New wisdom has just dropped from Gwyneth Paltrow. Now that she has turned 50, she “doesn’t give a fuck”, and allows herself one slovenly day a week, watching reality TV and ordering takeaways. This is quite a common refrain, not just in the wellness world, but from the realm of the perfect. They reach a certain age – usually 50, sometimes 45 – and assertively cease to care. Sometimes it hinges on diet and exercise, other times it’s “I turned 50 and stopped being a pleaser, saying yes to everything, hiding my true feelings.”
Passing this age threshold is framed as a liberating Rubicon, and those of us who were already reckless and past caring should be welcoming Gwyneth, and everyone like her, into our ranks. But it does rankle a tiny bit: the world of expectations that surrounds women younger than 50 – what they should wear, what they should eat, what they should watch, how polite they should be, whether their neck is long enough for hoop earrings, whether they spend enough time meditating – is partly created by people like Paltrow. OK, maybe that’s unfair and she’s just like all of us, swimming her best in waters not of her own making, but certainly she has always been a reliable enforcer of the feminine ideal, even if it didn’t always come off (I’m thinking of the “vagina-scented” candle, of course, because when am I not?).
So, fine, it’s the secret of a happy life to revise your opinion, but I just need to walk her through some ground rules; it’s really not enough to have a takeaway once a week and stay in your pyjamas. You need to imagine a world in which it’s nobody’s business what you ate, and watching one episode of Married at First Sight isn’t going to cut it. Decades of work goes into genuinely not caring whether or not you’re too old for a leopard print. You can’t turn round in a week and say you feel very bloated, and it’s probably your own fault. You’re in it for the long haul, now. You might even have to stop moisturising.
• Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist
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