Ageing is not the same for women as it is for men. Men might fear death, and the frailty and weakness that comes before it. But for women, long before the onset of old age comes something just as fearful: a precipitous and irreversible loss of status.
Women in middle age are far from elderly; most of their adult lives are still ahead of them. But, says Victoria Smith in Hags: The Demonisation of Middle-aged Women, once women are no longer young they are inevitably seen not only as past their expiry dates but also annoying, useless, entitled and embarrassing. Oh, and ugly of course.
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