Great article but we still can’t get rid of the word ‘Cougar’
The New York Times published an article this week which is one of the first I’ve read that is both interesting and intelligent about the whole older woman/younger man trend. What is interesting is both content of the article and some of the comments, but please do read it in full yourself.
Intelligent:
“But marriage tells only part of the story. Researchers and relationship experts say that a growing number of men and older women are dating, or at least contemplating it. The women tend to be highly educated and have been married before and are not necessarily seeking out marriage or even cohabitation.
Another study by Dr. Caron, in 2004, comparing the dating preferences of women 35 to 50 with those of women 20 to 25, found that the older women were much more open to younger men and to crossing lines like race, religion and socioeconomic status.
Prior research, Dr. Caron said, had suggested that women of all ages were looking for the same things in a partner, research that led to the famous Newsweek cover story in 1986 that declared a single woman over 40 had a better chance of being blown up by a terrorist than marrying. That conclusion ricocheted through the culture as a defining fate for women of that age, but 20 years later the magazine issued a retraction, in an article entitled “Rethinking the Marriage Crunch.
The term cougar raises hackles among women who say the image of a wild animal, however sleek and beautiful, prowling for victims — or an army of Mrs. Robinsons on the march for men young enough to be their sons — is demeaning. Ms. Moore, who has been married to Mr. Kutcher for four years, has been described as a cougar, but so have sex-starved women slinking through bars for young men to satisfy nothing but physical needs.
According to the Urban Dictionary, which lists many definitions of cougar too unsavory to print, the cougar woman is generally at least 35 — and always on the hunt — while many of the Hollywood and tabloid depictions put the women in their 40s, 50s and even 60s. Sociologists studying these relationships generally are looking at women of those ages involved with men 10 to 15 years younger.
The older woman, if she is what some relationship experts refer to as the “Samantha prototype,” a reference to the “Sex and the City” character who has a strong sexual appetite for younger men — and anyone else for that matter — may well be looking merely for a boy toy. There is plenty of research on the notion popularized by Alfred Kinsey that women reach their sexual peak much later than men do, so older women and younger men may be especially sexually compatible.”
Interesting:
“Linda Franklin, a former Wall Street executive who is the author of a new book, “Don’t Ever Call Me Ma’am! The Real Cougar Woman Handbook” (Advantage Media Group), said she had decided to take what she thought was an insulting term and use it to empower women.
“What you see on TV in no way bears any reality to women in real life,” Ms. Franklin said. “These women take very good care of themselves, they are financially independent, and they are making different choices. That certainly does not make them desperate.”
Personally, I don’t believe in reworking the word ‘cougar’. It’s not so much that it’s insulting as inappropriate in most cases.
From a female reader:
“Unless a bald head and a pot belly is attractive, most men do NOT age any better than women. Sorry to point out the obvious.”
By Julia
