People Magazine has named 52-year-old Hollywood actor Paul Rudd its ‘Sexiest Man Alive’ for 2021, with the father of two joining the ranks of previous winners including Michael B. Jordan, Tom Cruise, George Clooney and Idris Elba.
Rudd’s charming self-deprecation in People’s accompanying interview is further testament (if it was needed) to why the actor was chosen. ‘I do have an awareness, enough to know that when people hear that I'd be picked for this, they would say, “What?”’ he told the magazine. ‘This is not false humility. There are so many people that should get this before me.’
There’s no denying Paul Rudd is both sexy and likeable, making him a worthy winner by anyone’s count. But can you think of a single woman who, at 52, would be named the ‘sexiest woman alive’? Who would grace the cover of People Magazine, forehead creases and fine lines in full view?
The last time FHM’s 100 Sexiest Women feature was published, in 2017, the oldest woman in the top five was 32. Last year, TC Candler’s most beautiful face accolade went to a 19-year-old woman. It’s made clear to us from our teenage years that our looks are a ticking time bomb.
This is nothing new. The idea that visible signs of ageing make men ‘distinguished’ and women ‘past it’ pervades so many aspects of our consciousness, from the products we buy to how we date.
It’s fantastic that a man in his fifties with two children can be named sexiest man alive. And why shouldn’t he be? But when women are encouraged to worry about skin ageing from the day they turn 25, and female influencers in their early 20s are offered free preventative botox, it can feel galling to see this imbalance play out in such a big way.
The way society fetishises female youth, and obsesses over women’s fertility, doesn’t just hold us back from making hot lists after our 20s. It helps shape the attitudes that put women in boxes they can’t break out of, and make them feel failed and incomplete if they don’t end up with a partner and a baby by a certain age. As well as under-appreciating our looks, it chips away at our power.