What does the widespread use of Botox and fillers say to our daughters?

Social media is a curse. It’s also a blessing at times (did I really say that?). But it’s a curse.
For one, there’s the constant bombardment of imagery which us women of a certain age have to contend with. The eternal quest to look younger. To remove any visible signs of ageing and push back the clock. There should be no evidence of the passing sands of time.
Not just for health’s sake, you understand, but because this is how you should look. How you’re convinced you need to look, because everybody who’s wildly successful, looks a certain way.
So how can you possibly be, otherwise?
Once make-up and moisturisers and keeping fit was deemed sufficient. Now, Botox and fillers are sold to us as the answer, because you must not look like you’re getting older. There should be no evidence of lived experience etched on your face.
And it’s a funny one, because us longer established grown-ups like to think we’re more clued in. That it’s only children and younger people who are susceptible to the pressures of social media. And only children and younger people who find it difficult to resist peer pressure.
Those of us who have taken a spin around the sun 40 times or more like to think we know better because we’ve lived longer. So, we roll our eyes and tut-tut at the ridiculousness of children with extravagant skin care routines and eye-wateringly expensive skin care creams.
“Who’s buying these creams for them? What are they watching to even know about skin care routines? Why don’t parents just say no?” ask those who most likely don’t have little girls young enough to be caught up in this trend.
But that’s the thing about trends, they take hold fast and hard, helped by social media. For some concerned adults, the difficulty with this trend has been how potentially damaging some creams can be to young skin. Notwithstanding this important consideration, however, there is the less than subtle messaging that our girls are receiving, once again. And that is, that looks matter.
[ Injected and proud: The heavily botoxed look has become a status symbolOpens in new window ]
Beauty may be skin deep, but …
Growing up, I watched my mam and aunts apply their make-up and I admired their high heels. And like lots of little girls, I tried to copy them with a child’s make-up set that Santa brought, and clip clopped around the house in my mam’s shoes. And so began my lifelong love affair with shoes and eyeliner.
“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,” Oscar Wilde once said. Which brings us back to Botox and fillers. Once the reserve of the rich and famous, now those of us who haven’t braved the needle may well find ourselves in the minority among our peers and friends.
But what does this say about us as women, and how comfortable we feel about ageing? It’s not even a comfortable conversation to have as a feminist, because we should support each other in the choices we make, right? But as Isaac Newton himself might have said, had Botox and fillers featured in his physics considerations, “for every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction”. And what does the widespread use of Botox and fillers to disguise the signs of ageing, and even alter our appearance, say to our daughters and other girls about being more than how we look?
[ I resent my friends for getting Botox. I resent them for making me look worseOpens in new window ]
I asked some women what they thought. And, like children feeling the need for skincare routines and creams, there are grown women who are feeling the pressure of the Botox and fillers trend.
While some told me they were very comfortable in their decision to use either or both, and plenty believed “each to their own”, others said they felt they needed to get it, on account of looking their age. Which wouldn’t be such a big issue, they said, only that none of their friends or peers looked their age, as they had all had Botox and fillers.
[ Sali Hughes: ‘I just think people need to get over themselves about botox’Opens in new window ]
“Everyone’s doing it. It’s like dyeing your hair now”, one woman explained.
Another pointed to the discomfort she felt in discussing ageing with a doctor who herself has opted for fillers.
“An awful example for kids. Beauty culture and materialism,” one mum declared.
“Just age gracefully,” another woman advised.
One woman said she “definitely feels the pressure” to get Botox because it’s “standard now. The new normal”.
Another, in her late 30s, said she “feels like everyone is doing it, so I should”.
And then there were those who, while availing of such treatments, admitted to feeling “conflicted about the impact of it all on younger generations”.
It makes you look less tired, a woman who was a big fan of it all explained. But should we need to hide how exhausting it is to be a woman, with all those beauty standards to adhere to?