Katie Piper OBE: "Women Can Be Old, But They Mustn't Look Old"

Speaking to host Claira Hermet today on the What The Health?!, Katie Piper OBE argued that despite the conversation shifting around age and female visibility, older women are only celebrated on the condition that they don't actually look their age.

Katie said: "We've got a new message now where it's like, all the women are visible, they can be old, but they mustn't look old. So I do think it's very, very confusing."

The presenter, activist and author, who received her OBE in 2021 for services to charities and burn victims, questioned whether the progress being celebrated is as meaningful as it appears: "Is society attaching this view that as women age, they lose value? We can sort of bang the drum and say, well, actually, that's not true. I'm happier than ever, I'm more independent than ever, but if that's not reflected in the workplace, if women lose professional opportunity as they age, if women aren't sold to and advertised to within the fashion and beauty world as they age, then it's really hard to go against those societal messages and the conditioning that's happening to us."

Far from mourning her youth, Katie was emphatic that the decade she's in now is her best yet and pushed back hard against the cultural conditioning that told her otherwise: "My 40s is definitely my prime. My teens and my 20s were a time for experimenting, they were a time for mistakes, they were a time for socialising. These decades beyond have been my most financially secure, my most certain, my most assertive and boundaried."

"I got told when I was young that beauty was the most powerful currency a woman could possess, and I don't subscribe to that. I don't believe that, and I feel I've proven that wrong. And as I turned 40, I got that message that youth is the second most powerful currency a woman can possess."

But Katie admitted that even she isn't fully immune to the pressure: "Even I turn on that camera, reverse it, go to film, and I think ‘am I Instagram worthy? Do I look alright? Am I enough?’ And that comes into my head."

She was equally clear about what she believes the solution looks like: "Once you let go of what you thought should happen and live in what is happening - that's true, radical self acceptance."

"A long time ago, I stopped deciding what other people are thinking about me, because you never really know. And actually, you'll stop worrying about what other people think about you when you realise how seldom they actually do."