Being single is a viable lifestyle. Just ask Kate.
When Kate was in her late 20s, she ended a significant relationship with a man she loved. There was nothing wrong, exactly. He was sweet, smart, and funny. They were happy together, she was happy — except for a creeping anxiety that closed around her heart every time they talked about their future. Her friends started getting engaged, married and knocked up around her. She stayed single long enough to realise that she was enough on her own. She was complete.
That story isn’t mine, but it could be.
It actually belongs to sensationally successful writer Kate Bolick, who is now 42. And, she tells me from a New York Winter, she’s more committed to the single status than ever. She’s content, self-possessed, creative, and free.
Admitting that is dangerous, though. When Kate publicly argued that women should be happy single, she made men angry. Angry enough to threaten to kill her.
In 2011, at 39, Kate wrote an article for The Atlantic called ‘All The Single Ladies’. It’s the intelligent woman’s single manifesto; equal parts public introspection and fastidious research. And it was groundbreaking. Millions of people read it and publishers squabbled to offer Kate book deals.
The reaction was complicated, though.
“I heard from hundreds and hundreds of women after that story,” she tells me. “It was like nobody had ever told them their lives were acceptable and they were enough, so they got in touch to thank me. And I guess it’s true, we don’t, as a society, talk about the condition of singleness with any seriousness. Women were just so grateful to have that conversation.”
It’s safe to say Kate’s characterisation of men as ‘deadbeats’ or ‘playboys’ may have, ah, pissed some of them right off. Here’s the introduction to her now-legendary piece:
Recent years have seen an explosion of male joblessness and a steep decline in men’s life prospects that have disrupted the “romantic market” in ways that narrow a marriage-minded woman’s options: increasingly, her choice is between deadbeats (whose numbers are rising) and playboys (whose power is growing). But this strange state of affairs also presents an opportunity: as the economy evolves, it’s time to embrace new ideas about romance and family—and to acknowledge the end of “traditional” marriage as society’s highest ideal.
“What’s your position on marriage now?” I ask Kate. “And if I was to say the words ‘can you have it all,’ does it make you want to shoot me?”
There’s a pause, and kindly, a laugh.
“I’m 42 now,” she says, Kate to Kate. “I’ve been thinking very hard about it. I’ve been in love, but I may never get married and I don’t know if I’ll have kids. We have to stop thinking about ‘it all’ because that impossible goal is just another way we are terrifying women. There shouldn’t be one template for how we run our lives, we are all as humans, figuring it out as we go along. It’s a drastic misunderstanding, for example, that most women are desperate to have kids. I’m ambivalent about children, and I used to be ashamed about that. Not anymore.”
Read Kate Leaver’s single manifesto: “Single is a relationship status of its own”.
I’m 27. My society-issued timeline says I should be getting ready to settle down. Sometimes I can hear so many clocks ticking, it’s deafening. Biology, convention, security, it’s just the way things work, etc etc. Right now, I’m not in love, I’m not making a baby, and I’m not in a relationship.
When Kate says “I don’t let the pressure of those timelines dictate my life, why should I, why should you?” I really hear it for the first time. I listen, and I want to give her a megaphone. When the simple idea that a woman doesn’t need a man is revolutionary — give this woman a megaphone.
Kate Bolick will be appearing in several events at the All About Women festival at the Sydney Opera House on the 8th March: A panel discussion about How To Be A Feminist and a talk about All The single Ladies. View the festival’s full program and purchase tickets here.
Top Comments
(The following is written by an American Lesbian of 34 years, with no kids. I cannot get married, and I wouldn't even if I could)
To all of you women who are approaching 40, have never been married and have no kids to care for, let me be brutally honest with you: IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT! Further these problems have been about 40 years in the making and is, in my never humble opinion, one of the unfortunate side effects of our fight for equality.
I am going to look at this phenomenon from two points of view. Ours, meaning women and theirs, meaning men.
First, ours. We have changed as a gender over the past three, almost four generations. In many ways we have become better. We are stronger, we have a voice and we have more employment opportunities now than at any other time in the history of this planet. However our strength has come at the expense of our femininity. (If you are one of those who sees the word 'feminine' and automatically replace it with the word 'weak' then you are a huge part of the problem.) And on those not so often occasions when we do feel feminine, we end up calling it 'empowerment' which is more PC and more feminist friendly.
Also, modern men are well aware of how divorce devastated (emotionally and/or finically) their fathers, or their uncles or their older brothers. As a result many more men are steering clear of marriage and often fatherhood. And the way family courts favor us (I work in a family court and can speak from years of observational experience) I don't blame men for not wanting to take the risk. I once hear a man describe marriage as "the act of living in the constant fear of saying or doing the wrong thing one day, being divorced the next and a deadbeat Dad the day after that." A narrow view to be sure but not one that is wholly inaccurate.
But there are plenty of men who do want to get married. These are the young men who were raised by their single mom's to not be the jerk or a--hole their father was. And oddly we do not want these men either, because they are soft soap mama's boys. These kind and caring men who do value our feelings, we bitch slap into the friend zone with great dispatch, while we get turned on over men who could care less about what we think or feel, in the stupid belief that our magical lady parts will turn him into our own perfect man.
Let me be brutally honest . I am 44 single & childless . I never expected to wake up at 40 alone. I work in an industry I love . I have an apartment that I am paying off . I have friends at work who I socialise with on a Friday night . They are in their late 20's . We have fun on a Friday night but the rest of the weekend after the hangover I get to spend the test of the weekend alone . It can be quite unfulfilling . A bit of housework, exercise . My friends out of work are all married with kids. I feel they have all progressed whilst I am still doing what did 20 years ago, going out Friday nights. Except I am now 44. The empty cradle and the big king size bed for me is a reminder of my lonely existence .
I don't know anyone whose life has turned out they way they dreamed of. From single friends approaching 40 and coming to terms with potentially never getting married and having kids. Or friends approaching their 40's married with kids, but complaining about the impact of kids on their careers and marriage. Begs the question of who is really truly happy.