Hollywood's Double Standard: Why Aniston is "Unlucky in Love" but Clooney is "Hollywood's Most Eligible Bachelor"

At forty-one years of age, Jennifer Aniston is holding up well. She's fit and beautiful with a body most twenty-year olds would love to have. She is also one of Hollywood's A-list golden girls in high demand. She is independently wealthy, a savvy business woman by all accounts, is never seen looking glum or unhappy and frequently expresses joy and contentment with her life. Friends and co-workers regularly laud Jennifer as an all around great girl, a loyal friend and fantastic co-worker.

So, why is it then, that the lovely Jennifer Aniston has been consistently painted by the tabloids as unlucky in love, or worse, clingy and desperate, when her tabloid counterpart, George Clooney , nearly ten years older than she is, by the way, is consistently referred to as Hollywood's most eligible bachelor and the sexiest man alive?

Of course, it doesn't help Jennifer's "unlucky in love" status when she's had her husband, Brad Pitt, snatched right out from under her nose by sultry siren and man-eater, Angelina Jolie. A woman scorned seems to arouse sympathy in all of us, that's for sure. But, Jennifer has said publicly, many times in fact, that she does not see herself as a victim and is happy to be single and unattached in Hollywood.

She has never had a shortage of suitors either. The affable Vince Vaughn helped her to bounce back from the break-up of her marriage to Brad Pitt and was, as she put it, "a heart defibrillator". From there she dated handsome British model, Paul Sculfor,musician, John Mayer and has most recently been linked to Scottish actor and everybody's favorite hunk, Gerard Butler.

Since then, Vince Vaughn has moved onto marriage, Paul Sculfor has moved on to others, John Mayer has....... well, you know the story with John Mayer. And steamy, Gerard Butler has moved on with anybody he damn well pleases. But, is that necessarily worthy of negative commentary on Jennifer Aniston as unlucky in love?

On the other hand, in those same five years, George Clooney has been linked to no less than three different women - that have actually been documented, that is. There was the lovely little Vegas cocktail waitress, Sarah Larson. Then, there was the Miami cocktail waitress, Lucy Wolvert. Then, there were rumblings of a string of miscellaneous cocktail waitress and bartender flings sprinkled in here and there. And now, George is with current girlfriend, Italian television presenter and drop-dead gorgeous, Elisabetta Canalis.

George's relationships generally last just over a year and in many cases a mere few months before he moves on to another starry-eyed thirty year old waiting to take their place on his arm at the next red carpet event. So what gives?

Why do we allow George Clooney and others of his ilk, permission to age in Hollywood with no interest in marriage or long term commitment whatsoever, but we will not allow someone like Jennifer Aniston or any other woman, frankly, to do the same?

Could it be that somewhere in our collective psyche we still expect men to be men and women to remain chaste or get married and have children? In spite of all that we may say in our society to the contrary, it rather seems that way.

Of course, I have no problem whatsoever with men being men. Nor do I have a problem with women remaining chaste before they marry and have children, if that is what they choose to do. What I do have a problem with is that in the year 2010, fifty years after our supposed age of enlightenment during the 1960's, where we ushered in the braless society, birth control pills and women demanding equal pay for equal work, we're still living with a double standard.

Particularly in Hollywood, where liberals are hell bent on pushing the envelope and tearing down every single social and moral standard we have in the name of art and creative expression or worse yet, supposed progressive thought. It all seems just a wee bit hypocritical if you ask me.

But then, no one is asking me and perhaps that's just as well. But, if we could just let Jen Aniston be middle aged, single and happy without shaking our heads with a sympathetic tsk, tsk, tsk? That would be even better.

Sources: Dailymail.uk.co

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