can be a complete person if they don't chose to have children is still seen as somewhat shocking or a “waste”, an archaic leftover from a time when the place for a female was to run the house, and have children before she became an old maid. If that last sentence was aggravating to you, it should also be aggravating to hear “she still looks good” when a woman has barely entered her thirties.

Notice how men in the media are allowed to age and be seen as desirable or even preferable, while women have to take their leave when they are no longer twenty two. “Silver fox” has been a term thrown around for a few decades now, again holding male ageing up on a pedestal and basically giving them more time on the earth to be allowed to simply exist without judgement. The prime directive of beauty companies is to make women panic about getting older, making it YOUR responsibility to control it, how dare you have laugh lines? How dare you have a grey hair? How dare you not panic about your ageing skin? Aren’t you scared? Shouldn't you be buying more products to help you with that nasty ageing problem you've got? The very fact that they put the frighteners on you for simply living longer than twenty five is downright barbaric, the same media outlets have the gall to post about body positivity and self love.

I am currently twenty nine, one month until I turn thirty, and I have already had to endure jokes about my age, people attempting to scare me into big life decisions simply because I am a month older, and they feel I should be in a specific place, or stop doing things that I love to do. I work as a cabaret singer for a living (well not at the moment, thanks Rona), and I wear very little on stage. Big thong back leotards, huge thigh high boots and mountains of makeup, I mentioned my age to a relative the other day, and they put it to me that I should stop doing it, because I am too old now.

Too old.

At Thirty.

By that notion we simply become nonsexual and not fun at thirty. Everything stops. The same family member also put it to me that I should now find a man to settle down, despite the fact that I am an openly gay woman. So not only did my profession get rejected so did my entire identity and sexuality, because I am thirty. The whole thing reeked of patriarchal ageism.

Sort of a “You’ve had your fun, best you settle down before no man will want you”, cant say the notion scares me that much to be honest. I've watched celebrities get shamed in the media for decades, which is obviously just one big massive ploy to keep women scared enough to pump enough money into the beauty industry to stop the ageing process, (spoiler alert, it can't be stopped and that says absolutely nothing about beauty).

Grace Jones rejected the notion of age. Last Pride in Brighton she stalked around the stage in a thong at seventy two, and I've never seen anything more beautiful in my life. I’m taking notes from her because to be honest, I would rather reject the fear of ageing and live my life at full volume, than to listen to people than listen to frightened people, subduing myself in the process.

How can we live vibrant and meaningful lives if one little wrinkle stops joy in its tracks. The trick to staying young at thirty is still being young. Age is meaningless, its a ploy to sell product. A person doesn't get up and look in the mirror one day and suddenly they're old as we have seen a billion times in poorly written movie scripts. I will continue to be childless, wear whatever I want to wear and start whatever I want to start. “Too old” is a concept I wont have snuff out any goals I have before they even begin.