The Rise of the Older WomanHow female power is changing the way we think about age and desirability.
People have long joked that women “age like milk”, while men supposedly “age like fine wine.” It is a crude metaphor, but it captures a cultural altitude many women, myself included, have grown up hearing: that a woman begins to lose her value as she gets older, while a man somehow becomes more desirable with age. And “older” doesn’t necessarily mean old. Sometimes, it means thirty. As a woman, this is something I have experienced firsthand, particularly from older generations. I have been told to take care of my face, take care of my body and get married quickly, because otherwise, no man would want me. All that, when I was barely twenty-five. So lately, I’ve found myself strangely hopeful when I notice how often I am seeing a different kind of romance on our screens: older women being desired by younger men. There is something quietly radical about it. In recent years, romantic films and television shows have begun giving us stories about women in their forties and fifties, rediscovering themselves after divorce, disappointment or years of putting everyone else first—and then finding love with a man considerably younger than them. Take The Idea of You, for example. The 2024 film, starring Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine, follows Soléne, a divorced 40-year-old art gallery owner who falls for Hayes Campbell, the much younger lead singer of a hugely successful British boy band. The film was adapted from Robinne Lee’s 2017 novel, which became famously associated with Harry Styles because of the similarities between Hayes and the pop star. Lee, however, has repeatedly pushed back against the idea that the novel is simply “Harry Styles fan fiction.” In an interview with Deadline, she explained that Hayes was inspired by a “combination of many real-life people,” with Styles being just one of several influences. But what makes the story interesting isn’t merely the fantasy of dating a handsome, famous young celebrity. It’s the fact that the woman is the fantasy. For decades, Hollywood gave us a very different formula. Older men could be desirable. They were often portrayed as experienced, sophisticated, wealthy and powerful. They could age into romantic leading roles without their desirability being treated as something that had an expiration date. Women, meanwhile, were often expected to become less visible as they aged.
Look at My Fair Lady, for example. When the 1964 film was made, Rex Harrison was 56 and Audrey Hepburn was 35—a 21-year age difference between the two stars. On screen though, the gap was even more pronounced. Harrison played the 40-year-old Professor Henry Higgins, while Hepburn played the 21-year-old Eliza Doolittle. And this was hardly an isolated phenomenon. Hollywood spent decades pairing young or relatively young women with significantly older male stars. Audrey Hepburn herself was paired with men considerably older than her throughout her career: Humphrey Bogart, Henry Fonda, Fred Astaire, Gray Cooper, Cary Grant and Rex Harrison, among others. That formula was so familiar we barely questioned it.
And then slowly, something began to change. Because now, we’re seeing this formula being flipped.
And perhaps, most importantly, he wants her. That reversal matters more than we might initially thing. Because for a very long time, women’s desirability in popular culture was treated as something with an expiration date. Youth was presented as a woman’s greatest romantic currency, while men were allowed to accumulate other forms of desirability with age: status, confidence, money, experience, power. But what happens when we tell a different story?What happens when the woman in her forties or fifties, isn’t portrayed as someone desperately trying to preserve the remnants of her youth, but as someone who has finally grown into herself? One of my takes is that Hollywood has always been, first and foremost, a money-making machine. And we are now living in an age where women hold more economic and cultural power than ever before. Look at Sanae Takaichi, for example, who is 65 years old and the first woman to serve as Prime Minister of Japan. She first took office in October 2025 and was appointed to a second term in February 2026. Or look at Jennifer Garner, who, beyond her successful acting career, became a co-founder of the organic children’s food company, Once Upon a Farm. In 2026, Forbes reported that the company went public at a valuation of $726 million, with Garner retaining a significant stake in the business. And then there is the sheer purchasing power of women as consumers. During the post-pandemic recovery, two of the biggest cultural and economic phenomena came from women: Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour and Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour. According to Investopedia, both tours garnering ‘two-thirds’ of the $8.5 billion along with the Barbenheimer movement for the US economy. These aren’t just celebrities selling concert tickets. They are women whose influence reaches politics, business, entertainment, consumer spending and culture. Believe it or not, we women are becoming an economic powerhouse. And Hollywood, being Hollywood, is starting to notice. Perhaps this is why the fantasy of the older woman is becoming less strange.
Because she is no longer only expected to be desirable, she is becoming powerful. She has money, influence, a career, an audience and real buying power. Increasingly, she can build a life that doesn’t depend on being chosen by some man. For generations, women were told that their value came from their youth, and that it would fade with age. But what if we were measuring the wrong thing all along? Maybe youth was never power. Maybe it was just what made women easier to sell in a system that preferred them powerless. And now, as women accumulate more economic and cultural influence, Hollywood is learning what it should have known all along: Women don’t become less valuable as they age. We just become harder to ignore. The Whiffler is free today. But if you enjoyed this post, you can tell The Whiffler that their writing is valuable by pledging a future subscription. You won't be charged unless they enable payments.
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