This content was created by Suzanne Noble. This content was uploaded by Suzanne Noble. This is a YouTube video excerpt titled "The biggest challenge for older women? Older men" (posted 2023-01-30). It features a single speaker giving a personal monologue about challenges faced by older women—especially post‑menopausal women—contrasting their renewed energy, interests, and adaptability with many men of similar age who struggle after retirement, lack hobbies and friendships, and may become depressed; the speaker explains how this disparity affects relationships and why some women choose to remain single.
Chapters
One of the biggest challenges we face as older women— I'm speaking personally here, of course— is older men. Because whilst many of the women that I know, now that they're post-menopause, their kids have left home, are really entering into this next stage of life with enthusiasm and wonderful spirit and using this time of life to perhaps engage in creative activities, do all the stuff that they wanted to do but perhaps had to postpone because of raising kids, having a family, all of that, which takes lots of time and energy. And so at this stage of life, they're really excited and full of just enthusiasm for life, whereas many of the men that I meet of my own age are exactly the opposite. They've placed so much time and investment in their work that now that they've retired or they're coming up to retirement, or they just are lost, they don't know what to do. They don't and haven't cultivated any hobbies. Many of them have very few friends, and as a result of that, there's a huge disparity in Well, in our energy, in our enthusiasm, in our curiosity. And as a result of that, I know many women just prefer to be single even though they would like to be with a partner. They struggle because of the fact that they want and still desire and still feel that they have all of this value and all of this stuff that they want to do, whereas many of the men don't. They, they are just kind of a bit lost, and I think it's a real challenge for both sexes because of course, yes, we understand, you know, it is difficult once you've entered this stage of life for many of us, but I suspect for women it's slightly different in that we've gone through biological changes throughout most of our lives. We've, you know, had periods, menopause, post-menopause, Some of us have had kids, all that sort of thing. So we're used to the kind of ups and downs going on in our bodies, but men very often are not. And when their testosterone starts to deplete, or when they've left work so they feel that they don't have much to do or they don't have much interest, then we deal with it in very, very different ways. I think a lot of men just generally get quite depressed, and women just kind of get on with it because, you know, that's what we do.
