Brooke Shields Is Not Allowed to Get Old: Thoughts on Aging as a Woman

by Brooke Shields

In plenty of cultures, older people are revered.

a March 2023 cover story of the American Psychological Association’s Monitor on Psychology described ageism in America as “one of the last socially acceptable prejudices.”

even though surveys have found it’s women over forty who have the most purchasing power:

We control a net worth of $19 trillion, and spend 2.5 times that of the average person.3 Women in their forties and fifties are treated like we’re invisible, even though we’re one of the fastest-growing demographics in the country.

more than just a demographic obsessed with looking younger. We embody vitality. We are smart and vibrant and powerful and ambitious. We are experienced, confident, capable, and complicated. We are running shit.

but I’m not exactly the grandmother in Titanic.

You’re still strong, but you had the audacity to grow older, to change, to slow down a bit, to not die young or stop aging entirely. You survived, and it should be celebrated, and yet there’s a sense that you’re not as valuable or exceptional as you once were, and therefore you’re letting people down.

feel like I’ve done something wrong because I no longer have the body or the face that I used to have.

I have to remind myself, sometimes daily, that I am good enough. The old negative tapes are lying in wait in the Walkman (remember those!?),

I’ll tell you, it took me a long time to have the guts to say that I deserved a bit more respect. Something began to shift in me around age forty.

This is it. This is me! And if there is something I want to change, then I can make the decision to do so.

this newfound gift has come as a bit of a surprise. After all, the narrative we’ve been served for years is that it’s all downhill for women after a certain age.

how can we fix it? How can we be a force for change?”

“every important movement started in a room like this—in a basement, or a living room.”

When we step out from behind those closed doors and use our voices to talk about the misunderstandings, the underestimations, we’re already start...

The world ignores middle-aged women at its peril.”

We are, each of us, a one-woman show. But our lives are not movie montages. It’s not a perfect story arc. It’s messy. You are scared to do something,

and you do it, and you realize you don’t really want to do it after all. But you learn why.

right around age forty, I began to tire of looking externally for answers and validation. It was exhausting quite honestly. The dormant part of me that could trust myself and my opinions and desires started rearing its head.

women in their forties and fifties report feeling more confident as they age. One survey of American women over the age of thirty-five found that 64 percent say they feel more confident now than in their younger years.

What confidence really is, according to psychologists, is a belief in your abilities and in your capacity to overcome challenges.

in fact, psychologists say that the people with the healthiest confidence are those who can admit when they don’t know something, because they have, yes, confidence in their ability to learn it.

For me, the journey to becoming more confident was also about wanting to feel less stressed-out and worried all the time. There came a day when I was simply tired of judging myself and feeling like I wasn’t enough.

I started to wonder where I got the idea that I needed to be perfect at everything anyway.

a study recently7 that was inspired by the author, a business school professor, noticing that her students’ evaluations of her teaching declined in her forties, even as her experience and expertise and confidence grew. In the resulting research, she found that women are perceived as “less warm” as they age and

It reminded me of what many of us already know: if you’re a man who is forthright, you’re a leader. A woman, you’re a bitch.

“When are you going to allow yourself to see that your

survival is a result of your individual character?

You attribute everything to everybody else, but nobody pulled you from going off the rails. Something inside you—some strength that can’t be taught—wouldn’t allow yourself to be beaten. Wh...

Women, in general, no matter our life story … we’re so hard on ourselves! One survey of two thousand women found that we criticize ourselves at least eight times a day,

I don’t move through each day

declaring myself #blessed,

I do recognize that I really like my life. And knowing that, and just how much I want to be here, makes this era a lot more meaningful than the decades when I spent so much time worrying or coveting th...

these days when I look down at my knees and thighs it’s as if Silly Putty has melted into a frown around my kneecaps.

I don’t want to settle so deeply into the “letting myself go” that it harms me rather than helps; but I also don’t want to feel so much pressure to maintain the body and face I had as a teen that I prioritize those things over enjoyment.

I want to settle into the middle place, where there’s effort in the comfort, and comfort in the effort.

LOVE THIS

menopause would make you

go “street-rat crazy,” as a 2009 Jack in the Box ad so eloquently put it.)

Not dealing with cramps and bleeding and birth control and worrying if you’ve somehow leaked through your tampon and stained your pants—there’s relief in that.

I really started to think, Wait a minute, I did not make it through all that bullshit just to be told that I’m no longer of value.

I’ll admit I got a bit more irritable and lost a bit of patience at times. “You’re so edgy,

maybe I’m just more resolved in my stance on things. Maybe I don’t have the same patience for bullshit.

While my professional ambition continues to endure in this age, Ruhl’s idea that it can involve satisfaction and rest speaks to me. I covet rest. Quiet.

“One college leader described how some search committees chose not to hire women in their late forties because of ‘too much family responsibility and impending

menopause.’ Other search committees declined to hire women in their fifties because they have ‘menopause-related issues

IMPENDING MENOPAUSE!? This makes me crazy! It sounds like the End Times! How about impending penile dysfunction or the inevitable low ball sack?

It’s egregious and also … illegal?

A combination of age and gender discrimination!

Fuck these easy excuses for the patriarchy to count us as irrele...

Women under forty in the traditional workplace are often dismissed as too young or too inexperienced and then—poof!—overnight they are too old.)