So many words, yet so little

There was talk on a radio show that I often listen to on my way to work about Ivana Trump getting married to her boyfriend who is quite a few years younger to her. They kept calling her a “couger”. Now, in reality couger is a mountain lion or panther – a beautiful animal native to the Americas. But here the reference is more of an older woman who preys on younger men. Note the word is even the #1 buzz word according to Time.

This got me thinking how many words we use to describe woman’s exploits and some of it is just not fair ...A married man dating another woman is just a cheat but his girlfriend becomes a mistress, if the situation were reversed the man still doesn’t have an equivalent to the word mistress while the women would be called a b**ch. Again the word is not ugly by itself – it’s just the female of the dog specie – an animal who is loyal and cute; but the connotations it draws in the minds of people is of a hard core woman who will do anything to get what she wants.

Of course, you might argue, that one should love being called a couger for the matter of empowerment and all. I mean here is this reversal of the typical December-May romance. But calling any human being with an animal name is never in my books a good thing? Not that an animal is anyways better or worse than humans, it just doesn’t seem fair to either species. What say you?

(image from: http://weblogs.cltv.com)