--- title: Justine Bateman’s Aging Face and Why She Doesn’t Think It Needs ‘Fixing’ description: The actor and director's new book is a bid to liberate older women from endless cosmetic upkeep. canonical: https://time.com/5953951/justine-batemans-aging-face-and-why-she-doesnt-think-it-needs-fixing/ author: Susanna Schrobsdorff article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2021-04-11T09:56:16.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-14T09:11:11.814Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Justine Bateman’s Aging Face and Why She Doesn’t Think It Needs ‘Fixing’ og:description: The actor and director's new book is a bid to liberate older women from endless cosmetic upkeep. og:url: https://time.com/5953951/justine-batemans-aging-face-and-why-she-doesnt-think-it-needs-fixing/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf4606bfc80ba36cc/698a18a422fb855601e2c144/JustineBateman.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1800 og:image:height: 1013 og:image:alt: Justine Bateman photographed by Steven Meiers Dominguez for FACE One Square Foot of Skin og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Justine Bateman’s Aging Face and Why She Doesn’t Think It Needs ‘Fixing’ twitter:description: The actor and director's new book is a bid to liberate older women from endless cosmetic upkeep. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf4606bfc80ba36cc/698a18a422fb855601e2c144/JustineBateman.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Justine Bateman's Aging Face and Why She Doesn't Think It Needs 'Fixing' > Sponsored content. 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It explains how TIME's journalism is made, from the first pitch through the editorial decisions behind a finished story or cover. #### How can I read about how TIME chooses its covers? Inside TIME is the newsletter where TIME's Editor-in-Chief explains cover selection and the editorial reasoning behind major stories. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who is the editor of TIME? Sam Jacobs is TIME's Editor-in-Chief. He writes Inside TIME, a twice-weekly newsletter about the newsroom's reporting and editorial decisions. #### Is Inside TIME free? Yes. Inside TIME is a free newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-inside-2026q3/newsletters?i=4535e711-30c6-47d9-99d6-045fff076fd3&cr=time-nl-inside-2026q3-v1) ## Video: TIME Interviews: Justine Bateman, Author of FACE: One Square Foot of Skin [Watch (HLS stream): TIME Interviews: Justine Bateman, Author of FACE: One Square Foot of Skin](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/2BY6eTtn.m3u8) (8:50)  _Published 2021-04-25. Interviewed by Susanna Schrobsdorff, TIME Editor at Large_  by [Susanna Schrobsdorff](https://time.com/author/susanna-schrobsdorff/)  ## Susanna Schrobsdorff Apr 11, 2021 9:56 AM UTC  by [Susanna Schrobsdorff](https://time.com/author/susanna-schrobsdorff/)  ## Susanna Schrobsdorff Apr 11, 2021 9:56 AM UTC **_Well hello!_** _A version of this article also appeared in the_[**_It’s Not Just You_**](https://time.com/tag/its-not-just-you/) _newsletter._[_Sign up_](https://ti.me/2TwyJHH) _here to receive a new edition every Sunday for free._ **When my youngest child** was just a little creature, she’d settle into my mother’s lap and pat the velvety folds of skin under mom’s chin. “Mormor, I love all your necks,” the kid would say before fading into sleep. Mom laughed every time, but with a tinge of embarrassment. I was reminded of those moments when I read [_Face: One Square Foot of Skin_](http://www.akashicbooks.com/catalog/face-one-square-foot-of-skin/) by actor and director Justine Bateman. She spoke to 47 women about their aging faces and turned their stories into a collection of short narratives. Bateman asks, what if we just rejected the idea that older faces need fixing. What if we ignored all the clanging bells that remind women every day on every platform that we are in some kind of endless battle with aging. Bateman writes: “I hated the idea that half the population was perhaps spending the entire second half of their lives ashamed and apologetic that their faces had aged naturally.” [_Sign up_ _here to receive a new essay from @SusannaSchrobs in your inbox every Sunday for_](https://ti.me/2TwyJHH)[ _free._](https://ti.me/2TwyJHH) **What struck me in reading these stories** was how much time we spend fretting about whether we should do something about our faces or hold out. We are still stuck in the crack between empowerment feminism and reality. And I don’t just mean older women. I have friends in their 20s who also fall into a vortex of products that promise to reverse aging that isn’t even visible yet. The Instagram generation hasn’t been spared, in fact, they may have accumulated more time examining their faces than any before them. One of Bateman’s characters, Faith, a 48-year-old former advertising executive, catches a glimpse of her face reflected in a tabletop as she leans over. She’s horrified at this new view of her sagging skin. She knew her face was no different than it had been an hour before, but now she’d was aware that “her face had crossed over,” and she couldn’t unsee it, couldn’t stop her confidence from eroding. **My mother had her own crossing-over story.** She called it the day she became invisible. She was a nurse, and after every shift, there’d be a handover report to the incoming doctors and nurses. One day, when she was in her 50s, she realized that the unit physicians, both men, had started looking past her–their eyes and their questions drawn to the younger nurses behind her. And that’s when my pretty mother realized she’d used up the currency of a youthful face just as she’d reached the peak of her expertise. There lies the problem with simply ignoring the terrible way some people react to older female faces. Ageism is pervasive, and it has real economic effects. Research shows that [women over 50 who lose their jobs](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/personal-finance/women-55-and-older-who-lose-their-jobs-in-the-pandemic-face-greater-risk-of-long-term-unemployment/2020/05/22/7df768ea-9c3b-11ea-ac72-3841fcc9b35f%5Fstory.html) or quit to care for a family member have an extraordinarily tough time finding work again. And even if they do, they’ll likely make less than they did before. [ _SUBSCRIBE HERE to receive an essay from @SusannaSchrobs every Sunday._](https://ti.me/2TwyJHH) **That angst about being seen as older and less valuable** in the workplace fuels the anti-aging industry as much as vanity or peer pressure. It’s infuriating but not crazy to believe that looking younger might get you a few more years of relevance and retirement contributions before you…cross over. However, Bateman argues that even when we think we’re buying more time with cosmetic procedures, it’s an illusion, a Ponzi scheme in which age always wins. She’s probably right. But I wish we could create a new currency, a better system, like a pro-aging Bitcoin. Your value increases every year and for developing soft neck wattles that comfort small granddaughters. Or better yet, we could have our own personal [NFTs](https://www.investopedia.com/non-fungible-tokens-nft-5115211) (non-fungible tokens). NFTs represent unique, non-replicable assets like digital art, and the tech world is obsessed with them. So let’s imagine that our one-of-a-kind-woman faces are a new kind of NFT, a currency backed by a life lived without hesitation in the sunshine of good days and bad.  In her new book,[ **_Face: One Square Foot of Skin_**](http://www.akashicbooks.com/catalog/face-one-square-foot-of-skin/), actor and director Justine Bateman asks why women still spend so much time in a frustrating quest to ‘fix’ their faces. Of her own unaltered 55-year-old face, Bateman writes: _–Justine Bateman,_ [#TheresNothingWrongWithYourFace](https://www.instagram.com/%5Fjustinebateman%5F/?hl=en) ## COPING KIT ⛱ [What Loss Looks Like:](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/well/covid-death-grief-loss.html) The New York Times asked readers to share photos of objects that remind them of those who died over the last year, whether from the coronavirus or other causes. Grief and solace are intertwined in these artifacts, from a 50-year-old mixer that reminds one woman of her dad who loved to bake to a music box inscribed with “To My Gorgeous Wife.” [ You can submit your own remembrance to this virtual memorial here.](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/19/well/share-objects-of-remembrance.html) --- ## EVIDENCE OF HUMAN KINDNESS❤️ Here’s your weekly reminder that creating a community of generosity elevates us all.  **Mindy is a mother of three** **girls who lost her husband Carlos to COVID-19 last July.** “The past ten months have been so difficult for us–financially, yes, but also the grief has been too large for me to hold,” says the Sacramento mom. “I see my daughters, and they just want their Papa back.” In the wake of this tragedy, Pandemic of Love matched Mindy with seven individual donors who were able to provide enough funds to get her family through the holidays. One donor, Janice, was moved to tears by Mindy’s story and helped with car and car insurance payments, she says: Mindy has been working since January, and her mother is helping look after her girls (two of whom are pictured above). She tells us she’s “learning to live with the pain one day at a time and find moments of joy again because Carlos would have wanted us to just be happy.” _Story and images courtesy of_ [_Shelly Tygielski_](https://www.instagram.com/mindfulskatergirl/)_, founder of_ [_Pandemic of Love, a grassroots organization_ ](https://www.pandemicoflove.com/)_that matches volunteers, donors, and those in need._ ## COMFORT CREATURES 🐕 🐈 _Our weekly acknowledgment of the animals that help us make it through the storm._ Meet MISCHA submitted by SUZANNE.  --- [SHARE this edition of It’s Not Just You here.](https://time.com/author/susanna-schrobsdorff/) And you can send comfort creature photos and comments to: Susanna@time.com **Did someone forward you this newsletter?** [**SUBSCRIBE to** **_It’s Not Just You_** **here.**](https://ti.me/3jD4Hwo) ## Transcript I just thought, like round this face. Fully functional, fix the smell might for my whole life from you. In the womb to now has smelt everything I've smelt, has said everything. I said, cried every moment I've cried has laughed, everything. I every time I've laughed and tell him, I'm now going to go do that. Thanks for everything you ever did. For me, whatever. Now I'm going to cut you up cuz I don't like you. Welcome Justine. I'm so happy to have you here as you know, I read your books which is all about this compulsion that women feel to fix their faces when they age. I wrote a column about it and I devoted most of my newsletter to it and we got a flood of emails and comments that you write about all the experiences that your face reflects that all this life is written on on that face. That's the very thing. People get criticized for like, boys, she shows her age, that's a thing. They're telling me about how they look at life and they're telling me how they look at themselves. And the other thing I want to say about that is so I my professional position now is as good as a writer director producer, I have to commend the set, I have to be a leader. I have to be an encourager of the other people, they're working on the set all of that, right? Me if I have a face like this, I am. It's a shortcut to oshie's an authority. She's in a, in a position of story of authority, if I have a face like this, The maybe it's going to take them a few minutes to go help others look. 23 it take a few minutes to go she's in charge. You know, does she know what she's doing and then as they get to know me that she that I know what I'm doing? Buttons. This is super duper shortcut to that. I think I'm going to revise my thinking about all of myself that I think about. You want to get it. You said something about men or people being aggression against faces that are wrinkly because if we don't see them, I saw some of that. And I, and I wonder what you thought. Cuz you use the word aggressive or aggression against aging face is, what is that mean to hear? Well, I found it when I found all those comments about my face online, I was really taking a bath with the vociferous mess with which they posted these. I mean, they were it's like sometimes when you see bad reviews on on Amazon for different products, you know, but some of these bad reviews are So passionate like really did that inflatable raft. Really annoy you that much. You know, you were in an essay or pretty remarkable, right? It pushed your button. So yeah, I do find that really interesting that my face or some of the older face would push other people's buttons so much, you know, maybe because they themselves are very critical of the round faces, or they had a mother that was very critical of her own face. And so they got it in their heads. That one must be critical of of women's faces. So for a lot of people, it's it's a rule that they have in their head about older faces, that must be fixed, and if someone is not doing it, then I think they count themselves as a as a Defender. Of that rule. And you can't break that rule and Amaya and it's like I can break you or who I don't really care about you or what? 2 things, I'd love for you to go back to that cuz I think that not everybody knows that story about how one you wrote your first book. Same Having grown up on TV, being an adolescent on Family Ties, what the reaction was to you in the world. So when I was writing my first book, same, I I made the mistake of Googling myself, which I don't suggest for anybody, but it brought me to where I am today, so maybe we should, but the autocomplete was looks old. So Justine Bateman looks old, and the time I was 41 or 42, and I was really, cuz I didn't think I looked a little anyway, I then made it through the mistake of deciding they were right. And I was wrong, there were so many of them. And so few of me, they must be, right? And I, and I think that's something that happens to a lot of women. If so many people around them are staying one particular thing. It's the Conformity principal, right? You got to want to go along with it because you're concerned that you're going to look dumb that you don't really know what's going on and also that you'll be left out. So for reasons that had nothing to do with my face, that, you know, there were more specific more specifically had to do with, how thing was changing in my life and people can read it more detail in the book. Because of that, I took it in like I said I made them right? And me wrong. And it really messed with my head for much longer than than I expected it to. So, I had to unwind not in me. I had to get to my roots. Here's one way, when very easy way to generate a need for product is to find with the what fears already exists and then zero in on us for me. I don't want to change the Beauty World, I want to change advertising, I don't want to change people who are critical of people's faces. I'm interested in eliminating the buttons that have existed in me or may still exist in me that react to those things. So that that's my help with the book that, you know, there's there's Everywhere. I go into that kind of thing. To help people to maybe find what their irrational fears are. It's making them turn on the face cuz the problems not the fix. The problem are these fears. If you change your face, you're still going to have these fears. So why not? Just take care of the fears and then yeah you can do whatever you want with your body or are whatever. It's yours. Look, I'm a hustler. I don't care what my age is. I don't even want to know when my edges are. Like, I don't really care to meters to age is alive or dead, see if it can help anyone. What I do if I feel like I've always got in this direction every and all the doors have been opened and now that's not happening anymore. I just got to step back a minute and look at like, there's no way that would be happening unless I need in my head, turn in a different direction. Because in truth, if I, if I had kept getting acting jobs, I would not have gone to UCLA. I wouldn't have a computer science degree. I would not have written two books, I would not have just directed the film. That was my path. I didn't understand it. It took that door shutting so hard to turn my head. That's that's how life is works for me. And I don't think I am an outlier. I love that cuz it also gives me back to another thing you said earlier, which was about, How when you get to a certain age, you've had this life of experience cuz a lot of people wrote into and said that they've gotten cancer or they'd had a scare or they'd come back from something, and they realize that they wasted a lot of time. Just like you said about their faces when actually they were more important things. I always wanted to look eventually like your joke. You so, all these things that start happening, you know, like what's a loose neck and this around here and like the hooded eyes and stuff. I'm like, I'm on my way like I'm going to get there, you know, I'm going to make it as my space. More interesting to me. I was like it's happening. Now, you look at my face and you know what you're getting versus. I'm this type of person but you're just seeing this really pretty. I didn't feel like a space I had before I hadn't just like my face. I was like, whatever. I don't feel like it. 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