I'm sickened by this BusinessWeek report "Cougars Inc.: The Lady Predator Lifestyle" on the growth in commerce focused on the "Lady Predator Lifestyle." When did the term "Cougar" become synonymous with "chicken-hawk"? Are middle aged, sexually active single women who date younger men becoming a stereotype akin to the one projected by the media on older, gay men: moneyed individuals with voracious sexual appetites. If so, does that mean all middle-aged women have to defend themselves from a perception that if they are over 40 and single, they must be easy sexual conquests? Ever since Chaucer conjured up the Wife of Bath, middle aged women have struggled against the perception that they are automatically lascivious so the cougar meme isn't really new; however, must there be unreconstructed sexism encoded in the "cougar lifestyle" marketing message than is necessary to get the point across?

In other words, is all this cougar business good for the crones?