I was called a Spinster at work today, I was really offended.

[Seahorses12]

I do one day a week volunteer work, and today a woman I work with who I don't know very well asked me if I was married or had children. I replied that I wasn't and didn't have kids and she said disparagingly 'Oh, so your a Spinster. I have an aunt who's a Spinster.' It's such a horrible, judgemental term with negative connotations. No one has ever used it to my face before. I have a reasonably successful career behind me and I like my independance. I've had long term relationships with men but I'm currently single and have a lot of single friends. I feel belittled by this comment. AIBU?

I always thought it was simply a word for a woman who isn’t, and has never been married. I guess it’s only considered negative because of its association with older women. I actually find it interesting where the word originates from, and knowing its true origins makes me like it more. Since she isn’t English (even though she speaks English with an English accent, she was born and raised in another country), I imagine the word doesn’t carry the same negative connotations for her when used to describe an unmarried, child-free woman over a certain age.

The best misunderstanding that I've ever heard was when I was teaching English as a Second Language to a group of S3/Y10 kids in a Scottish high school.

I had to explain what the expression 'couch potato' meant. I gave - I thought - a fairly full explanation and then asked whether they all understood...

A Romanian boy replied: "Ah yes! In our country, that is what we call 'a lazy bastard'!"

I’ve never heard the word used to belittle someone. I think people are so over sensitive nowadays 😆😆

The last time I heard it was on a forum where someone asked for ‘eating for one’ ideas and recipes. Someone piped in “oh here’s my recipe for spinster chow” I know people use it all the time but I really was caught off guard and spit my drink out from laughing.

@Seahorses12 words have the power you give them. Take it back and move on.

Because offense can be found everywhere and in a lot of cases the dumbest places.

By all means be offended and miserable…shout your feelings from the rooftops… just not a very productive way to live in my opinion.

Ooh it really is different!!
Spinster, as OP states has definite connotations of elderly, all alone, was unable to find herself a man, never will......
Bachelor, hes a catch, hes handsome and charming, hes 'man about town', he is inundated with women and offers, he might marry later....

Probably off-topic, but my memory stretches back to the 1970s, when any woman who hadn't nabbed a husband by a certain age was considered to be "on the shelf", a term now completely obsolete. When I was at school in that decade, there was a lot of speculation about our female teachers, their private lives or lack of one, and one completely personable woman who had reached the age of thirty was labelled as "on the shelf" and in serious danger of failure to get anyone suitable - she hadn't made it, and never would if she didn't act sharpish. Some of our older unmarried teachers - and we had one who used to reminisce about her early days as a teacher in the 1930s - had I think been seriously affected by the wipe out of young men in the Second World War, "baby boom" or not.

I've not heard the term "spinster" in years. It's a cultural/linguistic thing - I know only too well what it is to get completely competent in a language which you haven't learnt from birth, and in a country to which you've migrated, and the OP's colleague may well be judgemental in the same way we used to be about unmarried women, but the most likely explanation is that she just picked "spinster" up in a textbook somewhere at some point just as a word for unmarried women, and used it without being fully aware of the word's full connotations.

So when they read the banns in church these days do the still say "spinster of this parish"?

I am sure that's how I was referred to when ours were ready in the 1980s.

Me neither. Case closed. Seriously, married to a non native speaker. This kind of thing happens all the time. Of course it does! She has learnt the literal meaning of the word to be woman who chooses not to get married and then used that word in a circumstance she thought was accurate. I can almost guarantee no offence was meant (or any of the negative connotations you are thinking of) were intended. Think no more of it now you have explained to her. She knows for next time.

IIRC, which I probably don’t, on my wedding certificate issued in the 1970s it says I was a spinster.

It says more about her than you . You have the useful information that this woman is a nasty judgemental cow with a bunch of old fashioned prejudices. Avoid her in future. Otherwise, don't dwell on it. You are ok.

I agree it’s awful. Akin to being called barren.

Spinsters were women that chose their work and ultimately themselves over getting married and being subservient to a man, so I consider myself a proud spinster.

Though if it bothers you that is difficult because it has been used as a negative name that is rubbish and there are some good suggestions of how to deal with it here.

I’d have replied along the lines of …. goodness, that’s such an outdated term, I didn’t think anyone used it any more. I prefer ‘independent woman of means’!

I don't think spinster and bachelor do have negative connotations. Surely it is just a word to mean people who have never married.

Yes, I've noticed that. I wonder why?

I love the word, but I would never use it to refer to anyone else. I think of Miss Marple, who is my ideal of a badass woman who takes no shit.

Has anyone suggested bachelorette? Because if you’re happy with the connotations of bachelor, then bachelorette is the female equivalent.

Why did you even answer her question I'm the first place.
You don't have too.
Something odd that she asked you in the first place.

“Goodness, are we in Cranford?”

She is obviously fixated on marriage etc. The comment about her aunt was odd. I mean, in response to hearing about a common status , who says “I have an aunt who is divorced / married / single / widowed” as if it is rare.

I would try not to catastrophise so much.

"...it all boils down to whether or not you're married to man and produced some kids in society's eyes".

By "society" do you mean literally one woman, once. She's obviously not representative of "society".

It's natural to feel a bit put out maybe but all this "feminism has achieved NOTHING and society hates the single" is nonsense. One person made one stupid comment. Nothing more.

My marriage certificate from late-2000s lists me as a Spinster - and I was certainly not an older woman who was beyond marriageable age. I remember thinking it was funny.
If I were to ever marry again - which is unlikely - I'd be recorded as a divorcee....

I think it's just an old English word. Just because she speaks with little accent - does not mean she fully gets the meaning and connotations of all words.

Tell her to go back to the 18th century

I do love the phenomenon where words are decided to be derogatory or a pejorative term only to be replaced by another word that means the same damn thing.

It’s honestly ludicrous but whatever if it makes people happy I guess. 🤷‍♀️

As many have commented , it's a really odd thing to say. Some people are very unimaginative and insensitive. It's perfectly possible that she was clarifying in her mind that you have neither husband nor children.
Although she speaks good English after 20 years in this country, I would be very surprised indeed if she has a perfect command of English and especially English idiom.
I think she probably did not realise the term has negative connotations.
You are being sensitive!