Women Should Be Valued for More Than Their Youth

Get ready to do a double take: On a Fox News special on “beta-marriages” (young couple who test the “Forever and Always” waters before saying “I do”), commentator Geraldo Rivera said that the single most important thing that a woman brings to a marriage is her youth.

Yes, you heard that right: It’s the 21st century, and people still believe that a woman should only be valued for being a fragile young thing and nothing else.

All we can do is sigh.

Obviously, there’s a multitude of problematic things about Rivera’s statement, but first and foremost: The obsession with youth (especially young women) needs to stop. There are very few certainties in this world, but one of them is that every second of every day, you’re getting older. Youth is fleeting (which Rivera should know by now at the ripe old age of 71), and we need to stop telling people that that’s a bad thing.

Have thoughts on this? So does Jessica Bennett. The TIME reporter wrote a great response to Rivera’s statement and also opened up the question of why youth is so important in our society.

Cover image courtesy of Shutterstock.

By Lily Herman on August 8, 2014
Lily is the Managing Editor at HelloFlo, where she oversees all editorial and social media operations for the brand. In addition to her work at HF, she's co-founder and CEO of The Prospect, the largest student-run college access organization in the world. Her work has been featured on TIME, Forbes, Newsweek, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Mashable, USA TODAY and Lifehacker. You can perpetually find her on Twitter.