I don’t aspire to look as hot as Gwyneth Paltrow or JLo, but for women over 50, their good looks benefit all women

For starters, I’m pretty close in age These women are in comparison to most of the people who are commenting. I’m a year older than Paltrow and two years younger than Aniston and Lopez. So, age wise, we are the same age. And 35 year olds telling me how I should ’embrace aging’ reminds me of a teenager who said to my mother, “I hate being 85”, who sarcastically replied, “You probably wouldn’t do that if you were 84”. If you haven’t clocked up the miles, you haven’t clocked up right.

And, newsflash! I know I will never look like those women, not even close. However, as I’ve mentioned before, I have a mild form of body dysmorphism where I think I look better than I actually do; It’s pretty funny. But not looking as good as movie stars doesn’t even remotely make me feel crushed or inadequate or whatever their critics think I should feel. In fact, I’m getting increasingly tired of the brigade who think everything makes women feel crushed and inadequate, when many of us feel totally fine, thank you very much.

I don’t aspire to be as hot as these women (Paltrow posed for a photo on her 50th birthday in which she was seen flipping through the air wearing a skimpy string bikini, and, to mark the occasion, a different In the shoot, Gold posed nude in body makeup; she has the body of an athlete) but trust me they look so good they’ve moved the goalposts for all of us.

shows like when i was young the golden girls Was on TV. Three of the four characters, Blanche, Dorothy and Rose, were 53, 54 and 55 respectively – not dissimilar in age to our above threesome – but they lived in a retirement village and sported blue robes. 1990s movie father of the Bride Diane Keaton was shown in her mid-40s, looking like a well-preserved 60-year-old woman. The archetypal old lady Anne Bancroft was 35 when she played Mrs. Robinson in the 1967 film. Graduate, And never mind the celebs — at the time, it was the norm for ordinary young women to cut their hair short, wear their skirts long, and embrace their inner snobbery. The women were basically washed out at 30.

OK, fuck you. The fact that some women are still accepted as hot over 50 breaks the age limits on sexuality that have been imposed on us for centuries. I, for one, am here for it.

Actress Monica Bellucci was a Bond girl at 51 the dark shadow, Halle Berry, Salma Hayek, both 56, and Julia Roberts, 55, all still play the leading ladies. At 35, you might condemn him as an outlier exerting unrealistic pressure on others, but at 51 I’m so glad to see him out there.

Not all of us are so weak, especially at this age, that we see a good looking woman and cringe inside. But the fact that it’s no longer unthinkable that women over 40 are sexy makes me feel better. A rising tide lifts all shackles.

a second opinion

Hopefully flu season is over and the pressure in our ED is easing, but it was no ‘perfect storm’ that blindsided us, as we’re being told by TD, HSE and Department of Health officials is, when they sound like innocent bystanders while discussing they are being paid to run the health service.

This was a completely predictable event, when you look at our growing/aging population, our low number of beds, and a post-pandemic winter. Even without those factors, nothing new here.

Twenty-five years ago I worked in the Dublin city-centre ED. It was one of the toughest jobs I’ve ever had. Even then people were on trolleys and on mats on the floor. There was violence every day. People treated on the corridors. Inability to reach the bed or test. Staff shortages and a general siege mentality.

I was 27 years old and I saw people in the department bleeding out and dying of heart attacks; I was attacked and I was let down. We’ve become complacent about how bad it is because we’ve never seen it any other way. It’s practically policy to run our ED like this, so long a problem.