The Lovin' Midlife Blog

Aging Word Cloud

It’s Time for an Accurate Definition of Aging for Women

I just Googled ‘best definition of aging’, and here’s what came up first:

“Progressive physiological changes in an organism that lead to senescence, or a decline of biological functions and of the organism’s ability to adapt to metabolic stress.”

– Encyclopedia Britannica

And, it made me sad. Really sad.

The definition is not incorrect in and of itself, but it’s downright limited and misleading.

How can it be that so many societies have adopted this partial, purely scientific, and mainly negative definition of aging and never looked back?

Even worse, how could they have used it as the basis for drawing all of the negative assumptions, biases and stereotypes about women’s experience of aging, and midlife and beyond that still reign over us today?

I’m referring to the same negative biases and stereotypes that are keeping us women in midlife and beyond misunderstood, undervalued and increasingly invisible.

They are the same biases and stereotypes that are making younger generations of women fear and dread getting older and start using ‘anti-aging’ products as early as their teens.

If I were to accept society’s current definition (which I don’t), my description of my aging experience so far should be something like this:

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