Screw Red Hats
I imagine you're all at least vaugely familiar with the poem that starts "When I am an old woman I shall wear purple/With a red hat that doesn't go and doesn't suit me". It's called "Warning", but a lot of people don't know that. If you're not familiar with the poem, go read it--it's short.
At first glance, it looks awfully liberating and stuff. She's going to defy social norms and wear clothes that don't match! Gadzooks!
Think about it a little more, though, and it starts to ring false. Leaving aside the sickening phenomenon of people who have appropriated the whole "red hat" phenomenon in order to sell useless tchotchkes to any woman who no longer looks eighteen, why are we waiting, again?1
Personally I'm not planning to wait till I'm an "old woman" to wear what I like, or act in the ways that are true to me. If something's wrong to do when you're thirty, it's just as wrong when you're sixty; having ceased to menstruate is not a free pass to act like a jerk. Conversely, if it's right when you're sixty it's A-OK at thirty. Saying otherwise is saying, one more time, that it's more important to look proper than to act in whatever way is healthy for you. Yes, there must be some minimal standards--don't be a jerk, don't hurt people unnecessarily, don't teach your kids to act in ways that will get them in trouble--but other than that? Wear the damn hat now, lady, if you want to.
1: Fortunately, the poem's not a total loss; the last stanza, with its mention of "practice[ing] a little now", implies that she's not actually planning to wait. But that's not the bit that's usually quoted, or the way it's usually interpreted. It's usually the good old "Well, now that your function in life is past you can do whatever you want because we don't have any more use for you and so will cease to pay any attention." Screw that.