This piece was written by one of our dear readers—a woman with something real to say. Each month, we handpick the best submissions for Dear Reader because we’re after that PROVOKED bite: truth, intelligence, and heart. These stories come from women our age—women who’ve lived enough to know better and still care enough to tell it anyway. Because being seen and heard matters. Because storytelling is how we stitch ourselves to one another. And because when one woman speaks her truth, another finally recognizes her own. — Susan Dabbar, Editor in Chief
We don’t need to look younger to matter. We just need to be visible.
The phrase “50 is the new 30” gets tossed around as if it’s a compliment. It’s meant to be flattering, proof that we’ve hacked the aging system with various lotions and potions. But here’s the thing: I don’t want to be 30 again. I don’t want to put myself back into that decade’s insecurities, its people-pleasing, its keeping up with everyone, and the endless need for external validation. At 58, I finally know who I am, and that’s enough for me.
Still, society can’t seem to let women age without a qualifier. “You look amazing for your age.” “You don’t act like a 58-year-old.” These are meant to make us feel better, but they also reveal an underlying bias: Aging is acceptable only when it’s disguised. And that’s where this gets interesting.
After interviewing more than 150 women who are over 50, I’ve realized it’s not just me feeling this shift. There’s a quiet rebellion among midlife women. We’re done apologizing for not wanting to rewind.
Power Without Permission
When I spoke with Urban Decay Co-Founder Wende Zomnir, she told me she launched her second beauty brand, Caliray, in her late 50s, not to prove anything, but because she still loves the challenge. “It’s a whole new problem to solve,” she said. “And I’m really loving it.”
That “earned” piece matters. Most of the women I’ve interviewed describe a similar trajectory: In their 20s, they hustled for credibility. In their 30s, they tried to hold it all together. By their 50s, they realized they no longer needed anyone’s permission. The confidence isn’t loud. It’s steady. It’s rooted. It’s the quiet power of claiming your space.
Relevance Without Disguise
Kimberlin Brown—actress, entrepreneur, and one of daytime TV’s most recognizable faces—talked about the power of showing up differently as she aged. After a health crisis forced her to reassess everything, she transformed her lifestyle, lost weight, got healthy, and the industry suddenly started looking at her through a new lens. “All of a sudden on the show,” she told me, “I’ve got love interest after love interest and I’m wearing a lot of lingerie lately.”
Translation: She didn’t try to look 30. She just became unapologetically herself at 60, and people took notice.
It’s proof of something that rarely gets said out loud: Relevance doesn’t have to mean resembling youth. It can mean taking up space exactly as you are.
The Age of Showing Up
Fashion stylist Tania Sterl put it more bluntly: “There are no rules. Break the rules. Use your style and fashion to celebrate who you are, not erase who you’ve been.” She works with women who’ve spent decades dressing to blend in—and now, in their 50s, they’re deciding to stand out. It’s not just a wardrobe shift. It’s a visibility strategy.
Our culture has trained women to disappear as they age, to shrink into “age-appropriate” beige. But visibility after 50 is a kind of quiet resistance. Whether it’s silver hair, bold lipstick, or stepping fully into your presence, claiming who you want to be changes everything.
Regret, Reinvention, and the Unapologetic Middle
Of course, not everyone arrives at 50 feeling victorious. Geeta Sidhu-Robb told me about losing everything—money, home, marriage—in midlife, then rebuilding it piece by piece. What struck me most wasn’t her comeback story (though it’s incredible), but the clarity she gained in the process. She stopped caring about expectations. She stopped performing. “Once you draw that line,” she said, “it all becomes about the next line.”
That’s what midlife is for so many women—not a return to youth, but a ruthless stripping away of everything that doesn’t belong anymore. It might not be glamorous, but it’s liberating.
When Aging Comes with an Asterisk
And yet, every time someone says, “50 is the new 30,” what they’re really saying is: Aging is fine, as long as it looks like not aging. It’s a marketing campaign, a way to sell us creams and collagen while pretending it’s empowerment.
The beauty and media industries have made billions on our willingness to disguise the evidence of living. They praise our vibrancy, but only if it comes in a size six with smooth skin. They celebrate “agelessness,” which is just a nice way of saying, “Please don’t remind us you’re old.”
Aging is accepted only when it’s invisible.
So What If 50 Is Just … 50?
Here’s a thought: What if we stopped trying to make age a comparative statement at all? What if 50 didn’t have to be the new anything? Not 30. Not 40. Just 50—complicated, real, alive.
I don’t want to erase my laugh lines—well, not completely. I’ve earned them. I don’t want to pretend I have the same metabolism or insecurities I did in 1995. I want to own the body, the wisdom, and the perspective I have now.
Because when we stop trying to be the new something, we make space to just be.
And maybe that’s what terrifies the culture most: the idea of women aging without apology. Not trying to be younger. Not trying to disappear. Just being older, wiser, fiercely present—gloriously visible, and impossible to ignore.
The timing of this post could not have been more needed. I’ve been trying so hard to embrace aging naturally, and it’s been one of the hardest phases of my life. Then I saw Demi Moore held up as an example of “embracing aging,” and the hormonal rage started to rear its head. She’s spent enormous amounts trying not to look her age, and using her as a symbol of acceptance is ridiculous.
I have no problem if someone chooses that route. That’s your choice. But I’m so sick of it being called “aging gracefully” or “fearless aging.” It’s not. I want realness. I crave realness. Don’t come at me with that BS.
We’ve been fed the message that aging is fine only if we don’t look it, and it’s toxic. Most days I don’t see natural aging reflected anywhere, and it’s sad because this stage of life is full of wisdom, beauty, and grace.
This post felt like a breath of fresh air. Thank you for being real. Realness is a rare oasis in a world that keeps lying about aging.
Maria, Thank you. Thank you. For being real in your comment. You say what so many of us feel simmering beneath the surface. The culture loves to celebrate “aging gracefully” as long as it comes with a $40K maintenance plan and a surgeon on speed dial. You’re right: choosing that route is absolutely someone’s prerogative. What’s exhausting is pretending it’s authenticity, and then using it as a measuring stick for the rest of us.
Real aging deserves visibility — wrinkles, softness, power, wisdom, rage, all of it. That is one of the reasons I started this magazine, and want to have these dialogues. It is vital that women in their 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, 80’s and 90’s—our readers— are seen in all their glory, wisdom and earned stories. The more we say it out loud, the harder it is for the world to keep selling us a lie.
—susan