If Only Martha Stewart Weren’t So Old
Ageism strikes again.
This year the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue chose 81-year-old Martha Stewart as its cover model. Eighty-five-year-old me took one look and said, “Damn! She looks good!” Not so the rest of the country, apparently.
They’re going nuts out there! Who does she think she is? What does this say to women who hate the idea of objectifying female bodies? How do you think those women who don’t look like that must feel? And oh, by the way, those pictures aren’t real. Old women don’t look like that.
Ew! It’s gross!
Notice that these issues don’t come up when the women so pictured are young. Suddenly, because an old woman dares to bare it all, she needs to be put in her place. Which is, I don’t know…a nursing home?
I’m not a huge Martha Stewart fan. I almost never like anything she cooks. Her stilted, inauthentic speech patterns drive me up the wall. I honestly find her pretty boring, but she’s been around for a long, long time and life apparently has been good to her. (Except for that stint in prison. Not so good.)
She’s a bit of a phony and always has been, but it hasn’t hurt her popularity or her pocketbook. Martha Stewart is her own corporation. Like Oprah. They’ve turned themselves into thriving businesses, and more power to them. I’m not in the least jealous of them but I don’t feel like gushing over them, either. I don’t understand their appeal, but that’s me.
But I’m going to defend Martha’s decision to grace the SI Swimsuit Issue and fight anyone who says she’s too damned old, she should have known better, and it’s all air-brushed, anyway.
I know my octogenarian crowd: not many of us got to this place with our skin still that intact, our arms without crepe drapes, and our faces and our necks sans wattles and crinkles. So far, it looks like it may be only Martha and Jane Fonda and Rita Moreno—who, at 91 looks amazing!
Now, Jane, who at 85 is three months younger than me, admits to a LOT of work, but Rita says it’s all genetics, and Martha says, in this Variety article, she’s never had plastic surgery, though she had some enhancements like fillers and Botox (which she now says she hates), and, yes, there was some very minor air-brushing to the SI photos, but otherwise it’s all her, courtesy of healthy living and of course, killer workouts.
Gloria Steinem is 89 and still going strong. Have you seen her lately? She’s still lovely, but she’s not hiding the fact that she has grown old.
I’m with Gloria. What you see is what you get. I wish my body hadn’t drooped and shriveled the way it has, but this is what normally happens when bodies get old. Martha seems to be defying the odds and half the country now hates her for it.
Why?
Why does it matter that an 81-year-old woman is perfectly okay with showing off her body on the cover of a sports magazine? It doesn’t. It shouldn’t. Any complaints about Martha Stewart’s cover on Sports Illustrated stem from out-and-out ageism.
It’s not even insidious. It’s expected. Old women should have the good sense to look old. Women who defy the aging expectations and go around in youngish clothing and longish hair and makeup that includes eye liner make people uncomfortable.
It’s not ‘natural’. As if women all over the world today are eschewing fashion and makeup and can’t wait to get to that age where their dewy looks give in to those incredible sags and bags.
I’ve bypassed dozens of articles with titles like, “Styles Women Over Sixty Should Avoid”, or “Hairstyles for the Older Woman” or “Stop Trying to Look Like Your Daughter”. It’s hard to avoid them but I don’t have to read them. I know what they’re trying to tell me:
Conform. Act your age. Give it up. We don’t want to look at you.
So, Martha, you go, girl. Show ‘em what you’ve got. If you’ve got it, flaunt it. And don’t ever let anybody tell you your age has anything to do with anything.
I don't like Martha Stewart either. And don't even get me started on Oprah! It isn't that I'm jealous; it's more that I don't like what they do or how they treat people. Perhaps that's inevitable once you get to their level of wealth and popularity. I don't know and I'm never going to find out.
I tried to avoid reading about Stewart's SI cover. I truly did, mostly because I dislike the SI swimsuit issue and am not a fan of her. But it was impossible to avoid. I appreciate women aging naturally. I've never been fond of makeup or beauty enhancement in general. However, as I get older, I understand the impulse more. It's hard to be OK looking like this when you used to look like that. But that's the thing, right? What if we celebrated wrinkles (especially laugh lines)? What if we revered a round, soft, comfortable body? Instead, we all bow to the patriarchal notion that, in order to be attractive, you must look young and "hot."
I've been so upset with the increasing number of famous women (and women with money - I live around Dallas; there are TONS of women undergoing plastic surgery) who are willing to risk their health and beauty to still look young. Meg Ryan is unrecognizable. Madonna looks awful. But then there are those who are successful at their beauty enhancements, like Stewart and Moreno (I don't buy the "genetics" or "only" arguments), who now become the beauty ideal. Ugh! I don't want fight to be super thin and have cut arms in my 80s. If that's how I looked naturally, then OK, but I have yet to meet that person. Stewart looked great but at what cost to her and to the rest of us? And would we expect a man her age to be paraded around in a speedo? No, of course not. Men don't have to be sexy in order to be worthy.
As always, I appreciate Gloria Steinum aging naturally. I also appreciate Jane Fonda being honest. I just wish more women would be OK with looking however they do as we age. In my Psychology of Women class, one of my older students did a project where she compared the women in Modern Maturity magazine (for the over 50 crowd) with her own friends. They women in the magazine looked late 30s, 40s at the oldest. Her friends looked their age and hurrah for them! Women must be comfortable in our own skin instead of going along with impossible patriarchal ideals.
Can we just get rid of the SI swimsuit edition? It's sexist and terrible.
Martha looks fantastic and I’m glad she’s featured. She and women her age are not invisible, relegated to the shadows of their younger selves. They are wonderful as they are. I always think people are fortunate to get old and if she’s up for it... 👏🏾👏🏾