Let’s Hear It For The Older Ladies!

Youth is wasted on the young.

Whether you’re too young to understand it or old enough to believe it, it’s hard to deny that the world around us places a rather high premium on youth and beauty.

This week, new research claimed that after the age of 39 men become ‘sexually invisible’ to women who start to see them as father figures rather than prospective mates.

Not really sure who they asked because Bradley Cooper and David Beckham, both ancient at 39, are still pretty bloody attractive to us.

The truth is that rather than losing their mojo, many men get better with age while women bear the brunt of the effect of gravity.

This shouldn’t be an issue, with magazine headlines begging female celebrities to eschew drastic surgeries and ‘grow old gracefully’ but woe betide the 45-year-old woman who actually looks 45.

And for those ladies out there who are on the ‘wrong’ side of 40, fear not!

According to Esquire, you are still totally hot and many men would still like to have sex with you.

The impassioned feature, titled ‘In Praise of 42-Year-Old Women’, may have started as a complimentary piece on the wonders of women aged over 25 (shock!) but it quickly dissolves into a sexist, patronising piece that is hard to stomach.

And by quickly, we mean within the first sentence.

“Let's face it: There used to be something tragic about even the most beautiful forty-two-year-old woman.”

What? Even the MOST BEAUTIFUL 42-year-olds have problems? Say it ain’t so!

Author Tim Junod goes on to describe just how bloody hard 42-year-old women have to work to still remain attractive to men, which we all know is every woman’s raison d'etre especially if they’ve managed to get to that age and not get a precious rock on their finger.

At what point did fancying a woman over the age of 40 become a source of shame, an attraction that needed defending like that awkward crush you have on the Beast from Beauty and the Beast?

Thankfully there are some mature women out there who have had enough of this nonsense.

Country singer Donnalou Stevens has penned the instantly catchy ‘Older Ladies’ – an ode to the wonderful things about being a woman who society reckons is past her prime.

“I got saggy breasts that droop from my chest”, sings 55-year-old Stevens, who also lists her chicken neck, grey hair and double chin as things she loves about herself.

Rather than just listing the effects of menopause on the human body, Stevens turns the tables on the listener.

“Well I ain’t 16, not a beauty queen and my eyes are baggin’ and my skin is saggin’ and if that’s the reason that you don’t love me, then maybe that’s not love.”

The song has gone viral, with over four million views on YouTube and CNN’s Anderson Cooper calling “anyone who doesn’t love older ladies” ridiculous.

As Stevens rightly points out, there’s nothing wrong with looking your age and if anyone tells you different maybe they're the one with the problem...

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