The Cougar: Upholding Ageist Stereotypes.

This season TV Land has created a new reality TV show called “The Cougar.” This show is from the same creators of “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette” series, and like “The Bachelorette,” “The Cougar” is about one woman dating several other men. Except that in “The Cougar” the woman is in her 40’s and the men are all in their 20’s.

I am personally conflicted about this show. On the one hand, I think that it is sending a positive message that older women, just like older men, can date younger people. But I also feel that it is showing that only beautiful women can date younger men. I was curious about what other people thought of the premise, so I went onto the IMDB discussion board for the show, and one commenter summed up what, I think, many people feel. Oregon_girl said “This show is gross. . . I think an older guy/younger woman is fine but older woman/younger man is gross. It's like he's a kept boy.” This idea of the man being a “kept boy” is interesting, as it shows that a man with an older woman is just a boy and the woman is forcing him to be with her (as the term “kept boy,” at least in my mind, conjures up images of someone being held against their will), but when an older man is with a much younger woman it’s only natural and, in fact, it should be expected.Oregon_girl also says that “Men can stay virile into their 50s but women lose it in their 30s. Why would some hot young guy want to date some old woman with her dried-up c**ch?” This is obviously untrue, as many women retain their sex-drive even after menopause, but it shows that in our culture we have been taught that older women (although I would hardly say that a woman in her 30’s is old) are no longer attractive and do not want or deserve sex. And men can use this argument as an excuse to date much younger women without any guilt or ridicule. This double standard in our culture is ridiculous and it demonstrates perfectly our society’s allowance of men to be free and have fun all through life, while women are confined; and if women break out of society’s narrow role then they are made into a spectacle.

Even though I think women deserve to date younger people just as much as men do, I still think that this show is doing it wrong. “The Cougar,” while showing that older women can still be sexy and fun, is also constantly attempting to portray Stacy (the cougar) as being young-at-heart and worthy of these men, but they still constantly point out the age difference between her and the men. They constantly describe her beauty and vivacity, and in the pictures and videos they have on the website she is always looking sexy and provocative. Essentially the show is turning her into a sexual object, which completely negates the fact that she is older. But the show seems to be a bit confused as it is continually trying to show her as both young (she looks very young and she seems to act very young) but also constantly pointing out that she is older then these men (at one point in a commercial, Stacy mentions that one of her daughters is older then one of the men she is dating). So, while this show might seem to be empowering women, it is really just upholding the stereotype that the only way that it might be a little bit accepted for an older woman to date a younger man is if she is gorgeous and young at heart.