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Everyone has been raving about this book by Rebecca Traister, and as a single woman myself, of course I was interested in how I’m changing the world around me *strikes heroic pose.* My mom has been listening to the Nerdette podcast (because my mom now listens to more podcasts than I do, which is weird) and told me I should listen to the episode in which they had Traister as a guest because I would appreciate it and I did. It was an excellent episode and Traister made some really great points, but there was one thing in particular that resonated with me.
My definition of “single” is not most women’s definition of “single.” I’m not just unmarried. I’ve only had one boyfriend my entire life, back when I was in college, which has set me apart from my cohorts far more than anything else ever has. And, no, I’m not a lesbian. That would actually make me feel like less of a freak. So when I talk about being single, I mean completely unattached.
I could hardly believe my ears when Traister said she was single for most of her adult life. She was getting ready to get married while she was writing this book, and she talks about that, both in the podcast and in the book. She talked about how, for a long time, it looked like she might never get married, and how she came to terms with that. Ditto!
Traister has a background in journalism and took a very journalistic approach to this book. She talked to more than 100 women from a wide array of backgrounds: cultural, racial, socioeconomic, geographic, etc., and each of those things play a role in women’s approach to and feelings about being single. Her only failing is that she only talked to a few men, and she acknowledges that and why it’s problematic, but I appreciated being able to read a book that focuses on women discussing the challenges facing women and how they deal with it.
Traister does talk about marriage quite a lot in the book, but she also covers other aspects of what it means to be a modern woman. Obviously sex is a big one, not least because birth control and the ability to have sex outside of marriage has gone hand in hand with the declining marriage rate and the rising age of brides and grooms. Traister covers everything from women who indulged voracious sexual appetites to those who have retained their virginity into adulthood for a number of reasons (religious, familial, accidental) and I loved it because it made me feel like I’m not a freak. There are so many ways to be a woman today and not all of them have to look like Sex and the City (which Traister also covers in the book).
Traister points out, not just the way women are changing the world by either refusing to marry or by marrying later, but society’s reaction to it. As a result, I found this book both triumphant and depressing. It feels like we can’t do anything without the haters coming up with some way to use it against us.
But ultimately Traister is hopeful. While conservatives may be decrying the declining marriage rate as the end of society, Traister points out that higher marriage ages have been associated with lower divorce rates. As women have changed their expectations for marriage, we’re forcing men to change their expectations for marriage as well. For the better.
What did you guys read/listen to this week? Anything else you found encouraging and depressing at the same time?