Sarah Jessica Parker Is Thinking About Aging the Way Men Do: Rarely & Without Anxiety

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Sarah Jessica Parker has been talking a lot about ageism, especially when she let her hair go gray. She looked fabulous, but there were still critics out there shouting on social media about how it made her look “old” — but are they screaming the same things when male actors go gray? Probably not.

Now, she’s calling out the double standard in a new interview with InStyle (while announcing her age-positive partnership with RoC Skincare), where she gets right to the heart of the issue. Parker claims not to have “anxiety” about aging because she has a fascinating perspective as to why “there is such a huge amount of focus and attention on women and aging.” It all boils down to sexism and misogyny. She added, “I’m confounded by the fact that we simply don’t talk about men that way. It’s bizarre to me that we are still so transparently sexist about these things.”

The 57-year-old actress has a good point. While it does occasionally happen to male celebrities about their aging looks (Tom Cruise comes to mind here), there is so much discourse on social media about female stars not looking as hot as they used to — and conversely being criticized if they decided to use Botox or fillers. It’s a no-win situation, Parker sees that happening to her just by the nature of her job in the public eye, even though she’s a proponent of aging gracefully. “I’m forced to think about it because of what I do for a living and because other people seem to want me to think about it or they’re thinking about my age,” she said.

Don’t think for a second that the Sex and the City star is “delusional” about how she’s changed over the years; she understands that she’s aging. Yet Parker thinks it doesn’t need to be called out all of the time, especially when she’s made a clear choice for how she prefers to look — it’s her decision, nobody else’s.

Before you go, click here to see all the celebrity women who have spoken out about ageism.