This is what 28 looks like
I know I shouldn’t feel so annoyed when people remark on how much younger than 28 they think I am. After all, they most likely mean it as a compliment…i.e. isn’t it great for women to look younger than they actually are? And maybe in ten years or so, my feelings will change and I’ll be flattered when/if someone tells me, “Wow, I thought you were younger.” But I still take issue with the fact that 1) 28 is an age where you should need to feel flattered about looking younger and 2) it’s a mostly backhanded compliment anyway, as generally what the speaker is NOT saying about your advanced age is, “Where are your husband and kids?” or “Why do you still dress like a teenage boy?” or “You seem a lot less mature than someone who’s pushing 30.”Like many intersectional -isms, the idea of “ageism” is closely linked with sexism and the ongoing fetishization of youth, especially female youth. I know it’s been said before and more eloquently, but the fact remains that men of all colors, shapes and sizes can be considered sexy well past middle age, whereas (with a few exceptions) women expire shortly after their mid-twenties or after giving birth, whichever comes first. So I’m supposed to be happy when someone approvingly remarks that I don’t look 28, as if by age 28, my tits should be sagging, I should have crow’s feet and gray hair? The other implication, which I often get more from women, is that I don’t seem like a 28-year-old because I don’t have a husband (or more importantly, children). This “compliment” is often accompanied by a look which I have dubbed the “wow-28-and-no-kids-oh-your-poor-empty-uterus”. I get this look from all of my female relatives every time I visit Missouri for Christmas and have failed to turn up pregnant. During both of my last long-term relationships with men, no one was shy about asking when we were going to start having babies (usually accompanied with the phrase “make it right”, as in, “you know, when you have a little slip up with the birth control, go to the church and make it right”). It’s doubly annoying to have the culture at large dictate at what time women should be accomplishing this or that. There’s no shortage of media, popular opinion and bad research claiming that if you want kids, you better do it by a certain age or else your ovaries will wither up while at the same time turning up its nose at teenage pregnancy and young single motherhood. The bottom line is that for most women, there’s never really a “good” time to have children: too young and you miss out, too old and you run the risk of complications. If you’re educated, you’ll lose time in the workforce and status at the office, not to mention all the expense and hassle of maternity leave (assuming your employer grants maternity leave in the first place). If you’re not educated and middle-class–and god forbid, not married–there’s the social stigma of Medicaid, welfare and the whiff of illegitimacy. I’m not saying that having kids is not a decision made every day by people who really want to become parents, or even that unplanned pregnancies are always a terrible thing–I’m just making the point that, despite our society’s worship of motherhood and fertility and the chunks of reproductive rights consistently hacked out of federal and state healthcare reform laws, we certainly don’t provide a lot of support to women regardless of which decision they make.
But I digress. The thing I’m most irked about is the assumption underlying the “wow, you’re 28??” statement is that there is supposed to be some timetable for accomplishing things in a woman’s life that is by and large not mandatory for men. I know I’m pushing my expiration date for sexual desirability and babymaking to society at large, which only reminds me that in society at large, women are still reduced to biological alarm clocks. I’ve put the snooze button on mine for another five years. Here’s to still getting carded for buying booze!
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
March 7th, 2010 at 11:10 pm
wait… you don’t have babies yet?
try being a minister and not being married. it’s also very bad.
we are now being asked when we’re going to “start a family”. we respond that we started one on July 25, 2009.
March 9th, 2010 at 7:11 pm
I get this all the time. People often surprised, like COMPLETELY FLABBERGASTED and taken aback when I tell them that I’m 28.
I never really knew why they were so astounded until would see people as patients in the ER who were born the same year as me, were on their third child, looked like they’d been put through the wringer, and I would think to myself “OH, this is what they mean when they say they can’t believe I’m 28.”
March 10th, 2010 at 10:02 am
cheers! last time I was carded the man said, damn, whatever you’re doing, keep doing it. lol! and what about the women who have had children and still don’t look their age eh, similar thing I suppose, that you can’t have 3 kids and still maintain your youth.
in my yoga classes, i’ve heard teachers say, when someone asks your age you tell them you’re ageless.
March 22nd, 2010 at 1:07 am
Annah, I have been frustrated for the past month trying to figure out why I’ve been so pissed off about life and my impending birthday. I think you just nailed it for me. Thanks.