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Single Women: So What If They’re Over Fifty? January 5, 2013

Posted by Onely in As If!, STFU, Your Responses Requested!.
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19 comments

flickr-3512472429-hdSo apparently now there is yet another term to describe women who behave in a certain way: Before it was Cougar, meaning an older woman who dates younger men (implication: these women must be preying on younger men, because why would the guys be attracted them of their own accord?) . Now according to this article flagged by our reader Iolanda, as well as other articles, we have SWOFTY. This means a single woman over fifty.

Copious readers, is this offensive or empowering to women, and particularly to single women? I say offensive, and here’s why:

Where is the term for single men over fifty? A Google search for SMOFTY returned the result: Did you mean SWOFTY? . . . Um, no, sigh.

And there’s more: The term SWOFTY markets itself as a badge of honor for single women, but really it objectifies and classifies women in a three-for-one deal: according to their relationship status, gender, and age. It’s the same old sexism, singlism, and ageism that has been going on in most cultures since forever, just re-labelled. Even the fact that we get surprised by the idea that single women over fifty can be vibrant and happy — so surprised that we have to give them a name — shows just how ingrained the stereotype of the drab spinster is. It’s a stereotype we need to talk in full adult words about, not cutesy acronyms that keep reminding people how the existence of happy single older women is surprising.

And no, SWOFTY does not do anything to increase the dialogue about or dismantle the spinster stereotype (more…)

Can Couples Advocate for Singles’ Rights? December 30, 2012

Posted by Onely in Food for Thought, Take action, Your Responses Requested!.
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18 comments

three-mississippi-sandhall-crane-flock-together-in-the-gras_w725_h483

For more than four years now, Lisa and I have spent a good deal of time objecting, advocating, railing, protesting, blathering, and even (to our shame) name-calling, all in the name of singles’ rights. We’ve been doing it every since we realized that, at the time, all pro-singles writing said it was GREAT to be happily single, but only because it made you more appealing so you could get a mate.

Lisa and I, two single women in our 30s, thought that was stupid. What if, we proposed, it was great to be happily single, period?  We were both happy, and single, and didn’t care whether we’d find a mate or not. So we started this blog, which has since been quoted or cited in several major print and online publications (and I say that only as an example of how vehemently we pushed our topic in people’s faces). 

Our question to you, Copious Readers, is: would we, could we, have ever had the same revelation–and the same work ethic–if one or both of us had been coupled? Or by extension, can a coupled/married person ever advocate for singles’ rights as passionately, accurately, or extensively  as an unmarried or socially single person? If yes, under what circumstances? If no, why not?

By singles’ rights, we mean that the U.S. government ought to stop discriminating against half its adult populace. We call this institutionalized singlism.

By singles’ rights, we also mean that people–regular people like you and Lisa and me–need to recognize that it’s not acceptable to treat single people like losers in the game of life. (“You’re not married yet? Awww.”) We call this cultural singlism. Examples are all over this blog and all over the blog of social scientist Bella DePaulo whom I linked to above, so I’m not going to retell the stories here. (I will give you some keywords though: Immature. Selfish. Desperate. Cats. Dead. Eaten by.)

Onely’s opinion is that anyone, aaaaaanyone, with an open-minded, critical-thinking type of brain, plus a (more…)

You Choose: Best New Relationship Signifier of the 21st Century! December 17, 2012

Posted by Onely in Dating, Everyday Happenings, Food for Thought.
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2 comments

DSC01397.edit-thumbMany single people date. They date in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, 100s. In a previous post we declared that the words boyfriend and girlfriend sound stupid when applied to people over the age of oh, say, ten. For example, stick a little gender neutrality in there and look what we’ve got:

Thanks so much for inviting me to your cocktail party, Jane, but I’ll have to pass because I’ll be in Aruba with my childfriend.

Cheers to reader Terry T for pointing out that icky yet accurate rhetorical twist. Onely’s boyfriend/girlfriend post also got other great responses (thanks to Lola for companion, my favorite because it works for people *and* cats) from people who felt passionate about this troubling gap in the English language–and, in fact, in languages around the world (thanks to Beth ODonnell for beau and paramour). So now we here at Onely are asking our Copious Readers to choose The Best New Relationship Signifier of the 21st Century!

What term should we use to describe that person (or persons) with whom we have a unique, committed combined emotional, sexual, and (perhaps) financial relationship outside of marriage? Because of the complicated, multi-adjectival nature of these relationships, you might be tempted to use an acronym (mine above turns out to be UCCESPFROOM). But instead please consider words that are easily translated. This will allow for maximum scalability around the globe (hey, we here at Onely like to aim high!)

And please remember, we are looking for relationship signifiers versus terms of endearment. = )

Thanks everyone!

–Christina

Photo credit: Rude Cactus (here or here)

U.S. adults have “boyfriends” and “girlfriends”–Do other cultures also infantilize the unmarried? November 28, 2012

Posted by Onely in Dating, Food for Thought, single and happy, Your Responses Requested!.
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33 comments

The U.S.’ widespread use of “boyfriend” and “girlfriend” is a decades-old cultural relic, from a time when we married barely out of boyhood or girlhood. But now more and more adults are waiting until their late twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, or beyond to marry (if at all). So what does it say about our society that we call the people we’re dating “boyfriends” and “girlfriends”?

It SAYS that our society views unmarried people as younger/less evolved/more childish than married ones.

To be sure, our habit of using boyfriend/girlfriend in perpetuity did not arise from a concerted or conspiratorial cultural effort to infantilize unmarrieds. But the passive persistence of the terms does represent how singles are viewed. (For all that alliteration, you may thank this glass of wine.)

A thirty-eight-year-old hetero female has a boyfriend? Come on.

Progressive thinkers (usually as an extension of Queer rhetoric) have played with new terms: Significant Other; Partner; Life Partner. . .  These terms allow people of all ages to achieve the rare art of sounding both stodgy and mysterious at the same time.

Copious Readers, Onely requests your responses: (more…)

Singles Shopping Day November 18, 2012

Posted by Onely in Everyday Happenings, single and happy, We like. . ..
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5 comments

Lisa and I are so behind on our Onely research and writing that we missed Singles Shopping Day on 11 November! So sorry we were unable to flag it for for you, our Copious Readers, because I know you all (and by you all, I mean me) love any holiday that combines shopping with the chance to get all up on our soapboxes about the awesomeness of singlehood.

On 11/11, Singles Shopping Day, according to this AP news article,

Singles Day was begun by Chinese college students in the 1990s as a version of Valentine’s Day for people without romantic partners. . . Unattached young people would treat each other to dinner or give gifts to woo that special someone and end their single status.

(more…)

Onely’s Adventures in Accounting: The Math of Marital Status Discrimination September 22, 2012

Posted by Onely in As If!, Heteronormativity, Your Responses Requested!.
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28 comments

Phew, pant pant pant. We at Onely almost missed National Unmarried and Single Americans Week!  (Lisa says it’s because she was too busy having fun as a single person.) And indeed, lately there have been a ton of articles (“All the Single Ladies,” “A Confederacy of Bachelors”) in big media about how single people are happy being single (gasp!). Which is good.

But it’s not enough to celebrate social aspects of being single. These articles about the Rise of Satisfied Singles, while important, don’t address the underlying problem of how our society views singles:

Discrimination against unmarried people is institutionalized in government laws (and by corporate policies, which follow the government’s lead).

Take, for example, the unmarried Canadian soldier killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan. If he had been married, his spouse would have gotten Death Benefits of $250,000. But because he had no spouse, that $250,000 remained in government coffers to be given to a married person. His and other parents challenged this practice, protesting that in the absence of a spouse, the money could just as easily be allocated to them.

Do you think these parents are

A) Justified;

B) Hmmm, what an interesting idea;

or

C) OMG HOW SELFISH?

If you answered A, then you understand why we at Onely believe marriage as a legal institution is overvalued and oversanctified. If you answered C, then you’d better stop reading now. We are going to prod at your stale paradigms – with the sword of mathematics. En guard!

We’ve never done the math of Marital Privilege. No one has. Until now. (more…)

The Sticky Film of Seekingness August 19, 2012

Posted by Onely in Dating, Food for Thought.
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15 comments

Rotating Profiles Dinner: If you are interested in people and people’s stories, this is the best event ever! If you want to make more friends, this is the best event ever! If you want to stretch your paradigms and get ideas for the characters in your next novel, this is the best event ever! I read about it in an email from one of my DC events list serves, and I got very excited.

By now you’ve guessed that there’s a “But. . .” coming.

First, here’s what happens at the Rotating Profiles Dinner:

You fill out a questionnaire about your life ahead of time. Then the night of the event, the organizers you sit you at a table with a bunch of people whose interests match yours, and you all eat Mongolian Barbeque for dinner. (That alone puts the gathering in the running for Best Event Ever.)

THEN for dessert you sit at another table, with people whose questionnaires indicated they would be completely different from you.  Such as, I imagine, because I like tabby kittens I would be seated at a table with a few Rottweiler owners. How fascinating! I have never met a Rottweiler owner. I need to meet a Rottweiler owner to dismantle my prejudiced view of them (which involves, for complicated reasons, bug-eyes and empty pizza boxes).  I would love to talk to a Rottweiler owner.

BUT I am not particularly interested in dating a Rottweiler owner. Or the owner of anything (except maybe a beach house in Hawaii). Yet the expectation is that in order to attend the Rotating Profiles event I have to be single “and seeking”. I have to want to find a date, or a boyfriend. And that stinks.

It’s no fun–or at least a lot less fun–for me to talk with interesting people when all across the gathering there’s a sticky film of datable/not-datable? coating everyone’s eyes and bodies and voices, like spiderwebs. (more…)

Umbrella Alert: Selective Showers Ahead! July 28, 2012

Posted by Onely in As If!, Heteronormativity.
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17 comments

Getting married is more admirable than travelling to Haiti with Habitat for Humanity. Having a baby is more admirable than writing a biography of a pivotal activist in the gay movement.

At least, this is what an extraterrestrial would think if it landed; after all, we humans (or large percentages of us) almost automatically have Showers to celebrate coupling and breeding, but not to celebrate other large life occurrences, such as post-tragedy-home-building or hours-in-front-of-a-computer-for-the-sake-of-progressive-literature.

Such social conventions favor certain personal choices over others. I can’t get a month off with benefits to do something important to me, like take an intensive Arabic course in Morocco. But the woman one cubicle over can take two months of leave, and never lose her health insurance, just because her important thing is having a baby. (To my annoyance, here I have to preempt some myopic commenters by saying Relax–I am not dissing maternity/paternity leave; in fact, I’m saying it’s so awesome that even baby-free people should get that kind of time off).

Wedding and baby showers follow the same amatonormative (normalizing and preferring pairing) principles as baby leave, but at least they only represent one day of couple-privileging, versus weeks or months. Note: Baby showers are amatonormative because our cultures still mostly consider babies to ideally be the offspring/culmination of a (usually hetero) couple.

So, enough with the social commentary and on with the fun-making.

At a dinner party the other night I made the ill-advised, perhaps judgy-sounding comment: “No more wine, thanks. Early tomorrow I’m going to a baby shower. Those things should be outlawed. Showers, I mean, not babies.”

Another dinner guest, who had recently been showing off pictures of her new twin boys, said,

Oh, but one must have a shower, to get all the stuff one needs!

Indeed. I would like a shower, to get all the stuff I need to support my personal choices. To that end, I have included some helpful descriptions of items that will look great wrapped and stacked on the coffee tables of my happy hosting friends. Yes, it’s ridiculous. But how much more ridiculous is it, really, than the things brides and mothers (and it’s significant that I don’t also say ‘grooms and fathers’) have unwrapped and squealed over at the showers you, Copious Readers, have attended (and financed)?

Come Celebrate! It’s a Graduate School Shower!

512 MB 16″ Ultralite Foldable Waterproof Laptop by Cybertonic:

Built-in microphone records the tiniest mutter of your professor from across the lecture hall. Dual-faced camera shoots both behind and in front of the screen, so you can capture the structure of 2,4-Toluenedisulphonic acid from the whiteboard and also your facial expression as you see it lose its first hydrogen. 4 GB hard drive lets you preserve those precious memories forever, or at least through exam week. Waterproof to three feet and 140 degrees Fahrenheit, this laptop is perfect for those late-night cram sessions in the hot tub with the basketball team.  $1,099.99

LifelongLearner™ Coffee Mug:

Padded handles minimize grip slippage during the caffeine shakes. Comes in Moonless Black for your favorite night owl, Glaring Gold for shiny morning people, and Panicky Pink for procrastinators.  $24.99

Campushike™ Backpack:

Svelt form minimizes drag during sprints to the cafeteria for last-minute donuts but expands to fit your astrophysics texts (padded straps absorb book bounce). Available emblazoned with hand-stitched crosseyed glasses logo for science majors and french fry emblem for humanities students. Mace pocket! $55.99

.5lb Silk-cotton Blend Thesis Paper

Regular pack $20.99; Frequent Printer Jam Pack $35.99; Annoyingly Prolific Pack $99.99

WARNING. The Brilliant Beige version of this product has been recalled due to potential toxic effects of the gloss but other colors should be fine.

“Brain On Board” sign (yellow and black)

The world is full of drivers who are considering rear-ending your graduate student’s car! But with this sign displayed in the back window, those drivers will change their minds!

Regular $5.99; SUV edition $2.99 (smaller brain) (more…)

Couplemania for Polyglots July 8, 2012

Posted by Onely in Food for Thought, Your Responses Requested!.
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11 comments

Copious Readers,

Here at Onely we often use the terms couplemania, matrimania, marital privileging, or heteronormativity to describe the act of favoring paired people at the expense of singles. (Heteronormativity often refers to an anti-gay attitude where the perpetrator thinks that the male-female couple complex is superior to–or more normal than–a same sex couple complex, but the term also applies when favoring any couple complex over a single person.)

But in the interest of going global with our mission, we wondered: how would one say these things in other languages? We were first drawn to this idea by fellow blogger and fellow Oneler Rachel, of Rachel’s Musings. She taught us that couplemania in German is Pärchendiktatur (literally–and rather obviously–“pair dictatorship”).

Even better is the Mandarin Chinese phrase for matrimania: 婚姻 狂热, or “marriage fanaticism”.

(In case our non-Chinese-speaking readers want to challenge matrimania on their vacation to Beijing–probably not recommended–we present this handy pronunciation guide: hun1yin1 kuang2re4, where 1 is a high tone, 2 is a rising tone, and 4 is a sharp downward tone, as you might use when saying, “No!  I do not care if I don’t have a husband/wife/boyfriend/girlfriend/date.”)

We also figured out how to say “singlism” in Chinese: 单身 歧视, literally “single-person discrimination” (dan1shen1 qi2shi4).

We got our Chinese translations from the groundbreaking book Singled Out  by social scientist and singles advocate Bella DePaulo, PhD, who coined the original English terms. (Yes, Singled Out has been translated into Chinese!) But we need you, Copious Readers, to help us with our collection. Can you give us non-English versions of our favorite words? If you speak another language but don’t know the correct word for matrimania, or singlism, or marital privilege, or heteronormativity, then just make one up!

Thanks, Danke, 谢谢，

Christina (and Lisa)

Photo credit: David Rumsey

Attack of the Heteronormative Turtle Keepers! June 27, 2012

Posted by Onely in Food for Thought, Onely B*tchslaps Mother Nature.
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2 comments

We here at Onely feel confident that you have never seen a blog post with this title. But get used to it. Heteronormative turtle keepers (HTKs) are in the news lately. They’re trying to impose their couple-centric worldviews onto their amphibian friends, and no one (except us) questions whether the HTKs are out of their minds–least of all the media, who love this stuff:

Some turtles “divorce,” others are “lonesome” – at least according to two news stories that have been published over the last month. First, Bibi and Poldi, giant turtles at an Austrian zoo, are apparently getting a “divorce” after 115 years together. Beirut’s The Daily Star laments:

The world’s oldest marriage looks like it has come to an end.

What’s more:

Management at the Austrian zoo in Klagenfurt tried everything – from couples’ counseling to feeding them romantic mood food to getting them to play games together, but to no avail.

Which begs the question, What the hell constitutes romantic turtle mood food, and where can we get some for our. . . uh, never mind. It also begs the question, Why must the media and keepers anthropomorphize these poor turtles? Actually, what the articles have done is dizzyingly weird, albeit great Onely fodder: they’ve created a misrepresentation within a misrepresentation. These stories attribute arbitrary human habits to turtles (lonesome, divorced) and then within that paradigm they tack on stereotypes about those human habits (single=lonesome, divorced=worse than married).

Man-made heteronormativity is bad enough – surely we don’t have to infect Mother Nature too? Despite their caretakers’ not-at-all-bizarre behavior, Bibi and Poldi never did reunite, nor even play games. As the saying goes, Turtles that play together, stay together. Obviously Bibi and Poldi didn’t try hard enough to keep the spark alive. Now all the other (coupled) turtles in the zoo will be saying that (now single) BiBi is irresponsible with tons of free time, and that (now single) Poldi can’t commit and eats TV dinners while standing up at the kitchen counter (not always a bad thing, in our opinion). (more…)