Is It A Myth That Women “Hit The Wall”?

Yeoh, 60, is no stranger to film – she’s a mixed-martial arts superstar and was a Bond girl in 1997’s Tomorrow Never Dies – and she chose to use her acceptance speech to address the success she’s garnered at her age: “Ladies, never let anyone tell you you are past your prime.”

Many people believed Yeoh’s speech was pointedly directed at men, or at least one man, Don Lemon. The CNN anchor came under fire last February for saying that presidential hopeful, Republican Nikki Haley, “isn’t in her prime.” Lemon was subsequently removed from his on-air duties temporarily, and those on both sides of the aisle called him out for taking potshots at Haley, who turned 51 earlier this year.

Some of us are probably wondering what age has to do with either of these two publicly known, very successful women. Lemon’s comments correlated with what’s colloquially known as “hitting the wall,” or the idea that older women have aged out of being both physically attractive and the chance to be successful within their personal or professional lives. Hitting the wall is a contentious topic due to the manner in which it’s addressed these days, mainly by the online manosphere, but is it a myth? Are we all doomed to bow to its inevitable encroachment on our lives? The answer is both yes and no.

The Wall Comes for All of Us

Damaged goods, past your prime, mother nature’s revenge...all of these are synonymous with hitting the wall. It’s a preternatural human urge to fear aging, perhaps because we fear having no control over becoming someone we don’t even recognize, and women are especially susceptible to this concern. Statistics show that the most popular cosmetic procedure for women aged 40 to 54 is an eyelid lift (blepharoplasty), and for women 55 plus, it’s facelifts. As aging takes its toll, we turn to artificial means to turn back the clock and stave off the effects of gravity for as long as we can.

Most women, as we approach middle age or turning the big 40, fear hitting the wall, but there’s a lack of consensus on when exactly that is. Ask 30 different people, and you’ll get 30 different answers. Aging comes for all of us, and though science and technology have come a long way in the last decade, it will still happen whether we like it or not. 

The wall could really be redefined as either an acceptance or rejection of aging, but that’s immaterial to those who are most preoccupied with it. Certain men, particularly in the online sphere, are more concerned with what they see as the downfall of women who were once young, beautiful, and fertile, as opposed to upholding them to a higher standard or encouraging them to preserve their femininity. Hitting the wall, as seen by the average person, is not so much the inevitable consequences of aging as it is biological payback against women for the sins of their youth, a distinction that has to be examined if we’re going to address female fears about growing older.

The Figurative Versus the Physical

In reality, there are two walls we should be discussing: the figurative wall and the physical wall. We have power and agency over both. With regards to the figurative wall, we have the power to shift or alter our outlook on our lives and to better them if we’re facing depression and despair. Though the effects of physical aging are unavoidable, we do have the responsibility to continue to care for ourselves and our bodies as we grow older.

In a figurative sense, the wall might hit us like a ton of bricks. In our twenties and thirties, we were enjoying living life to the fullest – whether it’s traveling extensively, constantly being with friends, or doing other adventurous things we think only twenty-somethings can do.

We might have let our early twenties fly by with no thought of having kids – in fact, we probably spent the majority of that time avoiding pregnancy rather than seeking it out – but now at 30, we feel desperate and helpless. Everyone is telling us how hard it will be to conceive at this age, and though fertility decreases considerably after age 35, the chances of getting pregnant after your twenties are still very good.

Then, we find ourselves at 40 and beyond. We might be married or single, it doesn’t matter. Our marriage, now decades past its original excitement, might be stalling. We might feel downtrodden by a lack of intimacy, the responsibility of caring for teenagers who have lost their cuteness and are now bratty and resentful. Our work lives aren’t fulfilling, our home lives aren’t fulfilling. We can’t find satisfaction anywhere. 

On the other hand, we might have never found Mr. Right, or maybe we’re single again, post-divorce or post-breakup. All of a sudden, the guys aren’t cute anymore, and they’re getting pudgier and losing hair. All of our other friends are married with families, which we always told ourselves we’d have one day, and they never have time for us anymore. Work is a drag, but we have to make a living somehow. We drink too much, and we’re the oldest person on all the dating apps, or at least it feels like it. In both cases, there’s a “grass is greener” way of thinking that’s instilling despair within us. And the wall isn’t just hitting us, it’s on our chest threatening to suffocate us.

We might have had a trim waist and pert breasts at 22, but now our skin is losing elasticity and collagen, and everything is sagging. Our crows feet or loss of muscle tone in our arms is the first thing we notice in the mirror, and our midsections are rounder. We’re finding more gray hairs and aches and pains in places we didn’t know existed. After kid number four, our ability to wait to go to the bathroom disappeared entirely. Our sex drive has gone down, everything we eat, no matter how healthy, puts on more pounds. When we look in the mirror, we might feel that we’re seeing someone we don’t even recognize.

Accepting aging also means accepting that we can’t quit putting in effort. 

The physical and the figurative are intertwined. When we look better, we feel better. Accepting aging also means accepting that we can’t quit putting in effort. Why shouldn’t our older self be treated as well, if not better than our younger self? Maintaining an active lifestyle and eating well will help us ease into aging. Accepting aging also means accepting our choices, both the things we cherish and the things we regret. Even in our youth, we should be planning out how we want to age. If this means marriage and family, we can’t wait for those things to fall into our lap – we have to go after them. The monotony of a settled routine during middle age might drive us crazy at times, but aren’t we in the place we’ve always dreamed of being? And is it really worse than the uncertainty and stress of the years we spent building up to that life? 

Perspective Is Everything

We’ve established that the wall comes for all of us eventually. And with the loss of our self-confidence and the waning of our best physical traits, we might hurdle ourselves into the wall before it hits us completely.

But perspective, especially on aging, is absolutely everything. Aging is a privilege. There are many who will never get to experience the life-affirming (if inconvenient) experiences of crows feet and forehead wrinkles. We can fall prey to letting ourselves go when we feel like we have no control anymore – but we can also lean into aging, through our attitudes, what we wear, how we behave, and how we take care of our bodies.

Hitting the wall in a traditional sense as we know it, wherein we’re forced to sacrifice our younger, more beautiful selves as some sort of penance for not having children or marrying sooner, is a myth. It’s contrived by an unforgiving narrative that despises and resents women and views them as irredeemable if, heaven forbid, they don’t wear full faces of makeup every day or don’t have a 25-year-old waist at 40 years old. But we should redefine this term as something aspirational, something we can look forward to. With aging should come acceptance, not rejection. 

Closing Thoughts

The hardest aspect of life is that nothing stays the same. This is a beautiful thing in that our rough seasons won’t endure, but a hard pill to swallow in knowing that the best times of our youth can’t last forever. Aging is nothing to fear, nor is it something we should avoid. The harder we fight it, the more aggressively it will take hold. But the more we embrace it, the more attractive (physically or otherwise) we become.

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