Chelsea’s Wedding “Most Important Thing” in Hillary’s Life Right Now July 5, 2010
Posted by Onely in As If!.Tags: glass ceiling, hillary clinton, marriage mythology, wedding insanity
12 comments
Oh no she didn’t! Oh yes she did. According to BBC, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told Polish television reporters that her daughter Chelsea’s wedding
Truly is the most important thing in my life right now.
Oh good, because that pesky Armenian-Azeri conflict was getting old.
Don’t worry, America–despite being on a whirlwind diplomatic mission to Eastern Europe, Clinton says she has “been able to fit in tastings and dress selections and all the other things the mother of the bride has to do”.
I would expect someone who put eighteen million cracks in the glass ceiling to be imaginative and open-minded about the meaning of a wedding, not to parrot traditional roles rooted in sexism and materialism.
And regardless of whether Chelsea’s ceremony is tacky or tasteful, it should still not be a priority for Clinton. She has a responsibility to the people of the U.S. and the world to prioritize her political obligations and power, for which she fought so hard and for which so many people supported her.
I realize we all have things in our lives to which we attribute unreasonable importance. For me, my persistent oily scalp often seems far more important and devastating than, say, Hezbollah‘s latest hijinks. But here’s the thing–I would never say so out loud. (more…)
Stay Married or Murder Mother Earth! May 13, 2009
Posted by Onely in As If!, Food for Thought, Just Saying..Tags: divorced households, group housing, jianguo liu, living alone, marriage good for environment, marriage mythology, realconcepts, singles bad for environment
17 comments
So apparently singles are bad for the environment, according to this AP article and this RealConcepts blog post.
Households with fewer people are simply not as efficient as those with more people sharing
says ecologist Jianguo Liu at Michigan State, who analyzed the environmental impact of divorce.
Per person, divorced households spent more per person per month for electricity, compared to a married household, as multiple people can be watching the same television, listening to the same radio, cooking on the same stove and or eating under the same lights.
Ok, so here are just some of the points that Liu doesn’t seem to consider:
Singles often generally use less space and smaller cars than married people. A married household may have one person doing laundry downstairs while another person watches TV upstairs. (If a single person can do laundry downstairs and watch TV upstairs at the same time, then their problems are way bigger than the dying planet’s.) Multi-person households need bigger microwaves, bigger laundry machines. Lisa points out that “a single person may be willing to be cold or hot to save energy, which they can do because it won’t affect anyone else in the household”. Moreover, a single person who keeps their heat at a decent temp and gets energy star windows is going to expend less energy than a couple living next door who doesn’t.
Insignificant others: A steppingstone to kids? April 10, 2009
Posted by Onely in Food for Thought, Just Saying., Your Responses Requested!.Tags: biological clock, discrimination against singles, marriage mythology, pairing up to have kids, single and happy, single men want kids, single parent adoption
27 comments
Copious Readers, what does it mean when otherwise Onely people–who don’t mind being single–are looking for a significant other just because they want to have kids? Is this a good reason to look for a significant other? Currently, our world is set up so that it’s a lot harder to raise children if you don’t have a partner. But it’s wrong that our society is set up like that. So are these people supporting a shoddy system when they first get married before having kids? Should more people consider adopting as singles? Or given the current sub-par state of benefits systems for single parents, is that unfair to the children? (more…)
“OneTouch” Ad Commits Two “Isms” in Two Lines March 23, 2009
Posted by Onely in As If!, Everyday Happenings, Heteronormativity, Just Saying..Tags: brad and angelina, diabetes, lesbian marriage, lifescan, marriage mythology, Onetouch, onetouch chris, sexist wedding traditions, single people, singlism in advertising
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(David-i98, Wikicommons)
Usually doctors’ waiting room magazines are where I look for my Brad and Angelina updates, but the other day I happened upon something else: an ad for OneTouch Diabetes Monitor that double-dips into singlism and sexism. Yay!
In the print ad, the headline across the man’s face reads, “Chris. Newly diagonosed. Motivated. Father.” Then in smaller text, Chris himself says,
I’m only three weeks into being a guy with diabetes, so I’m learning to check my blood sugar. Why? Maya, my four and a half year old daughter. I will dance at her wedding.
Book Review: The Challenge of Being Single March 15, 2009
Posted by Onely in book review, Reviews.Tags: bella depaulo, eleanor hoover, health insurance for singles, loneliness, marie edwards, marriage mythology, penguin group, Rachel's Musings, signet publishing, single people, singles' health, taxes on singles, the challenge of being single, thomas wolfe, why aren't you married, women's rights
2 comments
Marie Edwards and Eleanor Hoover. The Challenge of Being Single: For Divorced, Widowed, Separated, and Never-Married Men and Women. Signet, New American Library: New York 1975.
This book review will be done in the style of movie previews.
California, 1971.
IN A WORLD where the ideal woman is still a homemaker and the ideal man her breadwinner, where “computer dating” means you fill out a paper form and send it via snail mail to a company for matching via punch card, where divorced women can’t pay their bills, and where landlords turn away singles and unmarried couples–ONLY ONE WOMAN has the courage to stand up for the rights of single people everywhere. Facing down bitter myths about unpaired people, FEARLESS PSYCHOLOGIST MARIE BABARE EDWARDS launches her workshops “THE CHALLENGE OF BEING SINGLE” through the University of Southern California. Then, with the help of INTREPID JOURNALIST ELEANOR HOOVER, she turns her workshop experiences into a ground-breaking book that, well, judge for yourself from these excerpts. Here’s Edwards in her own words, (more…)
Heteronormaholes On the Prowl! Reach out to your congress reps! February 21, 2009
Posted by Onely in As If!, Take action.Tags: being single, benefits of marriage, feral cats, fiction, marriage mythology, national healthy marriage resource center, no friends, Rachel's Musings
14 comments
A couple years ago, I fed, spayed, and removed an abcess from the tail of a very scared little tabby kitten whose mama had disappeared. I found a home for Fiction with my neighbors, to whom she is a delight. She also comes by every day for snuggles and I’m sure her purr therapy has had added years on to my life.
So why isn’t there a massive ad campaign to encouraging people to improve their well-being by saving and socializing feral cats? Because this hobby isn’t right or comfortable for everyone! DUH. So why is the federal government funding an ad campaign to promote the hobby of marriage? Because the government is Severely Duh-Impaired, that’s why:
Rachel’s post alerted Onely to the federally funded campaign to encourage marriage, as described in this USA Today article. According to the National Healthy Marriage Resource Center, which is spearheading the campaign in response to falling marriage rates, “Young people want ‘happily ever after,’ but lack skills to make marriage work.”
REVIEW: SINGLED OUT, by Bella DePaulo–Why are matrimaniacs matrimaniacs? August 5, 2008
Posted by Onely in book review, Reviews, Singled Out, We like. . ..Tags: bella depaulo, discrimination, heteronormative, marriage mythology, prejudice, single mythology, Singled Out, singlism
4 comments
DePaulo, Bella. Singled Out, How Singles Are Stereotyped, Stigmatized, and Ignored, and Still Live Happily Ever After. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2006
(This is an ongoing, serial review, continued from an earlier post)
In Singled Out, DePaulo theorizes that “matrimaniacs” (people who fixate on the importance of marriage and coupling) belittle single people for the following reason:
Onely.Org 