The Beauty of Elders
At a recent workshop for elders’ support group leaders, I had a new point of view while gazing at lovely older people on Zoom.
Over decades of working in the disability community, I’ve had the benefit of seeing us disabled people as beautiful in our uniqueness, but I hadn’t yet turned that view onto older people. With the energy of our being together at the workshop, I realized that the common judgments of our appearance are only oppression.
These judgments are hugely reinforced by the profitable youth and beauty industry that sells us products to change our bodies and employs shame and competition to trick us into buying them. And they are reinforced by racism and classism. They are an example of the pseudo-reality that we mistake for real. Aspects of our bodies are so associated with age oppression—for example, being seen as non-productive and a burden—that we perceive ourselves and our peers as unattractive or even ugly. That is a distress recording from the oppression.
Not only do we have wisdom. Not only can we be likened to gnarly tree trunks or ancient mountain ranges. Our expressive faces, our lustrous gray hair, our charming shiny bald heads, our neck wrinkles, our loose upper arms—every little thing about our bodies—is at least as beautiful as the features of younger humans and movie stars. I saw us! We are gorgeous!
El Cerrito, California, USA
(Present Time 205, October 2021)