It’s a Jerk Move to Make Fun of a Woman’s Age, Like This Emperor Did
It is rude in police society to ask a woman her age. A man who jokes about a woman’s age is deemed not only ungentlemanly, but a jerk. To be sure, when examined logically, it is ridiculous to consider one’s age an embarrassment. However, in a society that exalts youth and degrades age, and often (illegally) values youth over experience at the workplace, such hangups are understandable. As The Washington Post’s Miss Manners put it: “that question should not be asked of anyone except children“.
Women have often been judged based on their looks, and the notion that a woman’s beauty, fertility, and desirability, diminish with age was and remains widespread. Such perceptions made many women feel insecure. Those same perceptions were also often seen by some jerk guys as an opportunity to make fun of and crack cruel age-based jokes at women’s expense. Sometimes those jokes backfired. As seen below, an emperor died at the hands of a woman whose age he made fun of, when she failed to see the humor.
