Face: One Square Foot of Skin

Writer/director/producer Justine Bateman examines the aggressive ways that society reacts to the aging of women's faces.

"I can't think of anyone better than Justine Bateman to start the conversation about how we've devolved into a society that doesn't allow women to age. Brave, brilliant, and unflinchingly honest, Justine is that writer you trust because she goes after every subject with a warrior's focus, and throws herself to the lions while she's at it. It doesn't hurt that she's a gorgeous woman who hasn't tried to erase an ounce of history from her face. I love the way she thinks, and am amazed at the many sublayers she manages to excavate while everyone else is scratching the surface."
--Mary-Louise Parker, actress, author of Dear Mr. You

"These honest, no-flinch vignettes about womanhood, beauty, and meaning will make you mad, break your heart, will have you longing for a better world, have you rooting for her, yourself, for all women. And you will stand up and cheer when Bateman slides into home plate with an ending of grace and revelation. Riveting read Profound glimpses into the soul of our society."
--Deb Olin Unferth, author of Barn 8

Face: One Square Foot of Skin is a book of fictional vignettes that examines the fear and vestigial evolutionary habits that have caused women and men to cultivate the imagined reality that older women's faces are unattractive, undesirable, and something to be "fixed."

Based on "older face" experiences of the author, Justine Bateman, and those of dozens of women and men she interviewed, the book presents the reader with the many root causes for society's often negative attitudes toward women's older faces. In doing so, Bateman rejects those ingrained assumptions about the necessity of fixing older women's faces, suggesting that we move on from judging a woman's worth based on the condition of her face.

With impassioned prose and a laser-sharp eye, Bateman argues that a woman's confidence should grow as she ages, not be destroyed by society's misled attitude about that one square foot of skin.