The more these hyperself-conscious celebrities push the limits of plastic surgery in the pursuit of a youthful facade, the more they make culturally acceptable the natural process of aging. It's like the GOP swinging so far to the right that the political middle ground is now considered hard conservative.

There is nothing wrong with looking old. The problems of aging are not external, but internal. Can you walk? Can you hold your hands steady? Can you see? Do your organs function properly? Those are the things to worry about.

I imagine a scenario a few decades from now where Madonna looks like a smooth, pink 20 year-old, but she has to use a walker and wear diapers. It will be like a horror movie.

The more these hyperself-conscious celebrities push the limits of plastic surgery in the pursuit of a youthful facade, the more they make culturally unacceptable the natural process of aging. It's like the GOP swinging so far to the right that the political middle ground is now considered hard conservative.

There is nothing wrong with looking old. The problems of aging are not external, but internal. Can you walk? Can you hold your hands steady? Can you see? Do your organs function properly? Those are the things to worry about.

I imagine a scenario a few decades from now where Madonna looks like a smooth, pink 20 year-old, but she has to use a walker and wear diapers. It will be like a horror movie.

Babies have pudgy thighs as well. Who's up for some thigh implants!

Just note that the article is not saying that Madonna or Angelina went and got themselves "deveined" in pursuit of smooth pudgy hands.

It said that both women have been critiqued for having (gasp) veins!

But the comment "where will it stop" is well placed.

Women in the media are visciously torn apart for merely living.

If we all died at 22, we'd all be beautiful.

How do we push back on the media which is so viscious to those women who are lucky enough to live beyond 22?

And gray hair since 22.

Oh well...

I mean, honestly. Veiny hands is a women's issue? This is posted as a news story worthy of thought and discussion? Is this site for real anymore, or are they just playing a big joke on us all, laughing their asses off while we scratch our heads in puzzlement? Doesn't this story belong more in some "Odd News" or "News of the Weird" compendium?

. . . I agree with the comment in Jezebel: I think that two of the women pictured would have benefited more from some cosmetic dentistry (as well as some time spent in the gym).

Let's not kid ourselves sisters, we like to pretend there is no Patriarchy, but then we find new ways that they demand we torture ourselves!

...because I've read that men with veiny~capable looking hands are considered sexy. The backs-of , naturally.

[umm, too - the hands , not the men.]

Or maybe? it's just the 'capable' part.

maybe 10 years ago on Dateline or something. They were injecting fat from patients' posteriers into the backs of their hands. The theory was that fat migrates out of hands as we age (does it!?). The result: fat, old-looking hands.

I remember the not-too-distant past when I envied people whose veins were visible on the tops of their hands, arms, or ankles - mine tended to hide because I wasn't thin enough as a teenager for them to show much at all. I've got a much healthier perspective concerning weight these days, and thinner, veinier hands, but it still seems a little nutty to me for people to try to get rid of something I always saw as a hallmark of conventional beauty.

Ok, it's dumb to be this superficial and obsessed with minute physical aspects of aging. But we women are constantly judged -- and put down -- for the simple act of growing older, as if we were an unwanted dented can on a supermarket shelf that gets continually marked down in price.

It is often said, correctly, that no matter how much work a woman has done on her face and her breasts -- or how thin she is -- you can tell her correct age simply by looking at her hands. In a world where trolls abound, and where they like to diss any woman over 40 as undesirable, it's really no wonder that hands are the next frontier.

The reality is that women who retain their physical beauty (assuming they have it in the first place) are treated far better than women who don't -- they get more and better jobs, higher pay, more visibility, and they have more opportunities for sexual partners and marriage. Just look at poor Britney Spears, a mere 25 years old, and already treated by the media as a washed up, no-longer-cute loser.

It would be nice not to be under pressure to look younger, or actually to look ANY different than one would naturally -- and by that I include aging, gray hair, natural body hair and weight gain. But that won't happen until as a culture we get this demanding and demeaning cult of lookism under control. Right now, it's the tail wagging the dog.

we women are constantly judged -- and put down -- for the simple act of growing older, as if we were an unwanted dented can on a supermarket shelf that gets continually marked down in price.

I'll grant you that women have it worse in that respect, but men are not immune from such judgments and putdowns, and if anything our culture is evolving in ways that increase the pressures on aging men without doing much to alleviate them on aging women. Our cultural obsession with surface appearances seems to be getting worse for everyone. In any case, for a good example of such judgments and putdowns directed at men, please see AKA Smith's posts from the "Hillary Clinton--STILL not gay" thread.

Sorry, AKA, I couldn't resist. You kind of left the door wide open on that one ;-)

The reality is that women who retain their physical beauty (assuming they have it in the first place) are treated far better than women who don't -- they get more and better jobs, higher pay, more visibility, and they have more opportunities for sexual partners and marriage.

Again, this is sadly true, but also of men, if to a lesser degree (but getting worse all the time). Favorable treatment of those deemed more attractive is an unfortunate trait of ALL humans, not just the males of the species.

It would be nice not to be under pressure to look younger, or actually to look ANY different than one would naturally -- and by that I include aging, gray hair, natural body hair and weight gain. But that won't happen until as a culture we get this demanding and demeaning cult of lookism under control.

Agreed 100%. The ideal cultural evolution would be to maintain the lower levels of "lookism" directed at men and greatly mitigate the worse "lookism" directed at women; unfortunately we seem to be doing the opposite--maintaining the high lookism suffered by women and directing more at men so that they (we) can "catch up". Pretty sad all around.