Lisa LaFlamme, the Queen, and embracing our age
Like many Canadian women, I recently changed my Twitter avatar to greyscale in support of former CTV journalist Lisa Laflamme. The reason? In August, LaFlamme revealed that she had been dumped as the network’s lead anchor because, at the age of 58, she had dared to allow her hair to go grey. While other male anchors in Canadian history had held their positions into their 60s and 70s, the telltale sign of age on a woman had cost LaFlamme her post.
This desperation to maintain our youthful image inherently suggests that our older bodies have less value.
The response from journalists and women was swift and angry. Correspondents across multiple platforms praised LaFlamme’s talent and accused Bell Media (the parent company for CTVNews) of misogyny, sexism, and ageism. In particular, Bell Media executive Michael Melling, who had allegedly asked in a meeting, “who had approved the decision to 'let Lisa’s hair go grey?’”, went on leave. Major brands like Dove and Wendy’s launched campaigns in support of going silver.
On September 9, Rogers Media hired LaFlamme as a special correspondent to cover the death of Queen Elizabeth II. Ironically, the Queen was one of the few Western women allowed to age with dignity—no small feat for someone who literally spent her entire life in the public eye. We knew the queen as a straight-backed brunette, a steel-haired matron, and finally as an increasingly frail, white-haired widow.
I am constantly struck by how women—at least in Western society—are somehow perceived as failures when their bodies inevitably begin to display the impact of their time on this Earth. Our ideal woman has a low BMI, shiny hair, taut skin, and plump lips. As these fade with time, we are encouraged to fight tooth and nail to maintain these characteristics. It starts with retinol creams and hair dyes and escalates to chemical peels, fillers, and Botox, coupled with endless caloric restriction and Spanx.
This desperation to maintain our youthful image inherently suggests that our older bodies have less value. In the entertainment industry, women are roundly praised for continuing to look “sexy” in their fifties—think Jennifer Lopez and the adulation she receives for maintaining her physique at age 53. But sexy is defined by youthful standards—an hourglass figure, perky breasts, smooth skin, and a wardrobe filled with tight clothes and stilettos. Allow your waist to thicken or permit gravity to have its inevitable impact on your cleavage, and you risk losing your membership in the sexy club. This moment is captured perfectly in the Comedy Central sketch “Last Fuckable Day”, featuring Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Tiny Fey, Amy Schumer, and Patricia Arquette.
As the sketch points out, there is no such day for men.
When the television show Sex and the City rebooted in 2021, 23 years after the show premiered, its stars returned to television screens and the scrutiny of an audience that remembered the characters as young, carefree paragons of fashion and sexuality. Immediately, critics and viewers leapt to point out the obvious: the female leads had aged. Cynthia Nixon’s hair was now grey, and were those signs of fillers or plastic surgery on Kristin Davis’s face? How could midlife women who had allowed themselves to age remain sexy? The idea, it seems, was laughable.
Does female sexuality have an expiry date? The media certainly thinks so, and the beauty industry peddles that message to women as a way to sell products and services aimed at extending that date. If popular culture tells us that female sexuality has an expiry date, what happens when you wake up and realize that you’ve hit it? The initial reaction is often panic—now what? The Canadian sketch comedy troupe Baroness von Sketch captured that moment in “Peak Cute”, their take on realizing that you’ve aged out of youthful fashion.
When you hit that moment, it would appear that women have limited choices: fight back against time and physiology; give up and become matrons (itself a loaded word); or create an “eccentric” persona—think Patricia Field, Tilda Swinton, or Iris Apfel. Yet for the average woman, none of these options are particularly attractive. They either require intensive cost or effort or carry a risk to one’s self-esteem and social standing. Midlife female bodies, it seems, simply aren’t beautiful anymore. Worse, we internalize that expiry date and extend it to include not just sexual attractiveness, but our careers and broader social value.
But why? Our older bodies carry the evidence of experience and endurance: having children; surviving injury or disease; the weight of years and wisdom leaving their mark. We jiggle, we slump, we wrinkle. My arms took on a new roundness, my freckles formed islands, and my feet widened. Initially, I felt frustrated—even horrified by these changes. My body felt alien and ugly, and I couldn’t reconcile my identity with my image.
Much like grief, I passed through stages:
1. Denial—“My ankles are not that thick!”
2. Anger—Frustration at my body for betraying me
3. Bargaining—Diets/dyes/Googling surgery
4. Depression—(Self-explanatory)
5. Acceptance—Letting my freckles show; investing in a new wardrobe in my actual size; trading heels for quirky yet comfortable shoes; recognizing that my curves make me the perfect vessel for maternal hugs.
Now, when I see my reflection, I see my size, sags, and crow’s feet and think, “Damn right. That’s me.” And then I turn away and stop thinking about how old I look. Instead, I want to spend my time thinking about family, friends, books, projects, work, or the world around me. Instead of turning in, I am looking out. The gift of midlife is perspective.
I have more to give to the world than my corporeal form. In fact, that is the least of who I am.
XX
Nicolle & Carla