I don't really agree with Ms Harding's opinion that Elizabeth Mwanga's explanation of the term "cougar" is so strongly criticizable. Ms Harding suggests that saying 'It's women who are beautiful, successful and hot, who can get these younger guys because they are hot" implies that these older women are judged solely as hot and nothing else.

After all, this is about them dating younger men. In the dating circle, looks do count (we want both our souls and our bodies to be loved; having only one be admired/desired but not the other would leave us still unfulfilled); and older women traditionally believed their looks to be worse -- say, "less hot" -- than younger women. Now, older women are becoming more aware of the fact that they can be attractive, that they can be aggressive and active in the dating game. Some older women have perhaps always known that, but others -- perhaps because of social opinions about 'proper behavior', perhaps because of doubts about their beauty or 'hotness' -- didn't, or didn't behave as if they did. Now, it seems it's getting easier for older women to do that. As far as I can see, in the dating game, this qualifies as empowerment, doesn't it?

Now, Ms Harding seemed to imply these women are being simply seen as "hot objects", nothing else. Well, even Ms Mwanga says they are 'beautiful, successful and hot' -- and I assume they're professionally successful. It doesn't seem to me they are being judged "primarily by their looks"; Ms Mwanga seems to be simply saying that they also have looks, and are now empowered to use them as they see fit.

Isn't this the old conundrum about beauty and intelligence / success? As if these things were somehow incompatible?

Also, as a final comment, "hot" is not only looks; it's also attitude. Personally, I find intelligence and professional success pretty hot in a woman of any age; I suppose these things are also being computed by the young men they date.

with bigguns on this one. By the way, since I also do hostels quite often and, unlike Leeandra, I have had my debit card stolen (but not my passport, thank god(dess)!), I certainly think women are not alone in wishing for more security. Men do, too. No big divide here.

My wife is Russian (from Ukraine), and I've been there several times; my impression was that both sexes are much more aggressive about getting what they want than in America or Western Europe. I've seen couples fighting openly in the streets, sometimes even hitting each other, while passersby just shrug their shoulders and maybe say something like "Это же любовь!" (but such is love!). Of course, there are also wonderful people there, in fact most of the people I met were friendly and decent; but I did have the impression that relations between the sexes had, let's say, more casualties than in America.

I'd also like to know which was the research that said 100% of Russian women had suffered harassment from their bosses. At least my wife says this never happened to her, while she was working at the university in Kyiv. (I note that I'm not always sure how well surveys done by Russian polls services are -- call that the Putin effect.)

I tend to be more liberal about ads -- they're joking more than anything else. I would take this one as a joke, and not overanalyse it in terms of who exactly it is offending (is it sexist because the woman is supposed to do the cleaning, or because the men are portrayed as animals who can't clean after themselves? -- ask yourselves how you'd have felt if it was the other way round...)

I tend to be rather messy, but so does my wife. So, except at weekends, when we get serious about cleaning the mess, our house does end up having some of the charms of an old frat house. What can I say? We still love each other... :-)