The shame of women aging in America | by Nassy Mornaghi | Sep, 2023

Are we really the ones choosing not to age?

On my social media feed, I see a lot of POVs when it comes to aging.

Because of what I write about, I see the POV of women preferring the natural aging route instead of opting for Botox and fillers.

But the interesting piece here is the choice aspect of it all.

As in: Are we really, truly, the ones choosing to use Botox and Fillers?

Or is it our social conditioning?

There is a lot of commentary about women shaming other women for going the injectable route: for being part of the problem, for contributing to our warped sense of aging. But on the flip side there is a lot of commentary about the fact that our society pushes injectables on women and not cis men.

IMO botox and fillers were designed by men to keep women buying them. To keep us self-conscious about our wrinkles so that we are pressured into spending time money energy on injections.

So I’m not into shaming women for doing it because I don’t think that’s the issue here. The issue is the preoccupation with youth as a standard of beauty.

Especially in America.

We live in a society of conformity. It’s considered mainstream in many cities to inject and it’s unique to have wrinkles. And we do it because other women are doing it. And they do it because society pressures them. Because advertisements sell it as necessary. Because social media influencers do it regularly. Because it’s sold as a treatment to a condition.

But I know that this beauty standard and these conditions are just plain and simple made up. Yes, we have science telling us that symmetry is considered beautiful. I’m not talking about that.

I’m talking about someone’s essence being seen as beauty. And making this deep beauty the standard. This immutable beauty that all of us have the power to possess.

It’s the way we hold ourselves, the way we walk, talk, and present ourselves to the world. It’s our inner shine, confidence, glow, whatever you want to call it. We all have it within us.

The problem is, deep beauty is not marketable. It’s not something the cosmetics industry can make a profit off of because we can’t increase the inner glow with yet another product. That’s why the majority of us aren’t striving for it — because advertisements aren’t talking about it.

But in fact, women who hold deep beauty are considered beautiful in other cultures and it has nothing to do with being young. It has nothing to do with Botox or fillers.

It has to do with knowing oneself deeper and being more and more comfortable in our skin as we age. It also means letting go of the time, energy and preoccupation with beauty and just being effortless about it.

And using this energy, time and money to live a life of action instead of a life of being looked at.

So we feel shameful to age in America, but in other cultures, women live lives of impact giving little to no thought about the natural aging process. They have a deeper sense of purpose, spirtuality, motives for life. They have a deep sense of beauty within.

We all have the capability to sense a deep beauty within, but we can’t blame ourselves for going the superficial route and comparing ourselves to an impossible standard.

We are being influenced. And it’s working. And we’re not dumb because of it. We are human.

The key is to know about our choices, and even more so, to understand why we’re making our choices.