Everyone I know has gotten Botox.
Okay okay, not everyone. Certainly no man in my life has gotten Botox (or if one has, he hasn’t admitted it). And there are a few women who I can pretty confidently say haven’t gotten any injections. But note the “pretty confidently” disclaimer—a few years ago, I would have made this declaration with certainty. “So-and-so is the last person who would get a bacterial toxin injected into their face,” I might have said. Well guess what? It turns out that the last person has been injected . . . multiple times. So, in my thirty-seventh year of life, as I look in the mirror and try not to be too mad at my teenage self—who cared nothing for cleansing or exfoliating or, honestly, sunscreen —I’m beginning to wonder whether I too am going to part with several hundred dollars every few months to have neurotoxins injected into my face. Is that the going price of female self-worth these days?
Because here’s the thing: my vanity—which comprises my many insecurities mixed with some baked-in, repressed misogyny—can weather someone else’s good genetics. I call this “luck.” The gal whose hair looks perfect in any condition, rain or shine? She’s lucky. The runner flaunting chiseled abs just three weeks after giving birth? Pure luck. The 45-year-old who has never had a wrinkle in her life? Well. I would have said she’s lucky, but now I’m not so sure. And if it’s not luck, it might be a competition—one that I am currently losing.
Don’t misunderstand; I’m not so neurotic as to think that having the Most Youthful Skin confers some sort of prize. I left that level neuroticism behind in my teenage years, along with my obsession with being Tannest of Them All. However, I’m not so naïve as to think that the appearance of aging, when no one else is aging, won’t have negative consequences.
Here in America, being old is bad, and being an old woman is worse. One of the only power cards women have to play is their sexuality, and they can only play that card while they’re young. Older women get less respect—and if you don’t want to admit this, you have to at least recognize that they get fewer favors. A nubile teenage girl barely has to smile to have men, perhaps several men, give up their seat for her on a crowded bus. A pregnant woman in her twenties or even thirties will have the same request fulfilled by someone without complaint. But a woman in her sixties wearing slightly smudged glasses and carrying a shopping bag? Senile, probably homeless; maybe if we ignore her she’ll stop asking. Don’t tell me this isn’t real; I’ve seen it.
Now, you might be thinking, “But Allison, men are not the only ones with power. Women could give up their bus seat, too.” And surely women don’t have these same biases, right?
As a sample size of one, I know I do. I am impressed by smooth, youthful, spotless skin just the way society has trained me to be impressed. Men claim they don’t notice things like skin or wrinkles, but the reality is that they are noticing; they just see whole face, the whole body—the forest. It’s us women who see the trees . . . and the branches on the trees and the leaves on the branches and the spines on the leaves. And then we dig down in the dirt to see what’s going on with the roots, because those leaves are so lush and green and perfectly shaped, how did they get like that? Nature? Yeah right.
Thus far I’m a holdout. I have not gotten Botox. Or a chemical peel. Or a laser facial. But I did buy some serums and creams. I’ve worn a drugstore facemask or two. I’m very aware of the crow’s feet blooming at the corners of my eyes and the sun spots appearing on my cheeks and the acne scars that no longer fade after I’ve lost the battle and picked that pimple open. I think what bothers me most is the fact that I wouldn’t hate these features if I saw them on everyone else. If the playing field felt even (despite a few lucky genetic anomalies) and we were all aging, if not gracefully, at least together, it would feel acceptable or at least inevitable that wrinkles are coming, gray hairs are coming, a few extra pounds are coming, and it’s okay. It means we’re lucky to still be alive.
But other people have turned this into a contest—to see who can profit off the appearance of youth for longer. And I really, really hate losing.
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