Is MILF Manor a middle finger to the patriarchy? Or just a slap on the back?

TLC’s latest reality show has a twist. After introducing viewers to a cast of middle-aged women looking for love, the show reveals that the suitors are the sons of the assembled participants. It isn’t the tropical getaway that the women envisioned. Rather, what awaits them is the logistically complicated task of engaging in hanky-panky with the other moms’ sons while rooming with their respective sons, all while attempting to shield their own sons from the other moms. Phew!

MILF Manor features all the trappings of TLC reality. It has larger than life characters, like “Disco Mommy,” a 50-year-old blonde from Orange County with a big bosom and an even bigger libido. There are memorable quotes, like “SoYoung likes them so young”, a response to 51-year-old surgical nurse SoYoung’s admission that she slept with her son’s best friend. But the unconventional arrangement seems to be the show’s main hook.

Audience reactions have been mixed. While some viewers call the program “Oedipal”, others turn to Twitter to gleefully announce their commitment to watching every episode.

But MILF Manor does not strive to make you comfortable. In the first episode, one of the sons reads a note from the production team describing the show as a “dating experiment that will level the playing field”. Indeed, MILF Manor appears to be an act of resistance taking aim at the notion that women lose their desirability and sexual prowess as they age. But if the roles in the show were reversed, that is — if dads were to date each other’s daughters, the show would be met with outrage.

And with good reason. Relationships between older men and younger women are often predatory for a few reasons. First, men have traditionally had access to higher education, higher pay, and higher status than women. The field is gradually being leveled. But, even in relationships with women of a similar age, there exists an imbalance when there is a disparity in education level or professional status. And when the relationship is with a much younger woman, the imbalance is amplified.

Second, women are sexualized at a very young age. Studies show that the human brain isn’t fully developed until 25 years of age. Until then, humans are more likely to engage in risk-taking behavior and exhibit impulsivity. Yet, men of all ages report finding women in their early 20’s to be the most attractive. “College” and “teen” rank among the most popular pornography search terms. An older man can use his experience and developmental-advantages to manipulate, coerce, or abuse a younger woman.

This brings us to the question — can we celebrate the sexuality of aging women within the framework of MILF Manor without condoning men dating much younger women? To do so almost seems hypocritical. Right?

Not exactly. We can draw a line between the two because they are fundamentally different. A vast history of women having younger romantic partners simply doesn’t exist in the Western world. In American heterosexual marriages, only 14.9% consist of a wife older than her husband. Also, relationships between older women and younger men are not plagued by the imbalance that characterizes relationships between older men and younger women.

Furthermore, we hold different attitudes towards the two. Relationships between older men and younger women are romanticized, whereas relationships between older women and younger men are considered taboo. For some reason, it’s easier to believe that a man can truly fall in love with a girl decades his junior, who has precious little to offer in terms of comparable life experience or wisdom (regardless of how intelligent she may be) than to call his behavior predatory. We refuse to acknowledge the elephant in the room that is a grown person having the closest thing to a sexual relationship with a child that the law permits. Or perhaps it’s simply hard to flag a situation as predatory when it is common and normalized.

A relationship between an older woman and a younger man is treated as prima facie suspect. It strikes us as inappropriate or, at best, illogical. We ask: What does she want from him? Why does he like her?

The woman is put through the ringer. If she’s not physically attractive, the relationship is met with mockery. She’s called a “cradle robber” or seen as pathetic. If the older woman is attractive, the relationship is fetishized and sensationalized.

The man becomes the object of concern. We want to save him from the obscene situation before he is irreparably damaged. We want to protect him. And amidst intense scrutiny, abuse is less likely to occur.

But we lack the instinct to protect the younger partner when she is a woman. When a relationship between an older man and a younger woman is criticized, the scorn often falls on the woman. If the man mistreats the woman, she is accused of being naive. If the man is more successful than the woman, she is a “gold digger”.

The bigger problem with MILF Manor, from a feminist perspective, is its fixation on the physical beauty of the mothers. We see close-up shots of toned abs, curvy silhouettes, and lustrous hair. One participant, Charlene, confides that she feels like “the woman who is going to get the least attention” because of her larger body size as compared to the other mothers (note, she’s hardly “big” considering that the average American woman is 5’4” and weighs 170.6 pounds). In all, they are an attractive bunch and it’s hard to watch without thinking: “They look good for their age!”

But, the emphasis on physical appearance reinforces the valuation of women solely on their sexual desirability. For women to age with dignity, we must assess them across a range of characteristics (e.g., charisma, humor, intellect, personal achievements), the same formula that we apply to men. Until then, women will find themselves becoming more invisible, or worse, despised, as they get older and their looks “fade”.

Rather than making a case for women retaining their hotness as they age, MILF Manor depicts women experiencing a last gasp of fun while they hang on to the thread of youth. Portraying the liminal space between MILF-age and old-age, the show indulges our fantasies about capitalizing on that period with no holds barred. But ultimately MILF Manor perpetuates the essentializing of women to hair, boobs, and waist.

Nonetheless, there are other shows that challenge the notion of aging women as irrelevant without reinforcing the reduction of women to their physical appearances. Netflix’s On the Verge follows a group of friends in their 40’s as they navigate current life situations and unexpected changes. In Ava DuVernay’s Queen Sugar, Violet Bordelon is a vivacious family matriarch in her 60’s, married to a 46-year-old. YouTube’s Me and My Grandma is about a grandmother accompanying her granddaughter to Hollywood to pursue their shared dream of becoming actors.

And we are seeing women dating and marrying younger men in real life. Actor Rashida Jones is in a long-term relationship with musician Ezra Koenig, 8-years her junior. Cher is currently 76 and dating a 36-year-old. 40-year-old actor Priyanka Chopra and 30-year-old actor/singer/songwriter Nick Jonas flaunt a disgustingly cute marriage. Of course, the women in these examples are celebrities and they don’t represent a sampling of the average woman. Even so, media and celebrities shape the norms to which the average woman is expected to conform.

But reality TV lags behind. Predictably, a show about real older women living their best lives or bonding with younger partners over shared interests, genuine love, and intellectual challenge wouldn’t do much for ratings. MILF Manor, on the other hand, has taken the headlines by storm. Sadly, the program is less an insurrection of feminist gerontology, and more a circus of the status quo.