At a certain point in a woman’s life it becomes socially inappropriate to openly inquire about her age. Uninformed men who often make the mistake of asking find themselves in a number of situations ranging anywhere from being ignored, slapped or even lied to. Baffled by trying to calculate in their heads how their girlfriends could possibly be celebrating their third twenty-ninth birthday one can only hope that they eventually keep quiet and try to understand their loved ones plight. Whereas men age gracefully and single men are referred to as playboys and bachelors. Women simply age. Single women are not called playgirls or bachelorettes, rather we are called spinsters. The aging process itself even changes. One human year is the equivalent of seven spinster years. Sound familiar? It should, its the same aging process used to gage dog years. Nothing could be more appropriate then linking a spinster with a female dog, as the whole process truly is a bitch.
Every time I turn on the television I’m assaulted with commercial after commercial for wrinkle creams, stretch mark reducers and hair dye. I don’t mind the products. I even own some of them. I intend to be a trophy spinster after all, trophy wives do their part to maintain their image, I do mine. I just get the satisfaction of knowing that my preening and oftentimes senseless hours of grooming are because I want to look good for myself, not my husband’s boss or friends. Trust me, self-righteous smugness helps when your having to sit still for thirty minutes with a wrinkle reducing mud pack on your face. The fact that these companies advertise is fine by me, hell my possibly now prevented laugh lines are thankful for them, but its to whom they advertise that really rubs my mud mask the wrong way. To women. Only women! Think about it, when was the last time you saw an Oil of Olay ad or a Garnier ad with a man preaching the wonders of the product? Why? Are bachelors not wrinkling? Because the last time I checked, you could stick quarters in some of the lines on George Clooneys face. Why doesn’t Biore hire him out for an ad? We have Cover Girl, can we have a Cover Boy?
Granted Cover Boy is a bit of a reach that I’m not even sure I’m comfortable stretching out for but the double standard remains. Is it not bad enough that we have to lie about our age and spend our nights involved in a series of elaborate grooming rituals to decrease the signs of aging? Do we have to be the only ones targeted by the media too? The commercials and magazine adverts, one after the other after the other, start to hit you and before you know it your running around buying everything short of a Indian tribal dance to ward off wrinkles. Meanwhile men watching t.v, men the same age as the women watching, aging and wrinkling at the same pace (despite my beloved dog year theory) seem immune. They don’t worry about any of it. In such, they don’t lie about their age when people ask them. You will never find a man celebrating his third twenty-ninth birthday. They don’t go home after a night out at the bar with the boys and use their new cellulite reducing body scrub. People even tell them how well they are aging. The same people that wait until we’re out of the room to point at our ovaries and question our sexuality. Personally I told my ovaries to take a vacation years ago, but thats another story entirely. My point is this, because less pressure is placed on men by society regarding their age and relationship status they age with more grace than we do. Granted they wrinkle and grey the same as women, that is when our secret Indian tribal dances don’t do the trick, but they do it with dignity because they never truly cared about it in the first place.
Media never told men that they needed to be young forever and look like a walking talking model of fertility until the day they lay you in the coffin. Bonus points for continuing that look at your open wake service. Media and society in general impress upon women and young girls on a daily basis the importance of beauty and youth. The importance of marriage and motherhood. Its an unjust world. Its no wonder I feel like seven years have passed for every one year of my life. But then again, I’ll take any excuse to liken spinsterhood to being a bitch. The important thing to remember is to always sit up straight, put your eye cream on every night before bed, and never ever celebrate the same age more than three times in a row. Men are slow enough to be duped by a push up bra and girdles ladies, but not about everything.
