{"id":801,"date":"2019-07-13T08:34:29","date_gmt":"2019-07-13T08:34:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mymedicplus.com\/news\/?p=801"},"modified":"2021-03-31T00:36:47","modified_gmt":"2021-03-30T19:06:47","slug":"the-victorians-believed-that-women-aged-faster-than-men-a-myth-that-persists-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mymedicplus.com\/blog\/the-victorians-believed-that-women-aged-faster-than-men-a-myth-that-persists-today\/","title":{"rendered":"The Victorians believed that women aged faster than men \u2013 a myth that persists today"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Source: theconversation.com <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The global anti-ageing market is worth at least\u00a0$250 billion\u00a0\u2013 an astonishing amount, and it\u2019s growing. Anti-ageing treatments are supposedly used to correct \u201cpremature ageing\u201d. But what does this really mean? Surely, ageing is just ageing. It is a process that occurs over time \u2013 at the time that it\u2019s supposed to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The target consumer, and so audience for this narrative of accelerated ageing, is overwhelmingly women \u2013 unsurprisingly. Men and women age roughly at similar speeds, but the language and pictures around anti-ageing treatments suggest that women have far and away the most to worry about. Any online search will reveal a standard picture of a young woman scrutinising her reflection and hastily applying cream to her face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The message is clear: it\u2019s a race against time. Many companies advise women to start using these treatments\u00a0in their 20s. Men worry about ageing too, but advice for their skin is packaged as\u00a0maintenance rather than emergency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This focus on the ageing of women is by no means a modern phenomenon. We can, in part,\u00a0blame the Victorians. The Victorians judged age by appearance more than by chronology \u2013 especially as the ill-educated were not likely to know their age, or the age of their relatives. They also believed, or at least encouraged the belief, that women were more delicate than men. They thought that a woman\u2019s body was in many ways the opposite to a man\u2019s and that women were physically and emotionally weaker too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People have always been interested in the ageing process and how to stop it, but it was only in the 19th century that ageing was seriously studied. The mid-Victorian period saw the rise of gerontology: the study of ageing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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