“I have to act like I don’t want it,” she told me, “and then act surprised when it doesn’t happen.”
Meanwhile, Gwen is hot as hell and knows it. She got out of her marriage and went right to the bars. But that doesn’t mean the puzzle isn’t complicated for her as well.
“The men our age won’t look at me,” she said. “And I’m this weird science experiment for younger guys, chasing older pussy.”
Single or partnered, successful or striving, we grown-ass women of the world share the feeling that we’re all in an experiment that no one is particularly interested in watching except us. I see us all grasping at the straws of staying present in our lives and families and careers. Who knows how we will fare? I can only speak to my experience, so that is what I will do. To wit: Can an actress age in Hollywood and continue to work? All previous research has shown the answer to be a hearty NO, but it seems for my peers that so far, we are working way more than then we did in our twenties. But it’s the opposite for my nonactor friends as they get older. Their competition for new jobs is younger people who make less and don’t have families that they have to take off for. Oh shit, they say, we’re those people that we pushed out. Women are told to “lean in.” Yeah, right. “Lean in so I can push you over.”
At lunch, Michelle told us about “the new black” at her company. “She’s young and dope,” she said. “And she’s talking to me about dating. I’m like, ‘Fuck you and your dating problems. You’re me twenty years ago when I used to get dick.’”
We all nodded, except me, on account of my neck. I kind of moved forward.
“I have no patience for her,” she said.
“That’s because even though there are all these things that are supposed to be marked against her,” said Gwen, “her skin color, the fact that she’s a woman—none of that matters next to the fact that you’re older. She gets your spot.”
“Yeah,” I said, swiveling my whole body to look at Michelle, “but who better to help her navigate that than you?”
“I’m not training the competition to do my job,” said Michelle. “Would you?”
Um, no. And I thought about my own hypocrisy: Just the night before I had attended a pre-Oscar cocktail party for women in film. There I had met a young actor named Ryan Destiny. She had appeared in the Lee Daniels series Star. I had heard that she looked like me. I saw her in person and she looks like I literally gave birth to her. Gab 2.0, only better.
“Oh my God,” she said. “I am finally meeting you. This is so amazing.”
“What are you, twelve?”
“Twenty-two.”
“Shit.”
“I admire you so much,” she said. “If you could mentor me . . .”
Bitch, fuck you, I thought. You want me to mentor you? The press is literally calling you the next Gabrielle Union . . . “except she can sing and dance!”
I smiled, and the photographers came over. They needed to document this moment of “Look who’s old!” And I get it, because I have a reputation for never aging. And God, do I love that rep. But as the flashbulbs went off, I was suddenly terrified that the ruse would be up. Dorian Gray, turning to dust as she is photographed next to someone called the next Gabrielle Union.
Looking at Michelle and Gwen, I remembered not just the fear of suddenly looking decrepit next to this young woman, but the wave of panic that if I imparted my knowledge, I would lose in some kind of way. Would I be aiding and abetting myself into forced retirement and exile by helping this drop-dead gorgeous woman? A better, hotter, more talented version of me twenty-five years ago?
To be the women my friends and I are supposed to be, we are supposed to support the women coming up behind us. It’s just hard to do that happily when you’re finally at the table, and you feel any moment someone’s going to come up, tap your shoulder, and say, “I think you’re in my seat.” It took me a long time to get that seat, goddammit. I’m not ready to move over just yet.
This fear resonates through every industry. For my friends in corporate America there’s a reasonable fear about “mentoring” young women to be their best selves if that means they could take your job. Younger women are literally dangled in front of their older peers as a you-better-act-right stick to keep older, more experienced women in line. Because we’ve all seen a pal replaced for a younger, cheaper model with lower expectations and more free time for overtime or courting clients. Modern business is set up to squeeze out women who “want it all”—which is mostly just code for demanding equal pay for equal work. But the more empowered women in the workforce, the better. The more that women mentor women, the stronger our answer is to the old-boys’ network that we’ve been left out of. We can’t afford to leave any woman behind. We need every woman on the front lines lifting each other up . . . for the good of all of us and the women who come behind us.
It’s tough to get past my own fears, so I have to remind myself that this is an experiment, to boldly go where no grown-ass woman has gone before. When we refuse to be exiled to the shadows as we mature, we get to be leaders who choose how we treat other women. If I don’t support and mentor someone like Ryan, that’s working from a place of fear. And if I put my foot on a rising star, that’s perpetuating a cycle that will keep us all weak. The actresses in the generation before mine were well aware of their expiration dates, and they furiously tried to beat the clock before Hollywood had decided their milk had gone bad. Yes, there were some supremely catty women in Hollywood who actively spread rumors about younger stars so that they could stay working longer. But there were also way more amazing women who thought big picture. They trusted that if they uplifted each other, in twenty years, there might just be more work to go around. Women like Regina King, Tichina Arnold, Tisha Campbell-Martin, and Jenifer Lewis went out of their way to mentor and educate the next generation. That empowerment is why we have Taraji P. Henson, Kerry Washington, Viola Davis, Sanaa Lathan, and more starring in TV shows and producing films. That creates yet more work for the next woman up. That’s what can happen when we mentor and empower. That’s what happens when we realize that any joy we find in the next woman’s pain or struggle is just a reflection of our own pain: “See how hard this is? Do you appreciate how difficult this is?” Instead, I want to heal her and me.
Christ. First a stiff neck and then I have to have this moral code? Nobody said being a grown-ass woman was easy.
fifteen
GET OUT OF MY PUSSY
I decided to finally go get this persistent pain in my hip checked. And my doctor in Miami, who happens to be a friend’s dad and one of the world’s leading neurosurgeons, told me to go for an MRI and X-ray at the hospital. Coincidentally, another fake round of “Gab’s Knocked Up!” stories was making the rounds at exactly the same time. The photo evidence was that I’d worn a coat. In Toronto. At night. In winter. For sure, knocked up.
So here I am, walking into a hospital—right in the heart of Miami-Dade County—and everyone’s clocking me. By the time I get to the imaging center, I’ve run through a gauntlet of knowing glances and “I see you” smiles. I know exactly what all these strangers are thinking. And there, as I am filling out the forms, is the question: “Are you pregnant?” I check “No.”