Women age just as “gracefully” as men do. Our concept of beauty has always been shaped by our cultural assumptions which usually pander to class issues. But with the advent of mass media we have been brainwashed into blindly accepting one standard of beauty worldwide. It is very sad - especially when it effects the self-esteem of little girls who don’t happen to have the skin color, body shape or hair being sold to us as beautiful. The media tells us that wrinkles, hair loss and weight gain look sexy on men. The media tell us that even a little line on a woman’s face is taboo. We don’t have to accept this nonsense. We can assert that women are just as beautiful when they age as men are. When enough of us reject any “beauty standard” - it DOES change. It already has. For instance, when people of color started dominating the music video industry, the standards for female beauty changed. Instead of worshipping women with flat behinds and rail thin frames, our culture started to embrace bubble butts and muscles and a “little meat” on women. Instead of the former preference for white skin and blonde hair, we began to see the beauty in dark skin and “ethnic” facial features. Beauty standards shift with the almighty dollar. All we have to do is show Hollywood that their income is attached to images of older women, and they will tell us how sexy older women are.