Men looking to fight ageism in the workplace have a new secret weapon: The plastic surgeon’s scalpel.
David, a 54-year-old portfolio manager in New York, said he looked around his office when he turned 50, and realized he needed to do something. The days when investors look for a wise, old money manager were disappearing.
“I noticed some colleagues who look older than they are actually starting to have problems. So I decided I wanted to remain relevant and marketable,” said David, who requested that his last name be withheld.
That “something” was Botox injections every three months to smooth out lines on his face. He says the $1,000-per-procedure investment keeps him looking 40-something — and keeps his clients happy.
“People do tend to look at external appearance. When your clients think you are younger, they think you are more savvy with technology, social media,” he said.
While there’s no national data on why men are “getting work done,” New York-based dermatologist Dr. Robert Anolik said that through his conversations with patients, he knew ageism was a driving force.
“I see it all the time. If you are part of start-up or venture capital environment, and you are running around with people who are 25, you don’t want to look like you’ve aged out of that environment,” he said. “We are in a youth-obsessed culture right now. People want to attract millennials. Who better to understand them than young people?”
Renato, now 40, felt that pressure.
“It makes me do things like shoot up my face,” said Renato, who works in real estate and also asked that his last name be withheld. He started getting procedures when he turned 35.
“Increasingly my clients are getting younger and younger,” he said. “They want to work with experienced people, but not people who look like their parents.”
Before he started getting laser treatments every eight weeks, Juvederm (a procedure for nasal augmentation) and a host of other treatments, Renato started hearing comments that worried him.
Of course, women have long been attuned to the problem of being judged by appearance in the workplace.
“But in the last 10 to 20 years, men have become more interested in how they look and what they wear,” said Dr. Debra Johnson, president of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons.
Nationally, women still get more than 9 out of 10 of the plastic surgeries performed, though that ratio is slowly shrinking. Part of the reason: Less ambitious surgeries.
“Men are not eager to do any big procedures. It’s harder to do things like facelifts on men because of their hair patterns. But surgical things we do are eyelid tucks, liposuction,” said Johnson, a plastic surgeon based in Sacramento, California. “The fatty deposit under the neck, you can clean that up fairly easily. Fillers to soften wrinkle lines.”
Most of those smaller procedures cost $1,000 to $2,000, depending on the region, and virtually none of them are covered by health insurance because they are considered “elective,” or optiona
