The Pittsburgh Press (January 31, 1944)
Ferguson: Time fighters
By Mrs. Walter Ferguson
“Keep that Middle-Aged Look at Bay,” says a headline on my favorite woman’s page today, and I admire the timeliness of the military phraseology. Just the same, it put me in the dumps. For sometimes, in morbid moments, it seems to me too much is expected of the American woman.
She is now engaged in a fight against fascism, yet there is no letup in her eternal fight against gray hair and wrinkles.
Middle age must also be kept at bay. Hitler is on one side, the Japs on the other; our security, the lives of our children, everything is threatened. But the big battle with Father Time continues as usual on every feminine front.
Youth as well as Australia is to be held. Let us not become discouraged over minor military setbacks, say the authorities, yet, according to the beauticians, any victory of age over youth is a major and final defeat.
Moreover, the housewife is now ordered to toil in machine shops and fields and government offices; to volunteer for nursing, Motor Corps, target practice, air-raid warden duty and what have you. She must stretch her budget to cover doubled expenditures. And as for national morale – well, she is its chief custodian.
Religion, the home, the welfare of the community, the character of the young are in her hands. Yet, with all that, if she knows what’s good for her, she will remain a perennial 35 in appearance.
Now and then it strikes me that women past 40 may have to decide which job is the more important – winning a war against the Axis or a war against time. The day may come when we can’t do both – when we shall be forced to choose between beauty and democracy.