I was watching TV recently when three news anchors, two females and one male, began speaking about Madonna’s new clothing line inspired by Lourdes, her teenage daughter. What upset me was that she was inappropriately referred to as an “aging rock star” by the two news anchors and their co-anchor standing by the sidelines. It started with the female anchor, sarcastically stating, “If you want a line by an aging rock star……”

I feel her tone of voice and choice of words was unnecessary and insulting to Madonna and to women as a whole because it screams of sexism. I’m not even sure I can call it sexism because it was perpetuated by women on a fellow woman.

It’s no news that the music industry is struggling and everyone including Madonna must find ways to reinvent themselves to remain relevant and make money by connecting to a wider audience and including younger demographics, however her creating a clothing line shouldn’t induce such negative comments.

Madonna at 61 is no spring chicken, but saying she’s “an aging rock star” is unfair. Who refers to Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger or Bono as aging rock stars? These men are all in the same category of recording artists who have passed their prime, but men “don’t age” only women do. In fact, as they get older they are considered hot. Ke$ha in her recent hit song, Tik Tok sings, “And now, the dudes are lining up cause they hear we got swagger. But we kick em to the curb unless they look like Mick Jagger.” At 66, Mick Jagger as far as Ke$ha and so many other women worldwide are concerned is still a hottie. Though in reality age is nothing but a number, we see the double standards clearly.

We women are sometimes our own worst enemies. These two female news anchors who are relatively young now think its funny referring to Madonna that way but what they forget is that they are all in the very vain looks based entertainment industry and as my mother says, when I laugh at the many things she can no longer do, “keep on living, your time is coming.” Needless to say, these tactless news anchors won’t be young forever, and they will become aging news anchors fearing being replaced by younger perkier versions.

If the male correspondence started it, I would have said he was just a male chauvinist pig being insensitive, but a female news anchor started it and he just laughed. When the other female news anchor repeated what the first one said, I just shook my head in disbelief. If the male news anchor had made the statement, I would’ve expected one or both of the women to make remarks to put him in his place but no, we woman can do a good job of saying something offensive to depict our fellow woman in a negative light as if we don’t have enough negativity coming at us already.

We all know that to men, women’s youth and beauty are prized possessions. That’s why many men trade their wives in for newer models, as aptly depicted in the movie, The First Wives Club but when women are the first to make unprompted disparaging remarks about another woman’s youth or beauty, I find it particularly offensive.

If you haven’t been privy to watching women talk negatively about other women’s looks, watch a couple of episodes of America’s Next Top Model. That will fill you in. Keep in mind that these are all gorgeous girls vying to become top models and you’ll be amazed at how they often have no problem bad mouthing each other’s looks so I guess after watching that, Madonna being called an aging rock star shouldn't be too surprising to me.

As people, we all age, Madonna included. I say shame on these news anchors that have nothing better to do than to make fun of her instead of commending her on how hard she works to look as good as she does for her age and her strength for staying relevant in the ever tumultuous entertainment industry for as long as she has.

I would like to implore all women to consciously remember to be kind when talking about other women. This is one of the simplest ways to pay it forward for other women.