Hottest Women In The World – And Not Just Due To Hot Flushes

Why do men like their wine old and their women young? It’s a conundrum we females have debated over many a glass of vino as yet another of our attractive, vivacious, dynamic, middle-aged girlfriends gets dumped by her husband for a vacuous younger model.

And it’s not as though the wife he’s chucking onto the relationship rubbish heap has “let herself go.” While men my age tend to give into verandahs over their toy shops (beer bellies) moobs, elasticated sweat pants and orthopaedic footwear, every 50 year old woman I know is contorting herself into human origami for hours a week at yoga and Pilates classes and eschewing sugar. Hell, none of them have touched a carb since about 1982.

And yet whenever one of my girlfriends tells me that she wants to get rid of her “unsightly fat”, I presume she’s referring to her couch potato husband.

The Pussy Grabber-in-Chief decreed that when women reached 35 it was “check-out” time, i.e. time to put her out with the trash. The question on the mind of most women is – does that bloated, orange, comb-over King own a mirror? (Trump’s on the record for saying “if Ivanka wasn’t my daughter perhaps I’d be dating her.” So, at least his 38 year old child can utter a sigh of relief to know that incest’s no longer on the carnal cards.) But the question is, why then do men abandon us in our prime?

It wasn’t always thus. Historians report that in Georgian times, middle-aged women were considered a catch. I kid you not. A study from the University of Cambridge reveals that contrary to scholarly opinion, women aged between 30-50 — considered middle-aged at the time — could be “extremely erotic figures”, coveted for our ardour and sexual experience.

The great Samuel Johnson was vociferous in our praise, insisting that older women inspire the most “violent and lasting” passions. In 1735 he discovered his altar-ego with a widow 20 years his senior. Johnson was 25 when he married 46-year-old widow Elizabeth Porter. Hester Thrale, the diarist, recorded Johnson remarking: “Tis not Girls but Women who inspire the violent and lasting passions – Cleopatra was Forty three Years old when Antony lost the World for her.”

Thrale herself had no shortage of beaux, even after shooting out 12 sprogs. In 1782, the 41 year old widow planned a trip to Italy, “for my desiring to be gone from England and the Persecution I endure from Men . . . who want to marry me”.

So, how did we middle-aged sheilas go from being desirable sex bombs to today’s damning perception of ‘hags’, ‘bags’ and ‘damaged goods’, ‘put out to pasture’ for being ‘over the hill’?

Of course blokes never pass their ‘use by’ dates. Wrinkly and crinkly men are flattered with ‘Silver Fox’ status, while women my age get dismissed as “old chooks.” Yep. Bob Dylan’s “Lay, lady Lay” takes on a far less exciting connotation for us.

One of the problems is that we see so few older women in public life. 85% of presenters on television, over 50, are blokes. And let’s be honest, a woman as crinkly as Aussie Barrie Cassidy or British Andrew Neil would have been side lined by telly execs decades ago. 64 year old David Koch who presents Sunrise has worked his way through a bevy of beautiful female co-presenters half his age. Yes, Kochie is a brilliant broadcaster but if he had ovaries his telly career would be ovary and out.

I imagine Trump’s edict that women over 35 have passed our ‘amuse by’ dates must also be quite surprising news to Angela Merkel, The Queen, Melinda Gates, Helen Mirren, Christine Legarde, Hilary Mantel, Meryl Streep, Bette Midler, Margaret Atwood, Tina Turner, Anna Wintour, Ursula von der Leyen, Penny Wong, Margaret Atwood, Cate Blanchett, Grace Jones, Judi Dench, Nicole Kidman, Julia Gillard, Arianna Huffington, Michelle Obama, Hilary Clinton, Ellen DeGeneres, Kylie, Oprah, Madonna etc influential etc…

As yet another men’s magazine announces their predictable, lacklustre list of “Hottest Women” (we’re talking girls so young, they’re probably still choosing their cereal for the toy) let’s revert to Georgian times and admit that its more than hot flushes which makes menopausal females the hottest women in the world.