Why are women in their 30s considered old and men are not?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd heard all this scary stuff about being in your late 30s and having fertility issues. Then I conceived two kids at 36 and 39 our first month trying both times. I know a lot of women like me including my mother who had an Oops baby at 43 -but no one ever talks about this.

I feel like for every person who overestimates the average woman's chances of conceiving naturally & delivering a healthy baby in her late 30s, there are probably two who underestimate it. Does fertility drop significantly throughout a woman's 30s? Absolutely. But a late-30s woman conceiving with relative ease & delivering a healthy baby without serious complications is very far from being a rare phenomenon.

Yes, per the data another PP posted, even without fertility drugs or IVF, a late-30s woman attempting to get pregnant is far more likely to succeed than fail.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If a woman puts effort into looking as much as she can like an NFL cheerleader and has a voice like church bells, she is in control of her romantic destiny whatever the age. If you are way to old to copy the cheerleaders, copy the ladies that coach them... They have the style that all men love.

This is the truth.

I agree. I hate that bitchy coach on Dallas Cowboy cheerleader show, but god is she hot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it's because of fertility but I think that perception is changing rapidly due to the recent studies on health risks to babies when fathers are older. The view before was that men can have kids when they're in their 40s but now people are scared of autism, etc. so male and female fertility is evening out.

Nice try. A guy in his 40s is not sweating about autism and other special needs. Yes, it's a slightly higher risk with an older dad. In absolute terms, the risk is still small.

A woman in her 40s is highly unlikely to ever have her own biological baby.

Different stakes entirely and it's not an even playing field.

I'm early 30s and have been concerned about dating men 40+ for this reason as have a couple of gfs in their late 20s. I don't think the information is widespread, however.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If a woman puts effort into looking as much as she can like an NFL cheerleader and has a voice like church bells, she is in control of her romantic destiny whatever the age. If you are way to old to copy the cheerleaders, copy the ladies that coach them... They have the style that all men love.

This is the truth.

I agree. I hate that bitchy coach on Dallas Cowboy cheerleader show, but god is she hot.

And.. She's 51. Anybody can copy her or others like her. No excuse for being lazy about what can most easily get what you want.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In our very sexist society, women are still selling looks and fertility on the marriage market. Men are selling their ability to be a provider and to succeed at a career. At 30-35, women are hitting the end of their fertility and their looks are (just a little) starting to slide. Men are just starting to hit their top earning years. Women rule the dating world from 15-30. Men rule the dating world from 35 to death. From 30 to 35, power is about even.

How is this sexist? Women contribute to this just as much as men. If women dropped the need to find a man who will "put a big rock" on her finger and have a big law job, etc. etc. and instead only evaluated men based on looks these dynamics would change. It's female hypergamy for $$$ and status that create this situation. And don't tell me it's because men hold women down from being capable of making a good living. If we looked at the Meg Whitman's of the world, they rarely marry down. Men win, because men are easier to please. A sunny disposition and a tight ass that looks good in yoga pants is enough for us. Women need to let go of their obsession with magna cum laude and white collar jobs.

That's not true at all. Men from upper class families usually marry their own. Men with high educational achievement usually marry similar women. Power couples, not Cinderella stories, are still the norm, because assortative mating.

Yes, and men from upper class families are, by definition, not the majority of men out there. I know DCUM world tends to think that 30-40% of men are 6'2 and landed gentry that came over on the Mayflower and pull down 6 figure incomes. But, only 10% of men, IF THAT, fall into that narrow category. I'm talking much more about what matters to the people in the middle of the bell curve. And yes, here men are more forgiving on status/income than are women. A woman who has a 4-year college degree (don't think Vanderbilt, think Valparaiso,) and makes 60k a year is not going to be willing to marry a guy who is an electrician (even if he makes 75-80k) and has a 2 year degree from Ivy Tech. She still wants a guy who went to a 4-year college and makes 100k (or something far more than her 60k). Conversely, a guy who makes 100k selling insurance who graduated from Indiana University will marry a hairdresser who has no college degree if she looks like Kim Kardashian and ins't a b*tch.

I dunno, do you have stats on this? Everything I have read says that people all over the income spectrum tend to marry within their own range of income/educational achievement. I.e., the guy who went to Indiana will marry a girl he met at Indiana.

In fairness, I do not have stats to present. This is more impressionistic. And, I don't disagree with you that a guy wouldn't marry a girl at IU. But if he's doing so, I don't think it's because he's ashamed of marrying a girl without a 4-year degree. Or that he somehow values her pedigree. It's more convenience and likelihood of running in the same circles. A lot of what I'm saying is more about the market for dating more generally. Also for 2nd marriages. Men have relatively simple demands. They want to be attracted to her physically and they want her to have a sunny disposition and to like sex. If she never completed that Art History degree at Sarah Lawrence he isn't going to leave her over it. But women who have a law degree or practice medicine wouldn't be caught dead introducing a mechanic to their friends. Here's a thought experiment. Male doctors frequently marry female nurses. How often to female doctors marry male nurses? Male schoolteachers? See what I mean.

Not saying that your overall point doesn't hold some validity but I'm guessing the fact that there are a lot more female nurses than male nurses & female teachers than male teachers factors into this, as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In our very sexist society, women are still selling looks and fertility on the marriage market. Men are selling their ability to be a provider and to succeed at a career. At 30-35, women are hitting the end of their fertility and their looks are (just a little) starting to slide. Men are just starting to hit their top earning years. Women rule the dating world from 15-30. Men rule the dating world from 35 to death. From 30 to 35, power is about even.

How is this sexist? Women contribute to this just as much as men. If women dropped the need to find a man who will "put a big rock" on her finger and have a big law job, etc. etc. and instead only evaluated men based on looks these dynamics would change. It's female hypergamy for $$$ and status that create this situation. And don't tell me it's because men hold women down from being capable of making a good living. If we looked at the Meg Whitman's of the world, they rarely marry down. Men win, because men are easier to please. A sunny disposition and a tight ass that looks good in yoga pants is enough for us. Women need to let go of their obsession with magna cum laude and white collar jobs.

That's not true at all. Men from upper class families usually marry their own. Men with high educational achievement usually marry similar women. Power couples, not Cinderella stories, are still the norm, because assortative mating.

Yes, and men from upper class families are, by definition, not the majority of men out there. I know DCUM world tends to think that 30-40% of men are 6'2 and landed gentry that came over on the Mayflower and pull down 6 figure incomes. But, only 10% of men, IF THAT, fall into that narrow category. I'm talking much more about what matters to the people in the middle of the bell curve. And yes, here men are more forgiving on status/income than are women. A woman who has a 4-year college degree (don't think Vanderbilt, think Valparaiso,) and makes 60k a year is not going to be willing to marry a guy who is an electrician (even if he makes 75-80k) and has a 2 year degree from Ivy Tech. She still wants a guy who went to a 4-year college and makes 100k (or something far more than her 60k). Conversely, a guy who makes 100k selling insurance who graduated from Indiana University will marry a hairdresser who has no college degree if she looks like Kim Kardashian and ins't a b*tch.

I dunno, do you have stats on this? Everything I have read says that people all over the income spectrum tend to marry within their own range of income/educational achievement. I.e., the guy who went to Indiana will marry a girl he met at Indiana.

In fairness, I do not have stats to present. This is more impressionistic. And, I don't disagree with you that a guy wouldn't marry a girl at IU. But if he's doing so, I don't think it's because he's ashamed of marrying a girl without a 4-year degree. Or that he somehow values her pedigree. It's more convenience and likelihood of running in the same circles. A lot of what I'm saying is more about the market for dating more generally. Also for 2nd marriages. Men have relatively simple demands. They want to be attracted to her physically and they want her to have a sunny disposition and to like sex. If she never completed that Art History degree at Sarah Lawrence he isn't going to leave her over it. But women who have a law degree or practice medicine wouldn't be caught dead introducing a mechanic to their friends. Here's a thought experiment. Male doctors frequently marry female nurses. How often to female doctors marry male nurses? Male schoolteachers? See what I mean.

Not saying that your overall point doesn't hold some validity but I'm guessing the fact that there are a lot more female nurses than male nurses & female teachers than male teachers factors into this, as well.

Of course but it's all endogenous, right? I mean part of the reason there are few male nurses isn't because the job doesn't pay well. It's a pretty solid job. But it isn't "high status" such that women would be lining up to date nurses. Since men will do whatever it takes to attract a good looking female who sets the price in the sex/dating market they will go for jobs where they can exploit female hypergamy. I'm an odd duck. I personally love intellectual ambitious women, but most dudes who are lawyers or doctors would rate attractiveness/eagerness to have sex/cheerfulness as a trifecta of importance that far outpaces whether a woman is a middle class employee or a big law person.

[Anonymous]

I don't think a woman in her 30s is old, but most of the men I knew in their 20s were still acting like boys. By the time most women are 30, they've had a decade of acting like grown-ups.

[Anonymous]

I can see the difference in myself at 20 and at 30 and now at 37. I see it in my husband too, but the aging process in men is culturally considered "handsome" while historically and even within older great literature, a woman is considered most desirable when she looks youthful--not womanly.

Female Young= desirable
Womanly= matronly

Male young= immature, boyish
Man=handsome, desirable

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can see the difference in myself at 20 and at 30 and now at 37. I see it in my husband too, but the aging process in men is culturally considered "handsome" while historically and even within older great literature, a woman is considered most desirable when she looks youthful--not womanly.

Female Young= desirable
Womanly= matronly

Male young= immature, boyish
Man=handsome, desirable

There's some truth to this, but most men don't age like George Clooney. Most older men are not handsome. It's just that women are hypergamous toward wealth and status. If a 60 year old man is a VP who drives a Range Rover and has a vacation house in the Cayman Islands women swoon not because he looks like Chris Hemsworth naked. But rather because she values those things and they turn her on. Most men, in contrast, would rather eat at Olive Garden with a chick who has the ass of a 21 year old and go home have wild sex then watch netflix than go to the fancy timeshare owned by one of the Golden Girls (Carly Fiorina or Meg Whitman).

[Anonymous]

Women 18-30 (maybe 35 for some) have the upper hand in dating. Men have the upper hand for roughly the same amount of time (mid 30s to early 50s). Obviously, individuals vary.

By about 55, we're all old farts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can see the difference in myself at 20 and at 30 and now at 37. I see it in my husband too, but the aging process in men is culturally considered "handsome" while historically and even within older great literature, a woman is considered most desirable when she looks youthful--not womanly.

Female Young= desirable
Womanly= matronly

Male young= immature, boyish
Man=handsome, desirable

This is so true being womanly isn't considered attractive but being manly is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can see the difference in myself at 20 and at 30 and now at 37. I see it in my husband too, but the aging process in men is culturally considered "handsome" while historically and even within older great literature, a woman is considered most desirable when she looks youthful--not womanly.

Female Young= desirable
Womanly= matronly

Male young= immature, boyish
Man=handsome, desirable

This is so true being womanly isn't considered attractive but being manly is.

Never lose being feminine (not womanly) see NFL cheerleader comment above .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know plenty of women who conceived without help in their late thirties and early 40s.

The thing that people forget is that all the data on infertility is compiled based on women who have infertility issues. The women who are having babies naturally at that age on the first or second try don't go to Shady Grove etc, they don't need to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If a woman puts effort into looking as much as she can like an NFL cheerleader and has a voice like church bells, she is in control of her romantic destiny whatever the age. If you are way to old to copy the cheerleaders, copy the ladies that coach them... They have the style that all men love.

Not true. Look to Hollywood or pop stars for track record of marital happiness of very hot people. They divorce oftener than anyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know plenty of women who conceived without help in their late thirties and early 40s.

The thing that people forget is that all the data on infertility is compiled based on women who have infertility issues. The women who are having babies naturally at that age on the first or second try don't go to Shady Grove etc, they don't need to.

There are tons of women who conceive in their late 30's and early 40's who get help but did not tell anyone. Unless you are see their medical records you don't know.