Why do women do this???

In a week when a lot of things have made me angry — see Homofascist's Army for more details — this article from the NY Times topped the list: Nice Résumé. Have You Considered Botox?. Apparently a new book called How Not to Look Old is advising women over 35 that letting themselves go is career suicide. As the book jacket warns, "Looking hip is not just about vanity anymore, it’s critical to every woman’s personal and financial survival." Apparently, just when we thought that having careers that made women financially independent would protect the middle-aged when their husbands left them for other women, we find that if women "let themselves go" their employers will dump them just as fast as their first husbands did. The answer: botox, hair dye, teeth whitening and relentless self-maintenance. God forbid anyone should look their actual age. No, no Barbie – stay perky or be left behind.
Let me say that anyone who knows me knows I am vain. I colored my hair for over 20 years because I started to go grey in my early 20s. I love fashion, shoes, girly things, and I even believe that what we choose to wear is a form of semiotics that we use to tell other who we are. However, I'll be 47 in a few weeks, and I'll be damned if I'll try to look like I'm 30. I like my grey hair, and I get tons of compliments on it. I'm not going to torture myself with stupid diets because my metabolism has slowed down. I've been a size 2, and believe me, I'm happier as a size 12. I look better and feel better. I'm not going to inject myself with toxins to remove the lines I've earned by laughing, crying, and living life. As the kids would say, Do. Not. Want.
What really gets me: it's women who are doing this to other women. They can blame the men till they're blue in their botoxed faces, but by playing along, by writing and buying books like this, they become the worst sort of collaborators. I say we shave their heads, @agrave; la post WWII France. I went to a women's college. I believe sisterhood is powerful. I believe you can be a feminist who loves fashion. I find it unacceptable that some women inflict their own insecurities on their own sex — and make money doing it, I might add.
What really surprised me about this is that I had noticed, ever since I went grey, how much more often older, grey-haired women were being portrayed in advertising, that indicator/setter of trends. I found this enormously encouraging. Meryl Streep's grey hair (and wrinkles, I might add) in The Devil Wears Prada were an inspiration to me and, I hoped, a sign that powerful women could be portrayed like powerful men. Guess I was just dreaming.