The other night, I went to a lecture celebrating 150 years of Carl Jung's teachings (well, of Jung per se, since it's 150 years since he was born), but ended up leaving early, as the discussion felt surface-level and stilted. It was an attempt to discuss the archetypal figures, and the symbolism inside fairy tales (an enormously fruitful topic, as demonstrated by great analysts like Marion Woodman, poet Robert Bly, and of course, Marie-Louise von Franz). However, the speaker really struggled with it, had no skill and dully trudged along through a popular fairytale.
What struck me was that, fairly early on, in explaining the negative mother, the character's step-mother, the speaker said something like "of course, the step-mother is the woman who, reaching a certain age, faces the fact that she has now lost her charm and become unattractive". From my seat on the floor, I thought, say what?
I didn't like the way this was presented to the audience - as pretty much a given. It didn't appeal to me as a woman or as a student of Jung, because it's contradictory. While it's true that once past her fertile years, a woman's attraction changes, I wouldn't say it dissipates (and what a toxic thing to teach to (primarily) pre-menopausal women).
It seems to me a lot of our Western culture is superficial to its detriment. We spend so much time (not to mention a shitload of money) in a desperate bid to oppose nature and "reverse" or stall the passage of time.
First off, this suggestion that we can or should oppose our very nature is (I believe) at the root of so much anxiety, depression, and illness. In my life, I may be gearing up for and asked to participate in battles of some kind, but against my own nature, and against time? I don't think so.
This is doomed to fail, and I can't help but wonder at the somatic implications there. It's not enough that my skin is drier, my breasts sagging or whatever, now I also have to contend with having been defeated in my battle against time. I do wonder in what aches and difficulties this might show up in later life.
Then, there's the feminine perspective, for which this narrative is just plain offensive. And dangerous, if you think about it. So basically, my beauty lies in the fact that I am young and child-bearing. On a certain biological level, that tends to be true. You can't argue with biological facts, and men are naturally attracted to women who can provide them with offspring. But to suggest that women become unattractive once they hit 45 or so seems a bit extreme.
It totally bypasses the idea that there might be something more meaty to attraction, fidelity and love, than, well, the flesh. And it would be different if this were used as a gateway to self-work, self-nourishment, healthy connection, and so on. You could reasonably say "look, you're gonna lose a significant part of your physical appeal in about 25-30 years, what say you we work on the other stuff that might make you an attractive, fascinating, lovable thing"?
However, in the age of duck lips and gym booties (I dunno what those are called, sue me), doesn't seem to be the case. One does consider, on seeing all these young girls working out and dieting and injecting all sorts of poison in themselves to "look the part", they're in for a rude awakening in some 20 years' time. Now of course, healthy diet (not the same as lose-weight diet) and physical exercise are phenomenal habits to carry with you as you age. But they're more inward-focused. They should make you feel good and strong, not "fit", because then you get this whole line of middle-aged women driving themselves crazy at the gym just to keep fit, under the assumption that that will also keep them attractive.
Unfortunately, taut bellies and tight biceps only go a limited way.
And last, there's the Jungian perspective, which clearly suggests women go through the classical three archetypes of maiden, mother and crone in their life. But these are not automated. It's not like you wake up one day and think "oh, I'm a crone now, cool". Especially if you've lived decades prizing surface-level beauty as described by men. The idea that "older women are ugly" does not foster acceptance of this new, inevitable phase in life, but rather invites you to actively fight it. To pretend you're something you're not is obviating your progress through life (and implicitly the way you arrived at all this hard-earned wisdom).
I've been trying to catch it early, this rotten mentality that pervades our culture and implicitly our individual minds, and burn it. It's mighty easy for me not to give a shit at 26, and that is typically the case. Younger generations are notoriously disconsiderate and insensitive to older generations' plight, until they're past a certain age, and on it goes.
But then I figure, okay, that's a pretty sure fire way to catch your fingers when you turn whatever age, so maybe weed out that thinking now instead of fostering it for 20 years only to be jolted out by the natural passage of time, you know?
If all the old women in our stories are rotten, bent hags, no wonder people are scared of aging. So maybe it's time we started popularizing different stories.
And much as I'm intrigued, I'm not such a fan of "this 70-year-old still looks 35" type social media posts where it's some older woman doing a handstand or being a model in Paris. That's celebrating outliers, which most of us could never aspire to. I mean proper stories of the joys implicit in getting older, the valuable contribution the "hag" brings to her village, rather than casting spells from its outskirts.
