Courtney Cox Is No Feminist

Judith Warner’s NY Times column yesterday about ABC’s new show, Cougar Town, which debuted Wednesday, made some salient points about this sort of feminism–the kind likely to have Betty Friedan rolling in her grave. It’s possible to make a case that the show’s message– women over 40 can be hotties too–is feminist, but it’s a not the kind of Gloria Steinem, equal-pay-for-equal-work feminism this same group of women grew up with.

Cox’s character Jules is a 40-something, recently divorced woman who sells real estate in Florida and does so well she’s the one paying alimony. We are supposed to feel sorry for her, and she (frantically) begins dating. The character is ludicrous–would Cox honestly ever have trouble getting a date? Warner writes that the actress is “rail thin, really pretty, really well-groomed and well-dressed.” The truth is Cox looks a little odd and unreal. At 45, she’s virtually without wrinkles, her lips unnaturally full. She’s copped to Botox in the past (at one point telling an interviewer that she couldn’t move her face for “two or three months” so she’s since stopped). It’s rumored she’s had breast implants (they do seem awfully big for her tiny frame).

Maureen Ryan of the Chicago Tribune wrote of the show’s relationships between the female characters:

Women on this show tend to shout at each other, browbeat each other or simply announce, “Wow, you look like a whore.” All of that claws-out humor is of a piece with the show’s vaguely hostile attitude toward its female characters and their middle-aged dilemmas.

It’s hard to imagine any woman with half a brain wanting to behave that way–even a single woman looking for a date. At 19, maybe. But, really, at 45? You’re much more likely to be talking about your kids while putting on your makeup.

Warner wrote:

A woman like Cox’s Jules — visibly vibrating with self-doubt and thinly-veiled self-loathing, is, it’s fair to say, probably the least likely figure of fantasy to be conjured by women Cox’s age. In fact, she’d be more of a nightmare. But this Cougar beast — sexually aggressive, ever-available, a woman beating a man at his own game — is a fantasy that seems to be selling pretty well right now, at least to (mostly male) studio heads and TV execs and advertisers. Maybe that’s because she’s such a twit: so narcissistic, so superficial, so stunted emotionally, so dependent upon deriving her value from her desirability — her currency — in men’s eyes. It’s girls-gone-wild feminism for 40-somethings. It’s ridiculous and belittling…”

And is it even remotely realistic? A recent health story in Newsweek posed the question: Is it reasonable for women over 50 to expect the same level of sexual satisfaction and drive as a 25-year old? And is that what women really want? Cox’s character (and perhaps Cox herself) is desperate to look and act 20 years younger. That’s not to say the over-40 set doesn’t have great sex, sure they do. But they certainly don’t have to look and act like their teenager daughters to have it. By the time women reach their late 40s or early 50s, they “should be savvy enough to know that feeling sexy is a state of mind, and that a good man doesn’t need a partner to look perfect in lingerie in order for her to be desirable,” write Barbara Kantrowitz and Pat Wingert in that Newsweek story. And they mention the very real challenges that someone like Cox will face both on and off the set: women’s bodies change as they age, no matter how much cosmetic surgery or Pilates you can afford. Our metabolism slows, making it harder to keep off the weight. That’s why, write the authors, “The vast majority of American women over 45 are either overweight or obese. In order to enjoy sex, you have to feel that you’re sexy. That’s not easy if your self esteem is tied to unrealistic images of eternal youth.”

There’s also plenty of medical research (like a 2007 University of Chicago Study published in the New England Journal of Medicine) showing that sexually, women and men in their late 50s through their 80s report many difficulties, including lack of a partner–for women–because of death, divorce and erectile dysfunction.

Changes in hormones levels as women age can affect how amorous they are, as can marital problems and medication. And there are the unavoidable physical changes that come after menopause complicating matters–the fact is, it takes older women longer to get sexually aroused, and sometimes intercourse can be painful or difficult. That’s not to say older women don’t want to have sex and intimacy with men–clearly they do–but it does make Cox’s nyphomaniacal character something of a fantasy. And probably not a woman’s fantasy either.