This article is written entirely from a male perspective. As a 17 year old girl I find inflammatory the way the female view point is completely absent. I think you will find that the vast majority of young women my age, myself included, are not attracted to "older" men. I also don't understand why you keep referring to "evolution". In no way would it be biologically advantageous for someone my age to procraete with an old man. You seem to forget that although men may generally remain fertile for longer than women, male fertility still declines with age. This is evident in the fact that their are increased health risks for offspring of older fathers as well as older mothers. The desirability of older men to young women only makes sense within a culture where stature and power are desirable attributes, and are more commonly held by older males. In a purely biological sense, it would make sense for young women to have children with young men who are most fertile and capable of handling the physical demands of raising a child. As the treatment of the sexes becomes more equal women have morer power and autonomy. They no longer need to rely on male counterparts to determine their position in society. Relationships are increasingly built on companionship, respect, and shared interests which are more commonly found in similar age partnerships.
I think there's a drift in your comment from "older men" to "old men".
There's a difference between saying that young women (which probably includes up to age 25 or so) might prefer 40 or 50 year old men, and saying that young women prefer 70 year old men.
Your general point might be correct-- my impression is that to the extent that there's any truth in the evo psych view of human mating, it applies rather narrowly at the margin, and most people don't live like that.
Why don’t men go for younger women? That’s not quite accurate, because they do, but we seem to have a cultural norm against girls who have recently exited puberty, even though they are highly fertile. Some time in the last few hundred years, we reached a cultural norm that as a man gets older, it’s increasingly less appropriate for him to be with a sixteen year old. That’s not long enough to override thousands of years of evolution, so what could have contributed to it?
The best solution I’ve heard started by looking at who benefits from this norm [older women] and wondering whether they could have contributed to it. After all, the strength of this norm has been increased in the last sixty years or so, which coincides with the period in which women’s power has increased.
One alternative I heard recently is that it doesn’t make sense biologically to go for women who are recently post-pubescent, as they don’t make the best mothers. Instead, a slightly older woman [mid-twenties] makes sense to be the best mother. This is perfectly plausible.
Another, less plausible, suggestion I’ve heard is that it’s to do with mental capacity. I find this unconvincing because we have few objections to a high-status man dating a beautiful but low-intellect woman.
Thoughts?