I care about my appearance and want to look good, but I cannot stand the incessant marketing to women of products and procedures to make them appear younger (because the way they are couldn’t possibly be good enough – how dare they up and get OLD?! – made richer by the fact of having been encouraged & prodded all their years to live longer!!). I was perusing the coupons in the Sunday paper and noticed a line for skin care, L’oreal Youth Code©. I swear, if somebody would make a product for women and call it Old Bat Code or Old Bat Serum, to “bring out the Old Bat in you!” I’d seriously consider buying it.
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Haha! It is pretty darn typical of just how society views and encourages beauty and specific attributes in women. Ageism at it’s finest.
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It’s the names of these products and the ad copy that so often slay me – they’re so passive aggressively insulting!
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Luckily I’m a man so age only brings impotency, joint pain and baldness. Thank God I’m still so sexy!
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Haha! And beard/hair coloring for those who have them. And they’re trying to make incontinence look better now too with attractive spokes people. Marketing to men isn’t what it is to women but it’s definitely on the move.
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I think Old Bat is sold at Walmart and other fine institutions. At least that’s where I’ve experienced it the most. Oh. And at libraries. Old Bat is HUGE at local libraries.
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Excellent. There’s no Wal-Mart very nearby but there is a library I do frequent…
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I wish I had thought of this great compliment to women myself, but I read it somewhere. When men or teenage boys criticize women for being vain and narcissistic by spending oodles on cosmetics, the reassuring riposte should be “Women don’t buy cosmetics to make themselves beautiful. They simply ARE beautiful! They buy cosmetics and jewelry because they know they are worthy to be adorned……” Wow!
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That would be nice if it was true Jim, but from where I stand, far too often women spend all kinds of money, not out of high self worth, but out of fear because we live in a culture that says women are most highly valued for their appearance and youth.
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Don’t even get me started on how casting in big budget American tv and movies works. Soooo, okay, you are 23 with a rock hard body, flowing locks, and a face sculpted from marble, and you have two PhD’s in some sort of science? And you are the head of the department? One thing my wife and I love about British tv is that it regularly features women of an apropriate and appearance.
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And don’t forget, your love interest is a former Hollywood heart throb one and a half times to twice your age. And you have at least one scene where you take charge by having some arcane bit of knowledge or rare skill that impresses him with your kick-butt-while-still-being-hot attitude.
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Sigh. How true.
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Ah…the old bat in us…can’t wait ! We should all live so long to get the wrinkles we have earned over a lifetime. ☺
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The deepest lines in my face, while not the only ones, are laugh lines. That I will take!
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Same here, Colette, the laughs are worth every line !!
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When we’re young all the grown-ups tell us to act our age, and when we’re grown up, all the young folks are telling us what to buy to look their age. Screwed up, Colette, our culture. You are right, it’s much worse for women, but the pitch is getting more fevered for us men, too. Give me the natural progression, please and thank you.
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Yes, things are catching up with marketing to men, playing on the same insecurities. I favor the idea of looking one’s best at any age, with a broader definition of beauty.
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Beauty starts from within and works its way outward, I think, Colette. 🙂
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I wear my gray hair proudly because I’ve earned every single one of the 😀 Old Bat? Too funny!
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There you go, Angle, rock the gray! And I figure “Old Bat” is a nice counterpoint to all the ridiculously named products pitched to women.
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Old Bat is perfect. I’ll be adding it to our discussions at home
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