People of color might seem lucky because many of us don’t age the way white people do. But is being told “You don’t look your age” a good thing? I say it’s not. 

Not Just Ageist But Sexist

First, Americans don’t revere age, we fetishize and obsess over it. We objectify each other with it. Why would we want to participate in that?

Second, ageism is a problem for everyone, but “You don’t look your age” is more often said to women. It reflects how much more a woman’s appearance matters than a man’s and suggests it’s bad for women to age. 

Foluke Adekanmbi at Elowell Max writes:

Sometimes, compliments are a reflection of our beliefs and environment we live in. “You don’t look your age” is a sneaky way of saying that looking your age is one of the least desirable things. Which might imply that aging naturally is a bad thing.

The stereotype is that aging is a decrease in a person’s value and beauty.

I absolutely agree with her.

Undercutting Our Status

Third, as important as Americans believe it is to look young, we also correlate age with experience and wisdom. We expect a woman who’s older to know more. So looking perpetually 30 years old will get you one kind of value, but cost you another. 

Racism

When a white person doesn’t think a person of color looks her age, it’s clear how little attention that person has paid to people of color. White Americans obsess over “fine lines and wrinkles,” but those aren’t the most important markers of age. Melanin-rich skin doesn’t act the same as pale skin, but white people seem endlessly surprised by this. Ignoring people whose skin is different from yours is racism. 

And I might be the only one who believes this, but getting that comment from a white person also feels infantilizing, as if I’ll never be her true peer because I’ll never reach her age.

Selena Gomez | Starstock | Dreamstime

A Tutorial

So I offer this: how to tell how old a person of color is, or at least guess the correct decade. In fact, these are ways to tell how old anyone is, ignoring the wrinkle factor.

1. Please stop thinking wrinkles always indicate age. The faces of many people of color don’t wrinkle or they don’t wrinkle until much later in life. 
2. Sometimes you can tell from the shape of the face whether someone is a young adult or a middle adult. Young faces often have more fullness in the top half of the face. Older faces often have more fullness in the bottom half.
   

   Me | Photo by Me

3. Consider bone structure. The skull deteriorates with age just like all the other bones in the body. Look for recessed eyes, prominent brows and softened jawlines. Also, in women, look for flattening cheekbones.
4. Look at the neck. We might not get wrinkles in the face, but we often get loose skin at the throat. There’s also less distinction between the chin and the neck. Especially in us obese elders, the chin-jaw-neck connection can become one mass.
5. Look at the hands. These can be a giveaway even for white women who’ve had “work done” on their faces. The hands get extra folds and creases as we age.
6. Listen. Not only do voices change with age, but what we say changes with age. Do you detect authority? Confidence? Someone who knows what she’s talking about? Those can be indicators of age. 
7. Carriage. How does the person hold herself? There are differences between how young people carry themselves and how older people do. For instance, look at posture, gait, where the hands are, how much energy their body has.
8. Skin discoloration. My cheeks have increasingly large “freckles” or age spots.
9. Puffiness. The women in my family don’t wrinkle, but our faces do discolor and get puffy.
10. Hairline. My hair looks thick and full, but under my bangs my hairline has receded.

Not Everyone

Of course, you might try to track all these things and still get caught off guard when a woman of color talks about her daughter who just left for college. When this happens, try not to look shocked. This is a prime moment when a white person will often say, “You don’t look old enough to have a daughter in college.”

And it’s perfectly fine to say that because most women will be happy to hear it (few agree with me on this topic). It just reveals a blind spot about what women of color look like.

Please Compliment Other Things

Rachna Khanna at Not So Silver writes:

Now, I know this is supposed to be a compliment. But every time I hear it, I wonder—what exactly do they expect my age to look like? Am I defying biology? Did they assume I should be shriveled up in a rocking chair by now? Or are they just playing a social script, hoping I’ll blush, giggle, and spill my wellness routine?

I suspect many white women are following a social script. It’s an easy “compliment” and makes them look generous and admiring. The person might not be impressed by anything else about me, but at least she complimented my face.

I’d rather get compliments on my ideas, my accomplishments, my writing, and anything other than appearance.

Guess Ages Better (not out loud)

Of course, these are not fail-safe ways to detect age. What’s required is observation. Start paying real attention to people of color. Put aside your envy of how we don’t wrinkle and realize that you’ve missed the ways we do visibly age.

If there aren’t many melanated people in your life, pay more attention to the ones in the movies and shows you watch. Research the ages of the actresses/actors who play characters of color and use them as examples of what a person can look like at that age. (If there aren’t even many people of color in the content you consume, well…)

In Dee Dee Sung’s video Why “You Don’t Look Your Age” Bothers Me she says “When we hide our age. When we shrink ourselves to fit cultural expectations, we participate in our own erasure.” I know that erasure. That happens to women after about age 40 when people stop noticing or even remembering us (medical research and pop culture tend to act as if we don’t exist).

Sung says she’ll no longer say “thank you” because treating those comments like compliments confirms that a woman’s value is largely in how young she looks. So the next time someone tells me I don’t look 60, maybe I’ll say “Actually, I do.”

Extra Credit

You can start increasing your understanding of how people of color age by clicking on these links and really absorbing what ages these people are.

Late 30s can look like this:

• Michael B. Jordan is 39 years old.
• Jimmy O. Yang is also 39 years old.

The 40s can look like this:

• Steven Yeun is 42.
• Danny Pudi is 47.
• Mindy Kaling is also 47.
• Zoe Saldaña is 48.

The 50s can look like this:

• Eva Longoria is 51.
• Idris Elba is 55.
• Sandra Oh is 56.
• Jennifer Lopez is 57.

The 60s can look like this:

• Janet Jackson is 60.
• Michelle Obama is 62.

The 70s can look like this:

• Erik Estrada is 77.

And the 90s can look like this:

• Rita Moreno is 94.

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