There is no denying that there has always been a bit of a scandal about cougar women. Hopefully the cougar story is finished and dusted off, but here’s the climax: dozens of older women today are happily living their lives as modern cougars.
It is a bit presumptuous to assume that modern cougars are the same as the women portrayed as cougars of yesteryear. Those older women to whom the cougar tag was originally attached were actually mislabeled. This came from a male perspective that older women in bars / clubs etc were viewed as desperate and undated and an easy sexual conquest for younger men. This perception was repeatedly portrayed throughout society by the media of the day and, unfortunately, for actual cougar women today, this perception has stuck.
Times have changed and the modern cougar is all about the presence of a woman, the redefinition of femininity by women themselves. It has been too easy for women to rest on their laurels, or to be a little complacent, or in most cases, socially and domestically emancipated by pre-digested attitudes about how women should behave and feel, and discouraged from thinking for themselves. It is because of these attitudes that every choice a woman makes (including who she dates) is therefore a measure of her power. But what happens here is that it sets the agenda of what is acceptable, what is cool, what is sexy, and a distortion of who women are.
The modern cougar is a strong and confident woman; She likes to play, she dares, she is a seductress and she does not really feel limited by the restrictive rules of society. The pendulum has swung in favor of women regaining their power as they proclaim themselves guardians of their own destinies. Its life events, such as divorce, are transforming and empowering women to rebuild their lives on their own terms.
The modern cougar is a woman who knows who she is and goes for it. There is no picture of what a modern cougar is, and that is the beauty of these older women. They are strong characters that bear a striking similarity to the intrepid feline: The Cougar. And it is these mature women who are bringing the strengths of the cougar into the 21st century while stepping away from all the media stances and whispered talk of men they just don’t understand, usually due to their own insecurities reflected in their ongoing control. and subjugation of women in general. It is men like these, young and old, who repel real cougars. While they want to be cougars, and they are out there … they may have the look, but they don’t have the attitude … they are still caught up in the power play of their male counterparts where they are caught between that of an ornamental fantasy object. or an invisible cushion propping up our old-fashioned traditional society by keeping the house and raising the children.
Modern cougars are breaking the mold and embracing their rights to express a woman’s power as they see fit and this includes stepping into their own sexuality. There is no feeling of permanence and there is no notion of waiting for gratification because the future is not fixed in concrete. Life is simply too short not to enjoy every moment, every day.
The reality, of course, is that modern cougars are letting go of the feeling that they need to push themselves to do things they don’t want to do, an urge that has been linked to the feeling of not being “enough.” Meeting the modern cougar for the first time, for most people, is like looking at the sun. These are women who have hit their stride and are celebrating for reasons big and small.
Despite all the hype surrounding cougar women, it is evident how little many of us know about the true cougar woman.
