Alamaris
I'm afraid that simply isn't true.No female has to allow herself to be manipulated through sexuality, nor does an older woman have to be nor consider herself ‘unappealing’ or invisible just because she is no longer a teenager. It’s not up to another person to determine who we are.
While it certainly isn't the case that all women rely on outside input to compile their selves, many women do, and it's because of that cultural pervasiveness. Not all women are confident enough to just stand up straight and believe in themselves when the world tells them otherwise -- nor are all women strong enough to bat off sexual manipulation, no matter how subtle. It's a great disservice to unconfident women of all ages to assume otherwise.
The clincher for the deck, in my case, is that it arguably depicts a wide panel of human experience, but in its lack of mature and older women it sends a clear message: you don't exist in the world of this deck. As a young and slender woman I see myself frequently illustrated in this deck, as well as the male members of my family, but I don't see my mother, or my aunts, or my grandmother. There are decks out there which I would like to see older people but don't expect them (vampire tarots, for example, or anime tarots), but in the case of a deck where older people could have been depicted but aren't...well. I didn't buy the Wildwood because I didn't like it on a number of levels -- mostly artistic, but I'm also not a large fan of this genre of deck -- and this was simply one more reason.
It certainly doesn't mean that other people aren't allowed to like it and derive great depth and usefulness from it, and I'm glad that so many people were able to afford a "Greenwood" if they missed out on the original (despite the differences). It's an important deck that holds and important place, but I feel it could have been executed much better, and not just in the area we're discussing.