Aitana Sánchez-Gijón and Maxi Iglesias, an age difference that is not new (but still scandalizes)

BarcelonaWhen in a relationship the older one is the man, that age difference is transparent in the eyes of society. In fact, it is something so normalized and so insignificant in terms of social controversy that people don't even notice it unless someone specifically points it out to them. Fortunately, nowadays, some feminists with some standing on social media raise their voices when some rich/famous/powerful man –or all three at once– starts dating a young woman who is the same age –or younger!– as his own daughters. But, well, the percentage of people who publicly complain about that age difference is infinitesimal. And mind you, there are angles from which to criticize it... From the secular heritage of machismo that the relationship represents to the inequality in terms of power it embodies or to the medium-term harm that it will cause her, to name just three examples.

The same does not happen when the older one in the binomial is her. And if you don't believe it, do a simple test. How many people invited you to talk in a WhatsApp group about the 50-year age difference between Silvio Berlusconi and his last girlfriend, Marta Fascina, with whom he dated until his death in 2023? None, right? On the other hand, even though they are much less famous than the former president of the Italian Republic and are less than half the age difference of him and Fascina, how many people sent you a message about Aitana Sánchez-Gijón and Maxi Iglesias kissing in the street

? Surely quite a few, right? Certainly many more than in the previous example, which was none...

That today the situation is still this way is worrying. That so many people still feel fascination for something as normal as an older woman and a younger man being mutually attracted makes one think a lot about the patterns from which our fellow citizens conceive relationships. They seem to assume that the only possible desire is that which is professed for young women, and therefore, they cannot understand that a man might be attracted to an older woman. And the women who criticize it? Aren't they indirectly assuming that a young man cannot be genuinely interested in them? Why do they only see obscure intentions? This poor self-concept they show demonstrates the inertia of people after centuries of heteropatriarchal empire. And mind you, this is not a criticism of one or the other. Quite the opposite. It is an invitation to look at it from the outside and to help them move forward on the path they still have to travel. A definitively liberating path.

A long history

The strongest part of the case is that cases like Maxi Iglesias and Aitana Sánchez-Gijón's are not new at all. The history of social chronicles is full of love affairs where she was older. But it seems they haven't made much of an impact judging by everything that has been heard in this latest case shown to us by the magazine Lecturas. We will not use the verb uncover on this page, as some have done, which sounded like they were talking about a state secret or a corruption case instead of a relationship between two adults on equal terms...

To talk about famous relationships where she was older than him, we would have to go back to the extramarital relationships of great monarchs in history, some of the first women who could decide more or less freely what they wanted their destiny to be. The relationship, in the middle of the 18th century, of the Russian empress Catherine the Great with Grigori Potemkin stands out, her first great love and also her ally, who helped her achieve great political objectives during her reign. Even after their love affair failed, which happened quickly. They got to know each other over more than 10 years until their relationship began. She was 10 years older than him. They never lost contact after breaking up. In fact, there are historians who have considered that his death left her devastated because she considered him irreplaceable.

(2017). When the woman is older and more powerful than the man, is not even a friendship well regarded?

Victoria & Abdul (2017) narrates it very well. When the woman is older and more powerful than the man, is not even a friendship well regarded?

Demi Moore, brave precursor

But these dynamics did not stop in past centuries. During the 20th century, we preserve in memory the uproar that Demi Moore's marriage to Ashton Kutcher caused. Although he was already a television star, the 16-year age difference was too much for them to be left to live peacefully in the early 2000s. She was 41 and he was 25 when they started. They were together from 2003 until they officially divorced in 2013. The criticism was furious, as she explained in her memoirs. Although public pressure did not contribute to the relationship lasting, they shared ten years together. They are to be thanked that, in the face of constant pressure and criticism, they always appeared together at all public events they could. Far from hiding, they defended their love. She, who already had three daughters with Bruce Willis, also wanted to have children with Kutcher, but a miscarriage when she was six months pregnant – they had already chosen a name for the child – was a blow that they found very difficult to recover from. Rumors of infidelity on his part also undermined the relationship.

Another of the great examples of a relationship where she is older and this is unbearable for the general public is that of the Macron couple. To think that a man capable of presiding over the French Republic is dominated by an aggressive woman, as is usually suggested, is almost entering the realm of fantasy. She is 24 years older than him. The relationship has always been a way to attack him politically. In fact, the hatred she generates for having a younger and so relevant man has led some informants on social media to present her as a trans woman. The Macrons are the same age as Donald Trump and Melania. The difference in the amount of criticism they receive for this same reason, one and the other, is abysmal. And shameful.

To all guilds

The celebrity scene is full of other examples of couples where she was older. Actors Hugh Jackman and Deborra-Lee Furness, a now-ended couple after 27 years of marriage, were 13 years apart. Actors Jason Momoa and Lisa Bonet were together for 17 years and broke up in 2022. She was 12 years older than him. And of course, we can't overlook all the boyfriends Madonna has had over the years. If it was already commented on in 1999 that the singer would pair up with Guy Ritchie and get pregnant because he was 10 years younger than her, imagine everything that has come since, in which the queen of pop was even older and her boyfriends were younger. Mariah Carey's relationship with the father of her children, Nick Cannon, who was ten years younger than her, or, in our country, Shakira's with Piqué, who were also ten years apart, also didn't go unnoticed for this reason.

People who tend to find relationships where she is much younger to be fine must be quite lost when there is a much younger woman in the equation, but on the other side there isn't an older man but an older woman, as is the case with actress Sarah Paulson and her partner Holland Taylor, who are 32 years apart and have been together for ten years. The same must happen to them when the couple is formed by an old and powerful man with a younger person, but this person is another man, as is the case with designer Calvin Klein and his boyfriend, Kevin Baker – 33 and 83 years old, respectively –. I am sure they do not like these couples, even though they resemble so much those they usually consider so normal. Watch out, in the end what might be happening to them is that they don't like anything that isn't exactly what represents the consecration of all their heteropatriarchal power. Watch out, they don't like anything that isn't the model in which they can freely dispose of what the world puts at their disposal without having to give explanations. Watch out, it might not be that they are profoundly convinced that the only ones who have the right to do what they want – even with the lives of others! – are them...