In his article Why Are Younger Men Attracted to Older Women? Aster Lily gets to the heart of the double standard that still exists: “The taboo of an older woman is a convoluted artifact of a patriarchal culture.”
Despite all of the gains women have made throughout the years from winning the right to vote, equal pay for equal work (still an ongoing battle), the first viable female candidate for President of the United States to a cultural shift in some of the previous attitudes toward women; the bottom line is it is not always easy to get rid of a few old habits.
The older man young woman relationship is a good example. It is just one of those things that is accepted. Unless a scandal occurs there you will probably not see many news stories describing this “trend”.
When it comes to older women younger men? Not so much. Cougars, Mrs Robinsons or some other adjective. Their motives range from the aftermath of the 60′s sexual revolution to women now having more power.
This “trend” even prompted CNN to have an article last year on their website entitled Older Women and Younger Men: Can it Work?
The funny part is you probably won’t see many if any articles asking can the relationship between an older man and younger woman work.
Yet in the same CNN article they posted a survey done by AARP which found that 34 percent of all women over 40 in the survey were dating younger men.
That’s a significant amount. It also seems to answer the question posed in the article title. If even one of those relationships does work then the answer is yes.
When it comes to the treatment of mature women younger men as compared to the other phenomenon of older men and younger women; it is not the same thing.