Earlier this month, The Thorn Birds star, Rachel Ward, popped up on social media to promote her ethical meat initiative, Farmthru. For many, this was the first time they had seen Ward since her acting and modelling heyday in the 1980s. In the intervening 40-odd years, Ward has grown older, and that seemed to upset a few trolls who mouthed off in the comments. Specifically, what irked them was that Ward hadn’t tried to conceal the fact she was older.
Her hair was grey, she was without make-up, and her face was suntanned and wrinkled. In short, she looked like a 68-year-old woman – for the record, she is a 68-year-old woman. “What happened to U dear god shocking,” wrote one viewer, who was so concerned they forgot how to punctuate a sentence. “Wow!! She has aged really, really badly,” added another.
Scrolling through a tidal wave of such comments, I was disappointed to realise that it was overwhelmingly women who were criticising Ward. It was also women who leapt to her defence, primarily by insisting Ward was “still beautiful”. It is a nice thing to say, but doesn’t move the topic on much from looks. She wasn’t there to swap beauty tips; she was there to sell meat.
Then Vanessa Feltz and Lizzie Cundy spoke about their own shocked reaction to Ward’s appearance on Channel Five. “I was shocked by how much she had aged, because I remembered her looking they way she did in the 80s…And I sort of thought she would have made every effort on earth to hang on to that appearance,” said Feltz.
As far as feminism goes, it was a low point. But, fair play, both Feltz and Cundy owned up to their own internalised misogyny, admitting they were embarrassed by their own reaction to a naturally ageing face. Yet it’s still pretty mind-blowing that a naturally ageing woman was worthy of discussion at all – and, once again, it was women criticising women for their looks.
Then the backlash began. “This interview is disgusting,” fumed one TikToker. “It is a privilege to grow old! Some do not have that choice!” said another. All of which I agree with, but then there were takes like, “What does Vanessa think she looks like?” And “this is so nasty. Neither presenter is exactly an oil painting”. And yep, it was women leading that particular battle cry as well.
It was women piling on Ward for ageing and it was women pointing out those same women were too ugly to call anyone else likewise. It’s so depressing and, sadly, this is nothing new. It is always women charging in first to slag each other off for how they choose to present themselves, and you can’t win. If you choose to reject make-up and surgery, they will be lining up to tell you how bad you look, but if you decide to go full facelift and fillers, they will still be there, telling you that you’ve let the side down and should “age gracefully”. God damn it, ladies. This is exhausting. Do we not have enough to deal with under the patriarchy, without attacking one another as well?
I have written some provocative columns during my time and received my fair share of criticism as a result. The week I told everyone they shouldn’t put dogs in prams was an interesting one, but the article that resulted in the most trolling of all was the one I wrote about enjoying a few tweakments (Botox and filler) – and it was all women. The men didn’t give a shit. I was told I was a terrible role model for young women and that I am a “huge disappointment”. It went on for weeks. It really caught me off guard.
The whole experience left me wondering, why are women so quick to criticise each other when it comes to looks?
There isn’t a huge amount of research on this, but what there is suggests that women do indeed judge each other more negatively than they do men, or men do women and each other. One piece of research from 2013 found that women will shun other women who are regarded as sexually promiscuous, compared to men who really didn’t seem to care if their mate was a bit slutty. Women have also been found to be more sensitive to criticism and social exclusion than men are, and therefore more likely to close ranks if we feel threatened. Could that be why we are so quick to shun and judge one another?
I suspect it is because we are still raised to view beauty as the most important quality a woman can have. It’s instilled in us from childhood, from mothers criticising our weight to princess dollies, and the constant bombardment of beautiful faces peering at us from magazines and television screens. Is it any wonder we internalise this judgment and are so quick to unleash it one each other? The call is coming from inside the house.
The choices someone else makes can feel like a direct challenge to our own. That was surely what was driving the outrage at Ward’s naturally ageing face. Confronted with a woman who hasn’t spent a fortune tweaking and tucking every emerging crevice, those who do must reckon with their own choices. Likewise, when I admitted to having filler, those who haven’t felt the need to passionately defend that choice, and they did it by attacking mine as wrong. But neither approach gets us out of the infinite “looks loop” women find themselves caught in.
Criticism is as human as breathing in and out. We all do it, but how we do it, and what we do it about, matters. We all have opinions and a right to express them, but when women focus in on each other’s appearance, we become the enforcers of standards that collectively hold us back. We need to move beyond the obsession with looks and support one another doing whatever the hell we want to in order to feel better about ourselves. You want to wear a full, beat of make-up to the corner shop? You crack on, love. You want to embrace the grey and rock your wrinkles? Have at it. It’s none of my business.
Before offering any kind of criticism on the choices another woman is making, ask yourself, what is this reflecting in me? Especially if you are having quite a strong reaction, like Vanessa Feltz admitted to. What is it in me that feels the need to lash out?
The world has enough critics. Try being an ally instead.
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