Here’s why it’s difficult for middle-aged Southern women to be compared to J.Lo

If you missed this week’s column on SouthernThing.com, you can click here to read it in full. A few paragraphs are excerpted below. Have y’all seen that meme going around saying we normal women shouldn’t be expected to compete with middle-aged celebrity hotness? It all started with J.Lo’s Super Bowl performance and ended with a menopausal woman who had had enough of smooth 50-year-old thighs and breasts that didn’t require being tucked into pants. I stand in solidarity with the Sistah-Girl who made the meme – let’s have some common sense about this “sexy-after-50” thing, is all I’m sayin.’ When your Southern granny was 55, did she think she had to look like Raquel Welch in a fur bikini? Did she feel the need to put on a halter top and cuchi-cuchi like Charo? (I’ll wait while you youngsters look that last one up. In the meantime, the answer is no.) Grandmamas were just happy to look like Alice from “The Brady Bunch” and be wearing an apron that smelled like sunshine and hugs because it had been dried on the clothesline. It’s true, though, that those of us of a certain generation were raised by our Southern mamas to place emphasis on our appearance and it created some baggage. But I am tired, y’all. You have no idea how tired. Some days the thought of lifting and twisting the lipstick tube just wears me slap out. I haven’t ironed a piece of clothing in more than a decade because I don’t need that kind of pressure. I have begun to envy young women who invented things like the messy bun and pajama jeans. I bow to their genius.  Click here to read the column in full.