I’ll be shutting down comments later in the day, but in the meantime enjoy (Courtesy of The Other McCain) the first rate feminist logic of Katy Kreitler in Sad Spinsters And Crazy Cat Ladies: Why Society Shames Single Women And Why We Should Celebrate The Single Life Instead. Kreitler wants us to know there is no shame in being a woman of a certain age who is still single.
Because being single is AWESOME!
And really important.
And very healthy.
It is a political statement, a refuge from sexism, and an opportunity to show that women can be self-sufficient (Boston marriages, anyone?)
At the same time, she distances herself from the category:
I’m sure someone out there will read this article and imagine that I am writing in the defensive, at home on a Saturday night, curled up on my couch in a Hello Kitty onesie, eating a Lean Cuisine, and watching reruns of The Bachelor while I sob quietly under a blanket of cats…
And because trolls love Everyday Feminism (aw, thanks, trolls!), these retorts will likely include cliché misogynist words like “man-hater,” “ice queen,” “slut,” “manster,” or “hag.”
They will say these things even though they have never met me.
They will say these things even though I haven’t even said that I am single!
Of course she isn’t single, or she might be, but either way she isn’t writing about her own pain! She is, of course, also upset that she is stereotyped for being single, as she explains earlier in the post:
Single women are routinely ostracized at work, stigmatized within their families, and stereotyped by the larger community.
I’m sure it’s happening right now – to me.
She cleverly must mean her own audience is (accurately or inaccurately) stereotyping her. And of course since she didn’t say she is single, the pain she writes of can’t be her own (whether she is single or not). Kreitler stands with single women, just not so closely that she will be identified as one herself. Single women should stand proud in their singleness, unless of course it is too painful to admit.
Katy Kreitler is a Contributing Writer for Everyday Feminism as well as a counselor and youth advocate. She can be found wandering the streets of San Francisco with a purse full of used fiction, a pair of emergency yoga pants, and half a burrito.
One last nugget from the article is Kreitler describing the way women view single women, including divorcees (emphasis mine):
We reproduce notions of the ticking biological clock, the unfulfilling career path, the predatory divorcee, and the crazy cat lady.
We shame each other. We shame ourselves.
And we have done so for centuries.
And by centuries, she means thousands of years:
So, for thousands of years, we believed these ideas about single women being lost, alone, unhappy, sad, and even dumb and ugly.
As Kreitler explains women have done this to other women for thousands of years/centuries not because of biology, but because the patriarchy tricks them into doing so. Keep up the good work gentlemen, and Merry Christmas!
Leave a Reply