Age combined with gender denies women the respect aging grants men

Evidence

Age is another aspect of identity, one that obviously changes over time. In some careers, such as athletics, modeling, or acting for women, youth is a privileging identity. In other fields, such as law, senior people may be accorded a respect and stature that eludes the young. I keep thinking that one day when I go totally gray, I will be treated with respect. My senior female colleagues assure me that this is definitely not the case for them as women. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1185 (#expands, via linked claim)

The mature man is engaged in more important enterprises than those of love; his sexual ardor is less pressing than in his youth; and as he is not expected to have the passive qualities of an object, the alteration of his face and body does not spoil his possibilities of seduction. By contrast, woman reaches her full sexual blossoming at about thirty-five, having finally overcome all her inhibitions: this is when her desires are the most intense and when she wants to satisfy them the most ardently; she has counted on her sexual attributes far more than man has; to keep her husband, to be assured of protection, and to succeed in most jobs she holds, she has to please; she has not been allowed a hold on the world except through man’s mediation: What will become of her when she no longer has a hold on him? This is what she anxiously wonders while she witnesses, powerless, the degradation of this object of flesh with which she is one; she fights; but dyes, peeling, and plastic surgery can never do more than prolong her dying youth. At least she can play tricks with the mirror. But when the inevitable, irreversible process starts, which is going to destroy in her the whole edifice constructed during puberty, she feels touched by the very inevitability of death. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1709 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Aging is perceived as woman’s betrayal because her body exists for man’s use. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 352; Woman’s life stages are sharply discontinuous while man’s aging is continuous — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1707; Never having fit beauty standards can make old age a relative advantage — Dolores DeLuce, Blow Jobs: A Guide to Making It in Show…, 280 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Age operates as an identity axis whose value depends on field and gender #expands (1.00) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1185
• Woman’s aging shame stems from being an object for man’s mediation #expands (0.95) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1709