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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To wonder if people look down on single women?

165 replies

honeynotcherry · 26/03/2016 13:51

I don't mean Mumsnet - don't mean lots of 'well I don't!' but in general is is the case?

I think I've been abandoned as a lost cause Grin but in the circles i know not getting married or staying single is definitely seen for women as being something to be pitied.

Is this a correct view, do you think?

OP posts:
AthelstaneTheUnready · 26/03/2016 19:40

I'm of an indeterminate age, live alone with two cats, and my workplace suspect I'm either a lesbian or just weirdly difficult to live with.

The truth is that the cats were his request for an wedding present. He lasted one year and nine years on the cats are still here. His cats. Making ME the weird single cat lady. Bastard.

NameChanger22 · 26/03/2016 19:43

A certain kind of person certainly looks down on single women with children. I avoid those kinds of people and I don't care what they think because they're usually not nice.

lorelei9here · 26/03/2016 19:44

Athelstane "I'm of an indeterminate age"

not heard that one before!

they can't be his cats or he'd have taken them with him!

actually my sister complains that "single with cats" makes people think she must be completely mad. In reality she's much less than mad than I am, and if we weren't single, we'd still be a bit mad, because that's who we are.

girlfrommars33 · 26/03/2016 19:44

I think people just don't believe me when I say I'm happy being single. Tired of meeting friends who ask 'any news on the man front?'
Me: 'I'm happy as I am to be honest. It's not something I'm interested in.'

Yet next time we meet, I'm asked the same. I don't go around asking my married friends 'have you thought of being single?'

NameChanger22 · 26/03/2016 19:45

I don't think single childless women are looked down on nearly as much as single mums.

lorelei9here · 26/03/2016 19:46

girlfrommars33 - yes I dealt with that constantly in my late 30s. I hate to say it might get better as you get older, but it might.

"I don't go around asking my married friends 'have you thought of being single?'"

do you know what, I am totally going to say that if anyone asks me again.

DiseasesOfTheSheep · 26/03/2016 19:52

It's odd, they pity me for having to do it and I pity them for deskilling themselves

God yes. I have this often.

Few people get to look down on me. I spend most of my time up on my high horse. Literally Grin

AthelstaneTheUnready · 26/03/2016 19:56

Lorelei they were his, it just turned out he wasn't the responsible type and had no alternative home to provide them with.

I had to endure a ten minute interrogation at work about how it wasn't too late to have children, or meet the right man, etc etc, from two of my seniors. I really, really didn't want to go into the gynae reasons it wasn't go to happen mainly because they would have just moved on to all the reasons I should adopt because that's my business, for god's sake.

It just wasn't worth trying to put the case for not having to compromise on every single aspect of your sleeping and waking hours because, as other people have pointed out, the choices you make about how you are spending time are somehow less valid if you haven't had to clear it past a man and two children first. People DO rely on me, they just don't happen to be my children.

MistressDeeCee · 26/03/2016 20:10

Yes I think a lot of people do look down on single women

My DSis does -she's married (to the man she had an affair with for 2 years!) and is super-smug about it as an achievement. Looks down on women who havent "made it".

Went to a salsa class with a mate recently, quite a few couples there and some of the women were being ridiculous, acting as if we were predators after their man. Its a bloody salsa class you have to change partners, its nothing more than that

Agree with Akire re. depiction of single women in adverts.

Im not actually single but I don't live with OH and have no intention of doing so for years. He lives alone, I have 2 DDs both finishing Uni in this year and coming back to live with me for a time, which Im very happy about, I don't want to share living space with anyone apart from them. I go off to his for a week at a time normally, and occasionally he comes to mine. I guess because Im not seen in the "conventional" set up, then it appears I am single.

I have noticed when bumping into acquaintances they'll inevitably ask "oh, what happened to so n so (that'll be some ex Ive long forgotten about) or, my DDs dad..implication seems to be oh nooo you must've been single all this time, never see you with anyone.

StarlingMurmuration · 26/03/2016 20:18

I remember, after being dumped aged 33, wailing to my big brother (who was married with children) that the whole weekend was stretching out in front of me with nothing to do and no one to do it with.... And him saying, "God, I'd kill for that". Now I love with my beloved DP and DS and I finally understand what he meant!

Some people might pity the single but I (and others) envy them at least occasionally!

VelvetSpoon · 26/03/2016 20:30

Yes, absolutely.

I've been single in my life for significantly longer (in total) than I've been in a relationship.

I have had many years of patronising comments. I had my eldest DC in my mid 20s so I never got the whole when was I going to settle down, etc, but I did get loads of people telling me how 'lucky' I was a couple of years later to meet my Ex, when I already had a baby etc (bloody joke, I had my own house, good job, money in bank - he got to move in with me for free and continue to be as domestically incapable as when he'd lived with his mum....he was the lucky one!).

Friends always asked me why I didn't have a boyfriend, with utterly no shame about it. Stuff like -didn't I feel uni was a waste of time because I was single for 3 years? I was working in the City, why didn't I find myself a nice man?

Thing is if you DARE ever admit you're less than 100% happy with being single you get either the advice to get yourself out there (ha fucking ha) or told that actually being in a relationship is shit and you don't know how lucky you are.

Yes right. If being single is amazing, and so much better, why aren't they all dumping their husbands? Hmm

When you're single your life becomes public property. I don't comment on how my married friends dress, how their husbands must be fed up they never put on any make up or wear anything other than the standard mummy uniform, yet when you're single people feel at liberty to tell you it's because of how you dress, or the make up you wear, or to comment on you generally.

Thing is, it doesn't stop when you're in a relationship though. I thought finally having met someone, and being together for 2 years, I was 'safe'. Except now it's the 'not married yet?' 'not getting a place together?' stuff. And so it goes on...

Trills · 26/03/2016 20:36

She confided that she feels she has to go to a lot of effort to project an image of someone living a fabulous, busy but simultaneously care-free life all the time

I know what your friend is saying there yorkshapudding

Gabilan · 26/03/2016 20:50

He lasted one year and nine years on the cats are still here. His cats. Making ME the weird single cat lady. Bastard

To be fair, it sounds as if the cats are more reliable.

peaceoftheaction · 26/03/2016 21:04

I would have thought it would in fact be a very full and exciting life to have 10 children by 10 different fathers

BestZebbie · 26/03/2016 21:08

Isn't some of it misplaced empathy? As in, Person A really wanted to be married and have children, so when she was single it was a worry of hers/she felt she wasn't where she wanted to be in life, so she now worries that her single friends might be feeling anxious/sad as she would in that situation?
I agree that this is based on a lot of assumptions, and making assumptions about other people's lives is pretty much guaranteed to be incorrect and therefore insulting.

FlyRussianUnicorn · 26/03/2016 21:09

Couldnt give a shit.

Im fat, until recently long term unemployed, have a mental health problem, smoke and drink. If theres another stigmatism that someone can choose to judge me for then so be it.

I just like it when they are old people and I can apologise that my life has such an impact on them but not to worry cos they will be dead soon. Usually shuts them up.

Theydontknowweknowtheyknow · 26/03/2016 21:13

Absolutely. People pity you and give you advice on how to get a man and I have to explain everytime that I'm quite happy really.

Sometimes others convince me that I'm unhappy so I feel pressure to go with the flow but then I have words with myself and feel better.

Trills · 26/03/2016 21:24

Misplaced empathy is a good description.

The trouble with treat others as you would like to be treated is that not everyone is the same. I might not like to be treated as you would like to be treated,

Headofthehive55 · 26/03/2016 21:46

I don't think people look down on them, but I think people sometimes express sadness and pity for them, perhaps wrongly believing that they have somehow missed out.

A couple of our extended family have never married and have remained single. To various degrees both are lonely by their own admission. Neither work, which I think further exacerbates this.

schrodcat · 26/03/2016 22:24

I don't think "look down on" is quite right - I'm not sure what I would call it exactly, but I really noticed when I got married how much better I was suddenly being treated at work. If I requested annual leave it was granted without any questions asked; I didn't get lastminute.com jobs dumped on me on Fridays; it was as though suddenly I mattered more as a person because I had a husband who might object to me working on a Sunday etc (I know; FFS). My unmarried colleague continued to get dumped on and asked me if she was imagining it. We both knew she wasn't. It is really shit the way people/bosses/workplaces just expect single women to be the (silent, mainly) backbone of the place, but also somehow to be Really Good Fun at any kind of social function they so graciously lay on - because being taken for granted really makes you want to hang out with your bosses on their night out from the wife and drink till 2 in the morning ... not. (Yes, I do work in the 1950s...).

Crabbitface · 26/03/2016 22:53

Probably. But then people look down on working mothers, stay at home mothers, married women with no kids, women with too many kids, fat women, skinny women, ...etc etc etc

Point is world is full of judgemental assholes. Smile and ignore. Easter Smile

LaPharisienne · 26/03/2016 22:59

I hate it, but yes, I think people often do pity women who are single. I hear this complaint from single friends and once my DP, in response to me complaining about someone, asked "is she married?" I was a bit startled, asked what on earth that had to do with anything and he said "she can't be that bad if she's married" Confused

LaPharisienne · 26/03/2016 23:13

Meant to add - I think women do much better single than men, so the focus and pity lavished on women is misplaced!

BadgerCrossing · 27/03/2016 09:52

I think our society is organised around couples, and in quite traditional roles. The costs of being single are quite high, particularly for women was we are paid, on average only 85% of men. So that's a cumulative loss on pensions etc. And everyone needs to live somewhere, so single people have proportionately higher housing costs. And so on. The discrimination against single women is so much a part of the structure of our society, we don't notice it.

And look at who gets blamed in public: it's not the men who are Peter Pans and won't grow up - although looking into MN forums it seems there are a lot of married men who haven't grown up either! But it's single women who are repeatedly demonised. They are "too demanding" or "alpha female" so won't find a husband. They are too invested in their careers to settle down & have children. Men are emasculated nowadays! We've heard all that stuff. It's insidious and poisonous.

I think where it really cuts, though, is the assumption that a woman who is not in a long-term relationship isn't fully emotionally human or mature. I've seen that pretty much said here in MN. And elsewhere: that learning to compromise & live with another person, or having children, gives you an emotional depth - you know the sort of things: "I never knew what it was to love until ..."

It's rubbish, but it's so insidious, it's hard to call it out.

lorelei9here · 27/03/2016 11:35

Badger, with current relationship obsession, I think men are criticised if they enjoy singleness as well.

Schrod, that's bananas and very 1950s indeed.

I do think a lot of the ire directed at singletons is jealousy. Hopefully MN is an okay place to say this. There do seem to be a lot of people around, both sexes, who can't be alone and will put up with a lot of shit to make sure they aren't.

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