Rashmi Desai Being Age Shamed Shows Our Society’s Oppressive Beauty Norms

Recently actress Rashmi Desai on her Instagram stories called out faceless trolls and bullies for age shaming her. Why are a woman’s beauty and grace supposed to be related to her age?

According to a report published in News18 recently, actress Rashmi Desai on her Instagram Stories called out faceless trolls and bullies for age shaming her. She shared screenshots of the men who commented on her post calling her “buddhi” and “ghatiya aunty”. They not only age shamed the actress but also used abusive words for her in the comment section. 

In her story, she also tagged Mumbai Police, Cyber Crime Cell and Prime Minister Narendra Modi to bring this issue to their attention.

She wrote “Tu hai kaun be? Are these thoughts you have for your mother, sisters, girlfriend or any woman for that matter? This is what your parents or your surroundings teaching you or is it your vulture shitty mind?? Really sad to see that people like you know, how to write but don’t know what to write and that is when you guys lack education and you guys need it. I pity you, boys, with such small filthy mind”

Shaming women for just being themselves

Women in our society are subjected to various beauty standards and other oppressive norms. We are kali for not being fair, moti for not being the perfect zero figure and budhi and made fun of for ageing (which is a natural process by the way). 

Signs of ageing are normal. Wrinkles, stretch marks, fine lines all of it are normal. But sadly according to our society having signs of ageing means that a woman has lost her beauty and grace and she cannot be glamorous anymore. 

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Society correlates youth and beauty closely, which in turn makes it easier for men to make fun of women who don’t fit in the stereotype of age and are just being themselves despite their age. 

How does age shaming affect women?

The very concept that a woman turns unattractive after a certain age affects women a lot. This internalised notion of unattractiveness makes a woman lean more towards keeping her youth intact at any cost. This, in turn, is supported by the market of anti-ageing cosmetics products.

We live in a world where women are always supposed to look young, beautiful and flawless. We are made to believe that all of this is related to age. Hence women start to feel bad about themselves when they start ageing. According to research done in Canada, women in the post-menopausal period face an immense drop in self-esteem and confidence due to the growing signs of ageing. 

Hence, because of age shaming and the taboo around ageing, women are often dissatisfied when they start ageing. It’s high time that we stop telling women what they can do and what they can’t, depending on their age. If a woman feels glamorous and beautiful in herself, we are no one to her that she can’t because she is of a certain age.

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