Day Four: National Unmarried and Single Americans Week September 22, 2010
Posted by Onely in Guest Bloggers, Guest Posts, single and happy, Singles Resource, Your Responses Requested!.Tags: bella depaulo, Living Single, National Unmarried and Single Americans Week, Psychology Today
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So what did you do today to celebrate National Unmarried and Single Americans Week? We discovered some new pro-singles blogs that we’ll be bringing to your attention over the next couple of weeks. We’re sure you’re up to similar good things and we want to hear about it — so please let us know in the comments below!
We hope you’ll visit the fourth stop on the second annual Blog Crawl for NUSA Week: Christina and Lisa of Onely (hey, that’s us!) post on Bella DePaulo’s Living Single series on Psychology Today!
We’ll be linking to our fellow singles-savvy bloggers throughout the week. Check back here for the latest links.
— Lisa and Christina
Day Three: National Unmarried and Single Americans Week September 21, 2010
Posted by Onely in Guest Bloggers, Guest Posts, single and happy, Singles Resource, Your Responses Requested!.Tags: all things single, bella depaulo, National Unmarried and Single Americans Week, rachel buddeberg
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So what did you do today to celebrate National Unmarried and Single Americans Week? Lisa went trail running for the first time with a group of strangers she connected with through Meetup. Christina posted a link to the Alternatives to Marriage Project on her Facebook page and wished all her friends happy Singles week. We’re sure you’re up to similar good things and we want to hear about it — so please let us know in the comments below!
We hope you’ll visit the third stop on the second annual Blog Crawl for NUSA Week: Rachel Buddeberg of Rachel’s Musings posts on All Things Single by Dr. Bella DePaulo!
We’ll be linking to our fellow singles-savvy bloggers throughout the week. Check back here for the latest links.
— Lisa and Christina
Day Two: National Unmarried and Single Americans Week September 20, 2010
Posted by Onely in Guest Bloggers, Guest Posts, single and happy, Singles Resource, Your Responses Requested!.Tags: National Unmarried and Single Americans Week, single gal in the city
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So what did you do today to celebrate National Unmarried and Single Americans Week? Christina wrote about the “Family” and Medical Leave Act for change.org, and Lisa enjoyed a nine-mile trek in the woods with a good friend. We’re sure you’re up to similar good things and we want to hear about it — so please let us know in the comments below!
We hope you’ll visit the second stop on the second annual Blog Crawl for NUSA Week: Melissa Braverman of Single Gal in the City posts on Cupid’s Pulse!
We’ll be linking to our fellow singles-savvy bloggers throughout the week. Check back here for the latest links.
— Lisa and Christina
Happy National Unmarried and Single Americans Week! September 19, 2010
Posted by Onely in Guest Bloggers, Guest Posts, single and happy, Singles Resource.Tags: alternatives to marriage project, National Unmarried and Single Americans Week
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Copious Readers, it’s that time again — time to celebrate our single status with National Unmarried and Single Americans Week! We at Onely would like to know what you’re doing to celebrate (and if you’re not American, we want you to celebrate too) — so please let us know what you’re doing to make this week special in the comments below!
Although we’re sure you’re busy with other celebratory activities, we hope you’ll also make some time to follow the second annual Blog Crawl for National Unmarried and Single Americans Week, sponsored by SingleWomenRule. We’ve been graciously invited to participate as writers-for-a-day on Bella DePaulo’s Psychology Today Living Single Blog (look for us there 9/22) — and we’re delighted to be a part of what promises to be a very exciting conversation!
In the meantime, be sure to hit the first stop on our crawl: Nicky Grist, executive director of the Alternatives to Marriage Project posts on SingleWomenRule!
We’ll be linking to our fellow singles-savvy bloggers throughout the week. Check back here for the latest links.
(full press release after the jump)
Men Can Stop Rape, But Not Singlism September 17, 2010
Posted by Onely in As If!.Tags: different prices for singles, discrimination against singles, men can stop rape, singlism
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Three awesome teenage men are receiving awards for their work towards stopping violence against women. And you can go see them receive their Men of Strength awards at the National Press Club in DC on September 22nd: for 125 dollars if you’re single and 75 dollars if you’re coupled.
When I got the email announcing the event, I was impressed with and happy for Anwar Muhammad Nur, Jonathan Wade, and Terrill Wise, who speak out against abuse of women and negative images of masculinity, despite social and media pressure that says alpha males are violent males with minimal emotion. Men Can Stop Rape is right to honor precocious, socially aware teens like these. I was so impressed I thought I might want to actually attend the ceremony, but then I read the not-so-small print:
Tickets
$100 per person
$150 per pair
$125/$175 at the door
Oh, Men Can Stop Rape or The National Press Club or Unaffiliated Event Organizer! How you hurt my heart. I will not be attending your event, not because I’m mad about the discrimination against singles (though I am disappointed), but because my personal economic situation forces me to stick to double-digit nights out. Which I guess I could, if I were part of a pair.
“But wait!” I thought, (more…)
Onely Throws A Hissy Fit September 2, 2010
Posted by Onely in As If!, Everyday Happenings, Food for Thought.Tags: cat in the garbage, Mary Bale, new york magazine
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The No. 1 villain in all of England right now is 45-year-old unmarried bank employee Mary Bale, who was caught on video approaching a cat on the street, petting it, and then, like someone who has completely lost her mind, throwing it into a lidded garbage can.
Yes, and right now the No. 1 villain in the singles’ advocacy blogosphere (or at least, in Onely) is New York Magazine, which decided that Bale’s unmarried status was relevant enough to put it in the clause describing the sort of person Bale is.
Am I overreacting? (Who me, overreact?) My mom called while I was writing this and I threw a tantrum over the phone, ranting about how no one would ever write,
The No. 1 villain in all of England right now is 45-year-old married bank employee Mary Bale, who was caught on video approaching a cat on the street. . .
My mom suggested that maybe, had Bale been married, the article would have said, “Mary Bale, married mother of three, threw a cat in the garbage. . .” Perhaps. But if so, why is marital status pertinent to a description of a person’s actions? The same question could be asked about the relevance age and employment, but this isn’t an anti-agism or anti-jobism blog, it’s an anti-singlism blog. And I say that it’s singlist to put Bale’s unmarried status right there in the first sentence.
The placement is all wonky. “Unmarried” on the heels of “45-year-old” gears the reader up to form a judgment about Bale’s unmarried status, based on her age–usually a negative judgment, given the prevalence of the stereotype of the over-forty (or god help us, over-thirty-five) woman who has forfeited her chance to marry and therefore become desexualized or asexualized (and, by extension, forfeited some of her power in a patriarchal society).
Then almost immediately after her age and marital status, we’re told that this woman is also someone who did something insane and evil. This is just another chance for readers to subconsciously link “unmarried” with “crazy and/or deficient”.
Author Dan Amira must have just gotten confused–he forgot that unmarried women don’t throw away cats, they collect them.
–Christina
Photo credit: Mattieb
The Most Onely Video Ever August 12, 2010
Posted by Onely in film review, Reviews, We like. . ..Tags: andrea dorfman, how to be alone, tanya davis
9 comments
Performance poet Tanya Davis is Christina’s new favorite Lyrical Person, bumping from the top slot the folks who came up with “country as a turnip green” (sorry, Richochet). Davis’ astounding poem “How to Be Alone” was made into a video by also-awesome filmmaker Andrea Dorfman in 2009, but Onely only just learned about it. Thanks to our Copious Reader Oriole-2 for flagging it! She didn’t mince words when she described the film as “beautiful, true, affirming, encouraging and real. . . grounded, calm, inspiring, and hope-giving.” Onely agrees with her on all counts — you should definitely check it out for yourself:
Oriole-2 also noted that the film does a good job of avoiding any trace of defensiveness. We think this is an important point. Even though we don’t (usually) write about singles/aloneness/oneliness issues out of defensiveness, readers sometimes misinterpret our message as a defensive one — and it’s difficult to find a pro-Onely position so clearly articulated as Davis’s, where there’s little room for anyone to misinterpret her life-affirming message as anything but. (Or so we thought, until we perused the reader comments in response to this Salon.com post about the video… hmph!)
Copious Readers, what do you think?
–Christina and Lisa
Jon Stewart Misses Chance to End All Singlism As We Know It August 6, 2010
Posted by Onely in As If!, Food for Thought.Tags: california marriage, jon stewart, prop 8, singlism, the daily show
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In the 05 August 2010 episode of The Daily Show, Jon Stewart broke my heart. I’ll explain why at the end of this post. I’m not upset because he kind of called singles “loners with terrible hygiene”. I’m not sure that statement is a bloggable offense. (Copious readers, check out the full episode here — the problematic part begins at the 5:30 mark — and let us know what you think.) Daily Show correspondents regularly use over-the-top, obviously untrue statements to make their opposite points, and in this case the point was to make fun of stupid Fox News commentators and greedy, homophobic employers–always a noble endeavor.
I do feel concern that because the larger joke was not about singles per se, the trashing of singles is more peripheral to the joke, and therefore less likely to appear blatantly ironic and more likely to reinforce negative stereotypes of singles. But I’ll let it slide because one, I love Jon Stewart, and two, there’s more context to the joke that makes the line less harsh. Here’s how the bit plays out:
Stewart reports that a San Francisco court overturned the ban on same sex marriage. We then see Neil Cavuto of Fox News whining that married gays will interpret this ruling “as if that they’ve got the green light for full benefits coverage” (um, well, yes) and that therefore employers–in the face of this onslaught of newly married gay employees with spouses in tow demanding to be treated like actual married people just because they’re actually married–will “need to examine their costs” and face financial and hiring difficulties as a result.
Here Stewart makes the face that you’re probably making now. He summarizes Cavuto’s position as follows: “A gay person with a spouse just costs more. That’s why we can’t do gay marriage!” Then he continues in his usual satirical strain:
Wouldn’t anyone with a spouse cost more? . . . Neil Cavuto is suggesting that we should only hire single people!
And that’s when I got all excited–“Yes, yes,” I thought, “Here it comes! (more…)
Daily Dose of Fluff: Quotes About Relationship Status August 4, 2010
Posted by Onely in Everyday Happenings.Tags: relationship metaphors
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Dr. Mardy Grothe. I Never Metaphor I Didn’t Like: A comprehensive compilation of history’s greatest analogies, metaphors, and similies. HarperCollins, New York, 2008.
Each of the below metaphors reflect truths and stereotypes in the way we view relationship status. Some are singlist, some are couplist, some are sexist, and some are just plain accurate, but they’re all great metaphors.
–Christina
I want to get married but I look at husbands the same way I look at tattoos. I want one, but I can’t decide what I want, and I don’t want to be stuck with something I’d grow to hate and have surgically removed. —Margaret Cho
Relationships are hard. It’s like a full-time job, and we should treat it like one. If your boyfriend or girlfriend wants to leave you, they should give you two weeks’ notice. There should be severance pay, and before they leave you, they should have to find you a temp. –Bob Ettinger
I always compare marriage to communism. They’re both institutions that don’t conform to human nature, so you’re going to end up with lying and hypocrisy. —Bill Maher (more…)
You Don’t Know Onely August 2, 2010
Posted by Onely in As If!, Food for Thought.Tags: being onely, heteronormahole, misconceptions about singles, singlism, we love being single
10 comments
There’s a lot that you don’t know about Onely. And by “you”, we don’t mean YOU, our loyal Copious Readers, but rather the occasional reader who happens upon or hears about this site and thinks she grasps the concept of singles’ rights advocacy–but doesn’t. Despite our best efforts to write clearly and simply so that even heteronormaholes can understand Oneliness, there is always That Person who asks, “So, why are you so bitter at men?” or “Why don’t you like married people?” or “So you plan on being single forever then?” or, most bizarre, “Why do you hate children?”
So here we have listed and addressed these misconceptions (again). Eventually some of the items may hyperlink to future posts containing more detail (and/or ranting). Feel free to add to the list!
Common Misconceptions (CMs) about The Onely Creed
1. CM: We hate marriage or married people.
REALITY: Actually we just hate that marriage is overprivileged in our laws and culture.
2. CM: We hate children.
REALITY: Children are fine (baby showers, not so much). And not wanting our own kids might even help us enjoy other kids even more.
3a. CM: We hate men.
REALITY: Well, ok, sometimes we do hate men. But only the ones who deserve it.
3b. CM: We hate women.
REALITY: See 3a 🙂
4. CM: We intend to be single the rest of our lives and have written off all possibility of a Seepie relationship evermore.
REALITY: We may or may not be single for the rest of our lives. We don’t really care either way. PLONK PLONK PLONK PLONK! (What’s that, you ask? Oh, it’s the sound of heteronormaholes all over the world falling out of their chairs.)
5. CM: Singlism means advocating for singles in a good way, because it ends with Ism.
REALITY: Singlism means discrimination against singles in a bad way, because it ends with Ism. We know that not only heteronormaholes make this mistake, so we offer this handy mnemonic to help our readers remember: “Singlism is ABIAIRAOSNAIF”. Singlism is a bad Ism, as in Racism, Ageism, or Sexism, not as in Feminism.
6. CM: Singles’ advocates think Singlism is as destructive as racism. It’s not, so we should just shut up.
REALITY: We know that singlism is not as destructive as racism. Schoolyard bullying is not as bad as murder, but does that mean we should ignore schoolyard bullying?
7. CM: You can call yourself Onely just because you’re single.
REALITY: If you’re single and you are constantly searching for validation from people who are in your “dating pool” (men if you’re a hetero woman, women if you’re a lesbian, men if you’re a gay man … etc. etc. — you get the picture), then you are not Onely, and please don’t call yourself Onely, because it gives us the willies.
–Christina and Lisa
Photo Credit: Move the Clouds
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