Can older women dress young?

In My Humble Opinion
41

Technically, yes, IMHO. Or at least, a statement like “That older person should be wearing less revealing clothing to hide their unattractive wrinkles and sags” is pretty body-shamey.

Compare that to an observation like “For a whole host of social and historical reasons, humans, unlike other primates, have developed a widespread cultural abhorrence of the natural physical changes that happen in aging bodies. It’s not merely that most humans don’t find old bodies as sexually appealing as young ones, but that humans are constantly taught that the appearance of old bodies is visually repulsive and even shameful, and should be concealed as much as possible. This entrenched shame and dread about aging has culturally normalized the idea that older people should be reluctant to reveal more of their bodies than absolutely necessary, and that older people dressed in fuller-coverage clothing appear more ‘appropriate’ and ‘look better’.”

That latter observation, although much longer-winded, is a more sensitive and thoughtful way to approach the issue than some prescriptive pronouncement along the lines of “older people need to cover their bodies more because their bodies are ugly”.

It feels very natural to us (at least once we’re beyond early childhood and have been sufficiently indoctrinated into cultural attitudes) to think that our revulsion towards gray hair and wrinkles and sags is merely instinctive, because they’re objectively ugly. But it’s no more natural or innate than the equally strong conviction among millions of people in 19th-century societies with color bars that dark skin was objectively ugly.

TL;DR: Gray hair, wrinkles and sags are not unhealthy or polluting or evil. Our aversion to seeing them is culturally learned.

Acknowledging that this cultural aversion exists and exerts a strong influence on our preconceptions about what older people “ought” to wear is not body-shaming.

Naively taking those cultural norms at face value and expecting older people to comply with them in order to “look better” often is body-shaming.

42

A very bad relativistic analogy. Physical markers of youth are admired in every culture, while physical markers of old age are not, no matter the skin color or variety therein.

43

There’s a whole lot of territory between ‘most people find young bodies more attractive than old bodies, probably for both evolutionary and cultural reasons’ and ‘old people ought to hide their bodies in public’.

The latter is definitely body shaming.

44

My wife and I spend a lot of time in spas and saunas in Germany and Austria (we ski and hike a lot and the “wellness” culture is a big part of it over there).

Two things we’ve both noted.

a) Larger or older ladies often look better in bikinis. The one-piece is considered more age appropriate for older people (certainly in the UK) but, from what I hope is my own non-judgmental eye, I think the bikini looks absolutely fine (and in most cases better). So from that point of view, people should absolutely feel free to dress “young”
b) Body acceptance in general could be improved for everyone by spending time completely naked amongst people of all ages, shapes, sizes and sexes. Believe me, you really stop caring about your imperfections or anyone else’s after a very short time. You end up seeing the full range of human existence who all seem to deal with their lot just fine.

45

Thank you. My response to the question was, “i don’t think what i said was an example of body shaming, or i wouldn’t have said it. But I’m curious what others think.” But i NEVER said that old people should hide their bodies, or feel compelled to cover them up. I think that’s absurd

46

More likely it’s because we don’t eat as much mutton.

47

One of the perks of growing older is that you’re free from all of society’s expectations of how you “should” act, or dress, or comport yourself. If an 80-year-old woman wants to wear stilettos, fishnets, a miniskirt, and a halter top, with purple and green stripes in her hair, good for her. And if she wants to wear a floor-length black dress with long sleeves, a tight collar, and lacy fringe, with a bun in her hair, good for her, too.

48

I like to see older women with contemporary hair styles (long or short) and wearing modern styles (though not outlandish). Many contemporary older women rock that look and I find them attractive.

I believe what made older women unattractive to me as a child (and stuck with me) were the old fashioned hairstyles (particularly permed, short and blue) and frumpy clothes they often wore in the past. I associated that with the “grandmother” look. Grandmothers are good to talk to and give you candy, but “by law” you can’t find them attractive or your kid-card will be revoked.

49

That, and the heavy perfume they’d wear.

Your first paragraph, that’s my POV too.

I’m wondering if my earlier posts are considered body shaming. Are they? I don’t want to have that viewpoint. Please enlighten me.

50

My Wife is 62 now. Blue jeans or sundresses look great on her. She will wear not a mini skirt but mid thigh skirt, tights, tall boots and is cute as a button (it’s pretty sexy too). It works on her.

I’ve also seen her walk the dogs in inclement weather/snow still on the ground in a sun dress and tall rubber boots. That’s kind of comical.

51

Yes, I’ve spent time at clothing-optional, but mostly always nude, hot springs, and in no time at all, you just don’t notice everyone’s naked.

Re: grannies and heavy perfume. Our senses weaken as we age, and many older ladies can’t smell their perfume as well as they used to and put on too much.

And I love the way my hair has aged like @Ulfreida does. I stopped cutting and dying it when the pandemic struck, and it’s now almost to my shoulder blades. It’s mostly steel grey, but I have two pure white sections that swoop up from my temples. I love how that looks.

52

Allison Janney, noted actress on ‘Mom’ tv show and many others, is 63, also cute as a button. She is tall, wealthy, genetically blessed, and Mr. Salinqmind thought she was just gorgeous. (Funny how 60 and over conjures up an image of a little old lady, like Tweety Bird’s ‘granny’ ).

53

Yes…

54

So, is this thread itself body shaming? While I certainly am comfortable having my personal opinion as to what looks good or not on various folk (not that I really care in most cases), I readily acknowledge that each person can dress or do with their body what they want.

55

This is very true. Although young bodies (& faces) are smoother, firmer, etc, & technically more attractive (in our culture), to me they all look much the same & they’re so bland. There’s a saying about “at 20 you have the face you were born with, at 50 you have the face you deserve”. Clearly, whoever said that never heard about genetics, but… Older people may not be technically beautiful, but they’re so much more interesting to look at, whatever they’re wearing.

56

Thank you.

57

“Mid thigh” is the very definition of a miniskirt. To the extent that a standard definition exists, it is that a miniskirt is anything that’s 3 inches or more above the knee. Perhaps you’re getting “mini” and “micro mini” confused.

58

This.

I used to hang around with casual nudists years ago, and that was one of the things I learned from it. People come in a huge variety of shapes, sizes, and various skin appearances and this rapidly becomes no more remarkable when everyone’s naked than the fact that human hands vary a lot is remarkable if everybody’s dressed so you can’t see much else.

Taking your post as a whole, that was clear to me. If I’d only read the bit about older people looking better with clothing that hides more, I might well have misinterpreted it.

Yeah. We ought to get something out of it, damn it.

The worst I’ve smelled for that has been young men, though; who I think haven’t learned yet that more isn’t always better.

I like mine too.

It started turning when I was in my very early twenties, with one streak of silver through the black. People used to ask me where I got my hair streaked; some didn’t want to believe me when I said Mother Nature.

It’s been many many years now since anybody asked me where I got my hair streaked, and the streak has disappeared in the general grey. But I wasn’t worried about it, and never felt like dying it. My mother’s hair, and her father’s, both went a beautiful silver color with age; and mine’s done pretty much the same thing.

(That’s not a dig at anybody who feels like dying their hair; have your hair whatever color(s) you want. But if you feel like you have to dye your hair – no, you don’t.)

I think older people also often look better as one grows older oneself.

The idea that older women shouldn’t “dress young” kind of is, yes.

I mean, I think it’s kind of sad when older people make a deliberate attempt to look like they’re in their 20’s (which doesn’t work, anyway.) But the reason I think it’s sad isn’t because I think they’re offending somebody else’s ideas of what (deliberately not saying ‘who’ here, because treating other people as if they were decorations is dehumanizing) they want to see; it’s because I think it’s sad that many people don’t think they can be valued if they don’t look young, and even sadder that depending on who they spend time with or what job they’re after sometimes they’re right.

And I don’t think wearing “long hair, mini skirts, shorts, ponytails” is at all the same thing. The person wearing long hair, short shorts, and a ponytail may be rocking a highly visible 85, not trying in the least to conceal their age.

59

Oh God, yes. There was a boy at the school I was at last year who would apply Axe like he was trying to spray-paint his whole body with an even coat.

And my hair has started to go a bit grey at the temples, which is a look I’ve always associated with “distinguished”, so I’m not too upset with it.

60

When I first started getting white hairs they were relatively evenly spread through my hair. I started dying it, but the white hairs didn’t absorb the dye as easily as the brown ones, so they turned out a kind of gold. More than one person asked how I got those great highlights. :crazy_face: