I’m already feeling invisible at the age of only 37. Because I haven’t had Botox, I seem to be ageing faster, writes HOLLY BOURNE

I first noticed it a few summers ago, when I was 34. It was a blazing hot day, the kind where they urge you to take water bottles with you on public transport, and I put on some clothes before heading into town.

I stepped out in a pair of short denim cut-offs and a strappy top. But when I looked at my reflection in the hallway mirror and the large amounts of skin showing, I stopped. “That’s weird,” I said to my husband. “I just realized I haven’t gotten a call all summer.”

“Isn’t that good?” he replied.

I have thought about it. “Yes, and no,” I said. “I don’t think it’s because the war against sexual harassment has been won, it’s that I’m now too old to be harassed…”

Ten years earlier I would never have put together a ‘revealing’ outfit so easily. When I moved to London at the age of 25, I was shocked by the relentless sexual harassment every time I left home. Mainly because I’ve never been the ‘pretty’ one in my friendship group.

Yet every morning during the summer, I had to choose between the physical comfort of less clothing, knowing I would be yelled at, whistled at, and sometimes even followed home, or the emotional comfort of a longer hem or sleeve. As this year’s winter persists, I feel no relief as I pull my puffy coat around me.

As a bestselling author of young adult novels, I often work with teenage girls who complain that they can’t walk to school without older men bothering them. They say their uniform is essentially a giant target for honking horns, wolf whistles and perverted comments. Sexual harassment has certainly not disappeared.

So I realized that my new superpower to wear a short skirt and remain undisturbed wasn’t a feminist victory, but rather a new invisibility. Somehow I had grown out of one kind of sexism and into another. I’m only 37 and yet I feel like I’m mourning the beginning of the end of something. My being seen, the pinnacle of my supposed attractiveness. And it will only get worse.

Actresses, pop stars, models, influencers: I notice they are much younger than me, or look younger because of what I assume are cosmetic procedures. As plastic surgery and “alterations” become increasingly popular and socially acceptable, even marketed as “empowering,” our perception of other women’s ages is shifting.

I see famous women in their forties and fifties who look younger than me. I didn’t think I’d worry about aging until I was at least in my late 40s, but those of us who don’t have surgery technically age faster because of the large number of people who do. I look and feel older because they made themselves look younger.

So, as a feminist woman, how can I deal with my aging and how does it affect the way society sees me? The only older women I see in the media are the ones praised and celebrated for defying the scientific inevitability of age – with surgeries, expensive facelifts and creams, and a refined P.Volve body that resembles that of a teenager.

While it seems crazy to feel invisible at age 37, the way women frantically pursue the perfect skin care regimen or use ‘preventative Botox’ shows that we know the consequences of aging. Clearly I’m not the only one concerned when women ten years younger than me waste so much money and time trying to stay visible. Maybe I’m a late bloomer, because I’ve only recently started to worry about it.

Is it unfeminist of me to get Botox? Or is it an empowering choice that makes me feel better? It’s a question that becomes so much harder to answer the more personally relevant it becomes. I’ve been trying to draw lines in the sand as the lines deepen on my forehead.

I’ve succumbed to an increasingly complicated skin care regimen, which now involves using retinol, but so far I’ve resisted plastic surgery.

A childhood friend I shared a birthday with died unexpectedly when I was 24, changing my attitude toward aging. Every year, as my phone pings with congratulatory messages, his still-open Facebook page is flooded with “I miss you” RIP messages. It’s a devastating, acute reminder of how many extra days of life I’ve had compared to him. It really contextualizes every wrinkle as the ultimate privilege. On every birthday I think about the sunsets I’ve seen, the delicious meals I’ve eaten, the smiles I’ve laughed, the loves I’ve loved, the juice of life I’ve drunk, and see them all written to me. sight.

I try to see it for the beauty that it is – as if my aging face is a passport, collecting the stamps of life’s experiences. It’s a quieter kind of issue – the declining visibility of older women – that’s hard to put your finger on.

But as I walk toward forty, I feel its gentle grip. I don’t think any of us can really imagine growing older. And it hurts more than I thought, in fact, I feel a slight panic. The invisibility is less explicit than the sexism I experienced, and more of a feeling.

There is a growing feeling that I am less – now I wrinkle when I laugh, now my hair is speckled with grey. Society generally has less trouble with me – in a positive or negative way. I feel it when I go to clothing stores that used to be my favorite, something fits. No one tells me I can’t wear the current trends, but there is a deep realization that I just look ‘wrong’ in these clothes now. When I turned 35, I remember there was a craze on TikTok where Gen Z girls were mocking the fashion choices of millennial women: our side parts and our skinny jeans.

“Wait a minute,” I thought, “women my age are now old enough to be ridiculed for our shabby fashions.” And as I reached for my waist and smoothed down my skinny jeans in embarrassment, I had to remind myself that, depressingly, this is how it works.

Women are frantically pursuing the perfect skincare regime, or getting ‘preventive botox’ – even at 37 – proving we know the consequences of aging, writes Holly Bourne

Last year I became a mother for the first time and this feeling of invisibility intensified again. I felt like a feral nuisance pushing my buggy down the street.

And no matter how carefully I tried to guide my baby along narrow sidewalks, I couldn’t believe how many people were actively bumping into me and then giving me looks of disgust for taking up space. Now I am a mother, I see mothers everywhere, but no one sees me because I have become one.

Recently I didn’t even recognize myself anymore. I caught a glimpse in a shop window and there was a moment of total disconnection before I realized I was the hunched over, exhausted looking woman pushing a buggy. I almost flinched in shock.

I think I’m lucky that I live two lives with my job.

I am the Hulst who is just another woman in the world. However, I am also a writer. A job where your appearance is (largely) irrelevant, and there is enormous, powerful visibility in publishing words.

You can’t address beauty issues without acknowledging the aging population, and how society still condemns women who dare to do so visibly by making them, well, invisible. It’s a storytelling cliché how mothers (or wicked stepmothers) resent their daughter’s beauty and youth, and I wanted to explore the painful reasons why we strive to remain the fairest of them all in my latest teen novel, You Could Be So Pretty.

Whether that’s a poison apple or freezing your forehead with injectable poison, there’s no shame in us chasing the youth. We know the consequences if we lose it. And unfortunately, women perpetuate this ageism as much as men can, breaking the bonds where the wisdom and experience of age can be passed on to younger generations.

You Could Be So Pretty is published by Usborne