Has Rachel Ward ‘let herself go’? No, she just looks her real age |
We like to tell ourselves that we’ve evolved when it comes to ageing. That we’re more enlightened. Kinder. More accepting.
Rachel Ward, in a still from the video.
But all it takes is one woman appearing on a social media punching-bag platform, looking unmistakably her age, for the mask to slip.
Recently, the actor turned sustainable beef farmer Rachel Ward appeared without filters, fillers, lash extensions or facial theatrics. No “refreshed” face. No sculpted jawline pretending gravity doesn’t exist. Just a woman who has aged naturally, visibly, unapologetically.
And instead of calm acceptance, what followed was commentary. She was called “brave”. People expressed concern. Others speculated about her wellbeing. Even her dynamo daughter, Matilda Brown, felt the need to come to her mother’s defence, after a social media post from Ward and her @farmthru and personal handles, went viral.
This all raises an obvious question: why does ageing, when it actually looks like ageing, still make us so uncomfortable? It’s not like ageing is breaching some kind of life contract.
In theory, we say we admire women who age naturally. In practice, we only applaud it when it still........