I have seen a DISTURBING number of posts about how Caroline:
"should be married and having kids, not dating hot boys!"
"is taking advantage of Harry!"
"should know better!"
"is a pedophile!"
"couldn't have anything to talk about with him! she's old! she reads knitting magazines and is like my mom's age!"
"should let someone who deserves harry have him!"
"isn't good enough for him because she's old!"
Well, honestly, if you said any of that: fuck you. No, really. You are being misogynistic. If you don't know what "misogynistic" means, it means
misogyny (adj: misogynistic)
noun
hatred, dislike, or mistrust of women.
Now, before you send a flame going, "LOL STOOPID BITCH, I AM A GIRL I CAN'T HATE WOMEN!" then let me say — yeah, you absolutely can. And not even realize it. That's what the media trains everyone to do from early childhood. It's where bullying comes from. It's what causes anorexia and bulimia. It's why Barbie is an unrealistic body shape that would be literally fatal if it were real. It's why you rarely see women over 45 playing lead roles on television.
And it's why you hate Caroline dating Harry.
It's called "internalized misogyny." It's when girls or women begin to believe certain messages from the media about our own gender, sex, and sexuality, including:
women should be married by their mid-20s or they're "spinsters" and "unlovable"
women are manipulative and only out for themselves
women cannot be trusted to know what's good for them and rely on men for moral guidance
women over 25 have no right to sex or sexuality
women lose their personalities, interests, and identities after marriage/childbirth
women are inherently only valuable when they are younger than 25 and older than 11
women who are either older or more mature are less deserving of male companionship because they are less likely to kowtow to male views
Do you see any similarities between the list of serious misogynistic issues and the general fandom response to "Harroline"?
But here is the truth: women who are either highly educated or financially successful in their 20s are less likely to marry young. Caroline has been working steadily in a high-salary, high-exposure field for years and has absolutely no reason to be "married and having kids." What she IS doing is having a blast, doing what she wants to do and chose to do, and being a secure and independent woman. Which is really all anyone "should" do.
Is Caroline using Harry for fame? Maybe. Is Harry using Caroline for fame? MAYBE. You cannot say unequivocally that Caroline is "using Harry." She's the host of the Xtra Factor, which would be on the air and watched by a huge audience with OR without her romance. Harry is in 1D and is fabulous and super talented and an ABSOLUTELY FUCKING AWESOME BAND, but they also just released a CD. If they wanted to get media exposure for the release of Up All Night, then this has accomplished that goal. Personally, I don't think either of them is "using" the other — Harry has made it clear for AGES that he fancies Caroline — and even if they were, how does it affect your life? It doesn't.
Also, don't even get me started on how the term "taking advantage of" or "using" implies that Caroline is a sexless being who is servicing Harry only for some kind of ulterior motive while Harry is the virtuous young virile hero of a lamb who she's evilly led astray. No. No. Because a] Harry has admitted to his parents having caught him having a THREESOME, so clearly she did not lead him astray NOWHERE, and b] OH MY GOD HARRY IS NOT MORALLY SUPERIOR TO CAROLINE JUST BECAUSE HE HAS A PENIS AADGKADGKK.
Incidentally, a pedophile is a person who is sexually aroused by prepubescent children. Harry is 100% fully finished with puberty and is, for all intents and purposes both legal and physiological, a grown man. He's a young man. But he is not a child. Pedophilia is a serious, serious, serious, SERIOUS, serious matter. And should not be joked about. Ever.
Also, who the fuck cares if Caroline is 32? The age that a woman reaches her sexual prime is 30 — and ends at 40. Men? 17-22. So, uh, Caroline and Harry are BOTH at their sexual peak. I say: get it, both of'em. The sex is probably really good, and Caroline has an absolute right to it even though she's older than you may want to imagine being sexual.
(And if that's because she's around your mom's age: here's a shocker — your mom has sex, too. And also interests! And a personality! She had a life before you and it was just as rich and full and multifaceted and interesting as your life is now, and her life is still as valuable and full and multifaceted and interesting as yours is now. Being a wife or being a mother is NOT a fullstop on being a PERSON.)
"But Harry needs someone he can relate to!" you say.
"We just have a lot in common and get on really well," Harry says.
…Yeah, it really sounds like they have nothing in common and just get on terribly. C'mon, ladies (and lads). Caroline and Harry clearly have things to talk about, and honestly, working in show business can be a major equalizer in terms of age. They go through more similar experiences than Harry does with most girls "his own age" because of the X-Factor commonality and Caroline's track record of working with live TV and the music industry. In truth, Harry is more mature than your average 17-year-old because of HIS work responsibilities, and Caroline is able to be less homebound because of hers. They have plenty in common.
And get on really well.
Caroline is only old enough to be his mother if you think people should actually, legitimately be having — and raising — children at 15, which is also a huge, huge feminist issue in society. Shows like Teen Mom and Pregnant at 16, and movies like Juno, may have normalized the idea that it's a positive to get pregnant and raise a child in one's teens, but those shows are a huge part of the systematic devaluation of women and teenagers and their right to safely learn, understand, and explore their sexuality as people. It is NOT a positive thing to have a baby at fifteen.
So really, biologically? I guess yeah, Caroline could have given birth to him. But that argument is fallacious and really, really bothers me because it's just another sign of a deeply broken ideological system in this fandom.
And world.
You think it's weird because of internalized misogyny.
If their age gap were reversed, however:
George Clooney/Elisabetta Canalis
Leonardo DiCaprio/Blake Lively
Hugh Hefner/ANYONE EVER
Al Pacino/Lucia Sola
David Cross/Amber Tamblyn
Robert Pattinson/Kristen Stewart
Liam Hemsworth/Miley Cyrus
Jason Statham/Rosie Huntington-Whiteley
Every single one of those high-profile relationships (and many, many, many more) features an older man with a younger girlfriend — in some cases, by over FORTY YEARS. Yet no one, not one media outlet, and virtually no fan reports, shows anything but well-wishes and high-fives.
In fact, the response to most older-male/younger-female relationships is a mild, "Looks like he scored a real prize with ___________ [AGE]! They've been spotted having a sexy island vacation on _______, where he plied her with expensive gifts like Chanel ______ and a dinner at _________, where she ate salad."
However, the relationships where the woman is older, such as Harry and Caroline, are received horrifically in the media AND EVEN WORSE within their fanbases.
Other cases include:
Jennifer Lopez/Casper Smart
Demi Moore/Ashton Kutcher
Sam Taylor-Wood/Aaron Johnson
Madonna/Jesus Luz
Barbara Hershey/Naveen Andrews
Selena Gomez/Justin Bieber
The coverage and fan response to these relationships consistently places blame on the female partner and assumes that she has somehow duped the male into seeing her as a sexual being. They negate her validity as a capable person AND his ability to make his own decisions and phrase things with shaming language. The same "island vacation" noted with an older-male couple would be illustrated with an older-female as something akin to,
"_______, [AGE], and her flavor of the moment boytoy _______, [only AGE], try to get away from [SCANDAL] with a weekend trip to ___________. Despite making [FINANCIAL AMOUNT SIGNIFICANTLY LOWER THAN MALE COUNTERPART IN INDUSTRY], _________ was seen doing some errands for his cougar ladylove by picking her up some Chanel _________ and a takeaway dinner from __________, where she ordered salad. Gotta keep trim if she wants to keep up with her young puppy!"
…
So, when a man is older, he has scored a prize (ostensibly, the vagina of a younger woman) and he is treating her to gifts because he is an independent and wants to show her how virile and capable he is. When the woman is older, she's desperately chasing after someone who could automatically do better than her simply because she is older. That's internalized misogyny — and social misogyny — and it IS "hating women."
THAT is what is weird. And gross.
(In fact, the word choice you used of "prowling" automatically assumes that Harry has fallen victim to a predatory, immoral person. Given that he's been very clear that he was the one pursuing the relationship and asking HER out, we know that isn't true. But since she's a woman and older, she MUST be trying to do something sinister by agreeing to date him, right?)
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