"Whether women singing and dancing in barely-there costumes or otherwise celebrating their bodies is empowering, or an assault on our ability to move through the world as men’s equals..."

"... is one of those forever fights.... If there was one thing the Shakers and the Clutchers could agree on, it’s that Jennifer Lopez... is a force of nature... 'I can’t believe she’s 50 and looks so good!' women said. Which quickly became, 'I can’t believe I’m 50 and I look so bad!'.... Some members of my social-media community were in awe. Others — myself included — were feeling personally judged by dat ass. I’m just a few months younger than J. Lo, and, with every birthday, I have asked: Is this the year it ends? Surely there’s a finish line; a point we’ll reach when the You Must Be This Hot in Order to Participate sign at the amusement park ride disappears, and we all get a seat on the roller coaster (right alongside the lumpy, balding, graying, potbellied men who’ve been riding the entire time).... Forty was clearly too soon to surrender, given Halle Berry and Jennifer Aniston, Brooke Shields and Lisa Bonet.... Still, I’d been picturing 50 as the year when I’d be done....."

From "I Feel Personally Judged by J. Lo’s Body/Are we really supposed to look this good at 50 now?" by Jennifer Weiner (in the NYT). Personally, I'm almost 20 years older than that, so I'm thinking: You 50 year old women need to realize how young you are. There's (almost) always a you 20 years in the future whose perspective you can adopt, who thinks you are quite young and should appreciate what you have and not where you once were.

But also, you were never in a form that could dance like Jennifer Lopez at the Superbowl, so it's not about you and where you are on the time line of your life. And why were you ever thinking in terms of "You Must Be This Hot in Order to Participate"? That's internalizing the judgment of others. How good do you feel? If the answer to that has only to do with what other people think about you, you have a psychological problem. And you can work on that at any age.

And did you ever stop and think about how good Jennifer Lopez feels? I did! Watching the Superbowl halftime show, I wondered (out loud) how she felt. I didn't think she was experiencing the sexual feelings she danced about. I didn't even think she was enjoying herself. I think she was executing a very difficult and athletic pre-planned program that was less fun than what the football players had to do that night.