Brett, my point is that knowledge, power, money do not work alike for both sexes. BECAUSE men are supposed to be dominant in a hetero relationship, having these advantages gives them points in th sexual marketplace. BECAUSE women are supposed to be not dominant in a hetero relationship, the signs of 'success" work against them. You keep conflating my points about gender into generalizations about age versus youth. But these are not general "problems" about "older folks" versus the "rest of us."
So far all of
> this applies to older women as well as older men, although definitely much
> more so for men (the differences in wealth and power between the average
> old man and the average young woman are much larger than the same
> differences between an average old woman and an average young man).
Again, I am not talking about the number of dollars -- but about what dollars mean. A woman who earns a big income has much LESS sexual possibility than a man who earns the same -- but also, she has less possibility than a woman who earns less. Because many, many men have a problem with earning less than a woman. It challenges their superiority, ego, privilege.
> To the extent that it doesn't, there is no societal remedy. Unless you
> want to forbid people from dating people much younger or older than they
> are, or take other nasty authoritarian measures which I'm sure nobody would
> want.
>
yes, i agree that one cannot forbid. But we CAN encourage people to think about their expectations of gender, and challenge their disinclination to examine their supposedly innate and unchangeable preferences. After all, if i said, well actually I'd like to just keep all my money and white skin privilege -- that's what feels good to me, that's just the way i am-- I wouldn't get much sympathy on this list!
In fact, social customs and expectations play a big role in how people act and what they want. Tolstoy was an immensely experienced 36 or so when he married his wife, a 16 or 17 year old virgin straight out of finishing school. I think a man who did that today would look weird -- pathetically insecure, or maybe even a pervert. But in Tolstoy's day it was the norm.
maybe if old man-younger woman was treated less as a desirable norm -- if Sean Connery and Warren Beatty DIDN"T get the young beauties -- there'd be less of it. And maybe if Joanne Woodward got sexy parts instead of having to play unhappy old ladies, there'd be more male mays and female Decembers.
Katha