The Double Standard of Aging

Abstract

The double standard about aging shows up most brutally in the conventions of sexual feeling, which presuppose a disparity between men and women that operates permanently to women's disadvantage. Women are at a disadvantage because their sexual candidacy depends on meeting certain much stricter "conditions" related to looks and age. Since women are imagined to have much more limited sexual lives than men do, a woman who has never married is pitied. She was not found acceptable, and it is assumed that her life continues to confirm her unacceptability. Marriage soothes the sharpest pain she feels about the passing years. Aging also varies according to social class. Poor people look old much earlier in their lives than do rich people. Women are vainer than men because of the relentless pressure on women to maintain their appearance at a certain high standard. This society allows men to have a much more affirmative relation to their bodies than women have.

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