double standard

[yes]

Here's the impression I have, please correct me if i'm wrong:

 

Men can be single and dating and have lots of women up until at least their 50s. A bachelor gets just as much if not more respect as a married man with a gig of kids on his neck.

 

For women, it's totally different. Once you're past 35 or so, it's much harder to date (I guess partially b/c of the older man/younger woman couple stereotype). If a woman isn't married, she's viewed as somebody who COULDn't get married properly, not somebody who didn't WANT to do it.

 

Bottom line - men get to play around their whole life if they want, and it seems nearly impossible for women to play around like that.

I mean - a 40smth man with many women around him is easy to picture; a 40smth woman with many men after her is much harder to imagine, isn't?

 

What do you people think? Am I over-believing the stereotypes?

Some girls tell me a woman can't be quite happy without a family - that at a certain age, you start to want children & a cozy home. I don't know - I can see myself living alone, working, dating, but never committing - but I feel like that's not very acceptable in this society.

 

I'm so confused................ heheh

 

Thanks,

-yes

[Just A Girl2]

I agree with your observations/thoughts.....yes, I do think there's a double standard, totally.

 

I'm nearly 36 and have become increasingly aware, over the past 2 or 3 yrs, how single people in my age group are put off into another category....and how there's this common belief that if you're a woman and not married with at least one child by the time you're in your early to mid 30s, your life must be empty and unfulfilled and there must be something wrong with you.

 

Almost any woman can get herself pregnant and bring a child into the world, but it takes a woman who's really honest with herself to know that she's not going to help create a life "just to conform" to society's view of normalcy.

 

I find, too, that married women seem to view single women as a threat, automatically.

 

I've come to the conclusion...from friends, coworkers, even my immediate family, that it's a commonly held belief that a woman is incomplete if she's not married and up to her eyebrows in diapers....that her feelings and beliefs and what matters to her isn't as important. There's a lot of double standards, yes, and discrimination out there, that's for sure.

[Tony T]

What you describe has nothing to do with stereotypes...just general reality. Every person ought to live their life exactly the way they want to...right up until the end.

 

What JAG2 has written above contains a lot of truth as well.

 

Unfortunately and for the reasons you stated in your post, options for females are less and run out at an earlier age...but not always. Many older women are where they are out of absolute choice, having gotten out of horrid marriages or relationships and preferring to limit dating activity rather than put up with the BS.

[clia]

You are absolutely overbelieving stereotypes.

 

My mom is in her fifties, looks great (amazing, actually!) for her age and literally has to fight them off with a stick. Until she got her most recent boyfriend, she went on three or four dates a week with different guys. (Until she picked the one she liked! LOL.)

 

I think if women take care of themselves and look good, age doesn't matter. My mom even has guys in their thirties chasing after her. (Who she then tries to set up with me! LOL. I can totally picture her saying "Well, I'm too old for you, but I have a daughter you might like..." So funny.)

 

Oh, and my mom loves being single. She's having a blast now, after spending her 20s and 30s raising kids!

[yes]

thanks for everyone's replies! i still have no clue how i'd like to live, but i guess i'll just go with the flow for now.

 

Man, i'm soo jealous of these 50 y.o. playboys though. They seem to be living life to its fullest. However, I guess they miss out on the family kind of happiness...

 

*shrug*

-yes

[HokeyReligions]

Personally, I think politics play a big part. I have no children. My husband and I have been togeter a couple of decades now. The government does not consider us a family.

 

We did have children and they died - the tax laws are different for married people with no children, and many other government sponsored or controled or influenced organizations do not look at us as a family. That goes for my mother too when she used to share a house with her sister. They are family, but they were not recognized as family.

 

Everything is a category. "Couple" means legallily married. "Family" means a husband and wife with a child or children. "One-Parent or Single Parent Home" , well we know what that means. When was the last time you saw "Single-Parent Family" on a form? It says "Single Parent Home" Siblings, or other relatives, that share a home are simply considered single and not a family.

 

Some of these things may be changing, but the overall view of family and the categories for females is still pretty victorian.

 

Why do women take the last name of their husband? Because women are chattel - owned by their husbands and marked as such with a legal last name change. Does that sound rash? Think about it. Men used to be responsible for their wives and it was up to the husband to train, teach, and control their wife - much as they did their children. A woman turned over all her positions and money to the husband. It was the husbands role to support the wife/kids ("family") and through all the generations and revolutions - things are slow to turn and become accepted.

 

I say, don't let stereotypes bother you and don't dwell on what "society" thinks, because "society" changes all the time too. So do stereotypes. We keep creating new ones!

[yes]

The victorian-style stereotypes are still very much in place, but i agree that they are changing - but very very slowly. So, I suppose the best a woman can do is stay close enough to the stereotypes to be generally accepted (just because life is tough when the whole society looks down on you), yet lean away from them enough to do what you want. I don't know how possible this is, but that's the plan, heheh.

 

thanks for your reply!

-yes

[HokeyReligions]

it's funny, I thought I was fairly liberated when I was in my 20's. I burned my bra right along with the rest of them (then had to buy new ones because its durn uncomfortable to go flapping merrily along -- especially as we get older and gravity sets in!)

 

When I married I felt like I wanted to belong so I took my husbands name -- but I hyphenated! Well, I got tired of signing everything with that long hyphenated name so I shortened it to just using his last name.

 

I still like it when a gent holds a door for me, or when the guys at work stand back and let me enter/exit the elevator first. But I don't expect it and I don't think the gents rude if they don't do this. My husband calls them/us "women lippers' and won't hold a door or chair for any one including me.

 

When I worked downtown and took the Park&Ride everyday it often ended up with standing-room only. I heard so many "liberated" women talking about how rude the men were to take a seat on the bus and not offer it to any of the women who were standing!

 

When I was standing I was offered a seat by a gentleman. I was actually uncomfortable about taking it and very politely refused and said I was okay. He smiled and offered to someone else who took it. Hmm... I also have offered my seat to men and women who were older than me or looked like they wouldn't make it standing up for an hour on a bus. Someone always took me up. Hmm...