Don’t Tell Women They Look Good for Their Age
Let’s talk about the message behind the message.
I’m Italian. I have inherited my dad’s good skin. I wear a hat in the sun. I smear a whole myriad of things on my face every day that include vitamin C, collagen peptides, hyaluronic acid, retinol, niacinamide, and rosehip oil. I spend 30 minutes a day on a rowing machine while watching Ted Lasso.
All of this has resulted in someone occasionally mistaking my age well in my favor and giving me the backhanded compliment of all backhanded compliments. “You look so good for your age!”
I’m not a fan.
The second those words flowed from my fingers just now, I heard echoes in the back of my head condemning me and anyone else that feels the same annoyance. Yes. Here we go. Another woman who can’t take a compliment. You’re damn right. Because it’s not a compliment.
Deconstructing the “compliment”
When you tell me that I look good for my age, what you are doing reinforces an idea that women understand is commonly held, but people don’t come right out and say. But, by telling me I look good for my age, you are actually saying it.
That idea is that, at some point in time, women’s attractiveness and sex appeal plummet to the ground. As I have turned the corner from 45 and head right on into 50, you are quantifying for me the time for that is now.
You have established, whether you are a man or a woman, that you fully expect that a woman my age will have started the evolutionary process from attractive and sexually desirable to bridge troll. None shall pass.
There is double standard fully at play here, and we know it. Men get sexier as they age. Women just age. So telling us we look good for our age is not only ageist, but it’s sexist. Nothing about this feels good.
It also reminds us that we better keep on keeping up. If we want to be seen as attractive (which, let’s face it, is what women are trained to understand is our currency), we need to swan dive Ethel Williams-style into the Fountain of Youth. Stay young at all costs. And, by the way, those costs are high. Really high. Like $150-every-four-weeks-to-color-our-hair high.
Even though this is an unspoken expectation, I can tell you that many women feel this. We know it. We can’t stop knowing it. The knowing is shoved in our faces at every angle. Which we shave now, by the way. That’s a thing. Women. Shave. Their. Faces.
If you‘re not buying this, I would like to formally invite you to join me on a visit to any drug store, anywhere, and mosey through the aisles while we count how many products are advertised to women that have the words “anti-aging” on them. And then we can count the number of anti-aging products geared toward men. I’ll being the flask, you bring the abacus. We old people love those things.
Just because YOU think it’s a compliment doesn't mean it is
It is not acceptable to tell someone that they should not take offense to your compliment. Telling me that I shouldn’t take everything so seriously only makes it worse. You are now telling me what to think.
“But that’s not what I mean.” I get that. But, when people say something to us, we judge them not on their intention. We judge them on our perception. I’m not here to chatise people. I’m here to help align intention and perception.
“Don’t be offended. I was being nice.” Anyone who gets in a huff for their compliment being taken the wrong way must reconsider the idea that when you give a compliment, it is not about you. It’s about the person receiving the compliment.
We give people compliments for one of two reasons. When we’re kind and genuine in our compliment giving, we do this so that others can feel good. If you give a compliment to feel good about yourself, well, you’re just an asshole.
Just stop qualifying compliments altogether
The most surefire way to make a compliment offensive, to anyone, is to qualify it. The difficulty with “you look good for your age” goes back to a positive attribute being compared to a commonly held, derogatory belief.
If you really want to understand why qualifying a woman’s appearance based on her age is offensive, give this a test:
Take any other group of people and throw a compliment at them that states they appear counter to a social stereotype. See the below formula:
“You’re really ______________ for a (insert any other group of people).”
That tastes horrible, right? Like, there is NO statement that you can create there that sounds appropriate. If you would not march up to Danica Patrick and tell her she drives really well for a woman, do not tell a woman she looks really good for her age. Not unless you want to get throat punched.
I literally came up with another ten different examples here and could not bring myself to type them because they sound THAT horrible and hurt my soul. I need a nap now.
If you make it weird, so will I.
I know I will get a gazillion responses from people, primarily men, telling me that I need to lighten up. Because of women like me, “nice” guys like them are afraid to say something nice to women. I have one thing to say about that.
Try saying that is actually something nice. Cut off the back half of the backhanded compliment. “You look great” is kind. “You look great for your age” is assholery.
If I call someone out on a backhanded compliment, it’s not to make them feel bad. But, I understand that they will feel something, and that will mostly be discomfort. This is not my concern. I will not sacrifice my own comfort in exchange for the comfort of someone unwilling to take a moment of self-reflection before speaking.
I will simply ask questions. These questions are not meant to insult. They are meant to spur thought. “I’m curious what you think someone my age should look like?” Oh boy. No one wants to answer that question.
So maybe a good rule of thumb is that if you might be embarrassed explaining your compliment, it’s not a compliment and should stay in a deep, dark vault in your soul.
Vanessa Torre is a writer, editor, plant junkie, music fan, and host of 🎙 I Hadn’t Considered That, a podcast about perspectives. For contact info or to find out more about her visit www.vanessatorre.com and sign up for her newsletter.
