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Chloe Bennet Reacts to SK-II’s Film The Expiry Date and Gets Real About Age Pressure

Actress Chloe Bennet is challenging society’s artificial timelines and sharing her own personal experience with age pressure. In partnership with SK-II, Chloe talks about the pressure to achieve certain things by a certain age and reflects on the brand’s film The Expiry Date.

Released on 04/30/2018

Transcript

Comparison is the thief of happiness.

It's easy to compare yourself.

So often women feel like they need to be defined

by a relationship or by work or by family

and not just by who they are.

(upbeat peaceful music)

In Asia, there's definitely a specific set of

societal norms that you're supposed to be like.

In America, we have to have a family, have kids,

have a career, have all of this before you're a certain age

because I think every woman

no matter where you are in the world feels that.

I've always been someone who's put

the age expectations kind of on myself.

I guess I've never felt like I fit the age

that I was supposed to be, so at 15 I left my house,

I left Chicago and moved to China by myself.

And I didn't feel like I was too young,

it didn't feel wrong, it felt like

this was the maturity level I was ready to go and do this.

I was in a relationship for about four years

at a younger age and he was older than me

and I remember thinking like, oh it's marriage time,

like this is when people get married,

even though I wasn't ready for marriage.

It wasn't coming from within me,

it was coming from everyone else's pressure of what,

where the relationship should be going at a certain point

even though I clearly wasn't ready for that.

I turn 26 in few weeks and someone was like

well it's maybe, maybe about that time to, you know,

find a guy and have kids 'cause you're gonna be 30 soon.

And I was like, I, okay, soon feels relative

'cause that's in four years but also it's so backwards

to think that because you're getting older as a woman

that now your fun is over and your job as someone

who makes other humans is now beginning.

It's something that I think women are now ready

to stand up against and say you know what, no,

I'll actually be the one that decides.

I think the moment that resonated with me the most

in the film is when you see all these women

really deciding to take their destiny into their own hands

and make that decision to be true to themselves

and go look, this is who I am, if you don't like it,

when she gets up from the date and she leaves her date

and she walks out, that's such a powerful moment for anyone

who's had a version of that,

whether they're standing up to their boss,

or their friend, or posting something online

that they maybe felt scared to do before,

and I think everyone has a version of leaving the date.

There's this underlying pressure to be

what everyone else thinks you should be

and in reality is, is you're in charge of your own destiny.

You're in charge of your happiness

and it should be up to you.

I'm defining myself right now and it has nothing to do

with a man or my job or whether I have kids or not,

whether I'm married or not,

and it just has everything to do with who I am,

and that's awesome, I wish that for every person.

Starring: Chloe Bennet