Tuesday Feminist Fuck You: Dr. Phil and Hereosexual Dating Double Standards

Ok, so it is not Friday but this episode of Dr. Phil definitely warrants a “fuck you”.
I was watching election news and it went to a commercial break. I flipped through channels and came to Dr. Phil and these older women were discussing how they thought there was a heterosexual dating double standard. I naively thought that the episode would seriously discuss dating double standards in our society. Unfortunately, I was wrong and all the show did was infuriate me.
The show featured a a 58 year old grandmother who liked to date younger men off of the internet and flew around the world meeting men. All Dr. Phil did was tell her how weird and “desperate” she was. A quote from the grandmother:
“There’s a huge double standard for women and men… “On my profile, I started at 48, then, I went to 44, 35, 33, 29. I had 50-something guys who were looking for a 36-year-old girl.”
In a society where older women are told that they are ugly and romantically worthless after a certain age, it takes serious guts to defy those standards and date anyways.I agree that internet dating can sometimes be dangerous.However, the fact that that woman has the courage to defy social expectations and go after what she wants is pretty awesome!

The episode only got worse when a 30, (yes, that’s right 30) year old woman came on the show and discussed how she was almost too old for love:
“I am actually very afraid when I see women who are older, in their 40s and 50s who are single, that I might end up like that,”
She also went on to discuss how she was a “successful business woman” and how people are intimidated by her, because they think she is “self-absorbed, or some feminist.”
However, the 30 year old business woman’s story is not nearly as sad as the advice our wise buddy Dr. Phil gives her!
“I think it’s really important that you do let men know, ‘I definitely have needs.’ Dr. Phil also tells her to not be so obvious about the fact that she is successful in business.
I think the part of the episode that made me most irritated was that it did nothing to address the male aspect of this double-standard. THE ENTIRE PROBLEM IS THAT WOMEN ARE SO HIGHLY JUDGED BASED ON THEIR AGE AND PHYSICAL APPEARANCE AND ITS CONSIDERED ACCEPTABLE! Dr. Phil did nothing to point out that the double standard is WRONG! All he did was tell women to conform to the social standard.
So fuck you Dr. Phil for promoting the heterosexual dating double standard while shaming women who do not conform to it.
Here are the links if anyone is interested.