As a general rule in dating and marriage selection, a glaring, unspoken age prejudice against women is accepted within all cultures. As men age, their pool of age choices for dating and marriage increases, while the pool of age choices for women decreases.
Worse, this age prejudice is to younger women’s detriment. By silently accepting it, younger women (who are among the older males’ growing available pool, as the males age), keep open the floodgates of discriminatory prejudice against themselves as they age, and (by saying nothing as if nothing is wrong with it) they teach young girls that this is perfectly normal.
For a man, there is no judgment for age, other than to be congratulated for marrying a younger woman. For example, when a man, of up to 90, marries a woman as much as 25 to 30 years younger than he, he’s considered a stud. True, too much of an age gap beyond 30 years and a man might be seen as an old fool (and the woman as a gold digger), but men still have a 30 year age pool within which to play.
Turn the tables and a woman’s pool is much more shallow. As women age, beyond 31, 10 years is generally the maximum age gap “allowed” without murmurs. Beyond that, and the woman is seen as an old fool and possibly a sexual predator if the man is below 21 (and the man as the possible gold digger or a child).
A man who marries a much younger woman (even as young as 18) of more than 10 years is seen as a success by others, but there are no congratulations at all for a woman who marries a younger man. Instead, more often than not, the woman is the subject of derision about being a cougar… and if she is over 21 and dates or marries a male of 18, outright disgust might be displayed.
Such prejudicial acceptance would never be tolerated today if the advantaged choices for men were made in any other possible category, such as race or religion. And just as race or religious prejudices might have been excusable 30 plus years ago, but are inexcusable today, this age prejudice is equally inexcusable presently and in our female children’s futures.
We’re in a modern age of hormones, which can do even more for women than any little blue pill can for men! Hormones for women, who choose those advances, can not only help them be sexually active, as well as emotionally and physically willing, for years longer than men of their same ages, but -moreover- such advances help women age slower and there’s nothing medically available for men that can do the same for them. That female medical advantage alone seems all the more reason for a woman to be able to choose a younger man without being labeled as a predator.
Now that medical advances have eliminated previously age-related problems, for women (that, before such medical advances might have given older men social permission to choose younger women), younger women have to huddle together with their older sisters and close the gender discrimination gates. Social prejudices need to be torn down so that the playing field is as equal for older women as it is for older men.
The bottom line is that one or all of the following needs to happen:
- Older men need to wake up to see what their outdated prejudices are doing to the self-esteem of older women by familiarizing themselves with the medical advances that have placed older women far ahead of them!
- Younger women need to understand what their complicity with this kind of outdated male prejudice is doing to their own futures as older women.
- Younger men need to wake up to see that older women are an emotionally and sexually lasting choice.
- Older women need to be vocal about gender prejudice and (just as advertising is changing for race and same gender couples) get a PR campaign started through writing, talk shows, and advertising—insisting that advertisers change their pitches to reflect the acceptance of older women and younger men as equally as older men and younger women are accepted. Just as changes came about, through good PR to bring about changes in prejudice racially, religiously, and for those who are non binary, the same can be done by older women to insure that their voices are heard monetarily.
Women (as usual) of all ages need to lead the charge for change, to stand up against this disgustingly disparaging, double standard. The public needs to be made aware that the older gander is alive, well, and ready to cook the goose, by “cancellation” of any who support these prejudicial actions, unless they get with the new program of gender equality in this last prejudicial frontier.
Audrey Biloon
Copyright 2021
Photo by Nickolas Nikolic on Unsplash
