The Double Standard of Aging

In this influential 1972 essay, Susan Sontag argues that growing older is a moral disease and social pathology that afflicts women far more than men, evoking shame rather than mere regret.

She highlights how conventions of sexual feeling impose stricter age-related conditions on women, leading to an earlier crisis of aging, while men enjoy a more affirmative relation to their bodies and faces.

Sontag critiques the pressure on women to maintain youthful appearances through cosmetics and notes how this double standard robs women of their prime years between 35 and 50.