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?

That was really rude!

But language changes. In the way lesbian, dyke or queer used to be insulting but have been reclaimed.

The modern narrative of women choosing not to marry, not to live with men, the male loneliness epidemic. Rebranding spinster wouldn't be a hard leap. In the same way that bachelor used to have connotations of homosexuality, it now smacks of incel-in-his-mums-basement or misogynist.

We are not passive receivers of language. We can help to construct the discourse. But wailing about the insult doesn't do that. Reframing it, including to the speaker, is a step towards change.

I disagree. It is still her second language. And if she has a legal background I think even more there is a chance she thinks it is a technical term. It used to be.

The use of the term on my marriage certificate didn’t seem funny at all because it was an accurate description of who I was at that time when I was 21. It’s a bit of an old fashioned term nowadays but that doesn’t mean it’s rude. But some people love to find offence in anything.

Agreed, language changes. I have accepted fully that the verb "to enjoy" is no longer reflexive and no longer requires a subject.

And language has evolved to take spinster out of use completely except in legal documents, so using it in convesation now is still very much, if not more, the insult that it was hundreds of years ago.

Or "OK Millenial" in this case as she was in her 40s....

Scoundrel and ruffian are excellent – definitely due for a comeback! 👏

I'm a solicitor. I qualified in 1982. I've never once had to use the word "spinster" in my work. It is not a *technical term"

To bring "spinster" back into common use would require qualification. In a world where being unmarried cohabiting partners is now the default, it's meaningless without knowing whether the person is in or has ever wanted a long term/permanent relationship. It's a word that's past its time for conversation.

Quite, I hate the term Boomer (and any broad generalisation of people based on when they were born), but I would think that as they came of age at the time of second-wave feminism they would be even less likely to like and use the term, whereas their parents may well have done. (Gen X here, not that it should be relevant!)

Look it up. It was once a term used in legal documents. I accept you personally have never used the word at work. That isn't what I was saying.

Further, even if no lawyer has ever used or needed to use that term, that only supports the point that her working in law does not mean that she should be fully aware of all negative connotations of the word.

Why do you need the word? When as it ever been relevant? Given there is zero male equivalent of “Spinster” (it’s not bachelor) I just don’t see why you need a “succinct word” for something that is completely not relevant to anything ever.

People need to stop using the word butthurt in my opinion. Unless they like to sound like a right wing troll from twitter.

Because the word was never neutral.

It’s also unnecessary. We have the term “single” which can be compared to widow/widower. We don’t need “spinster”.

Stingy isn’t inappropriate.

I think it probably is if you are saying it to someone's face. No? The point being it might technically be correct but there are negative connotations to the word that you may not be aware of.

How true.
Im a woman of a certain age I would have laughed and replied yes, I suppose I am
Your the one who has a negative opinion of the word.

It sounds very much like a misuse of idiom by a non-native speaker.

Although, there is indeed a sense in many other Europeam cultures that one really should have got married at some point! so there may well be an element of that too.

I haven’t heard that in years! It’s a very old fashioned word with negative connotations*, so it was very weird of her to use it.

(*no such connotations for ‘bachelor’)
I’ve heard ‘bachelor girl’ in the past, IIRC way back there was even a pop song with that title.

Nowadays, if anything, people would say a single woman.

She probably didn’t mean to offend, but it doesn’t sound like she was confused about the meaning of the word, and she expressed a now-out-of-date attitude (oh no, you’re a spinster!) that did cause offence. I wouldn’t sweat it, OP. She’s behind the times, not you.

The only rational thing to take away from the incident.

I will say that the Balkans have a very different attitude towards women and marriage . I remember travelling across Bosnia by train and an older woman asked me if I had children and I said no. She replied 'Oh that is why your husband lets you travel alone!'
It would have been much better to shock your colleague by laughing and saying 'You're damn right I am'

Just say " I prefer to think of myself as a retired career girl"

However, career girl is often considered a derogatory term, especially when used by men.

I know someone who never married. A career girl in fact. Whenever the smug married, ( a Bridget Jones terminology) asked her (pityingly) if she would like to marry, she replied " when I meet a man who can run my life better than I can, I will marry him"
That usually shut them up.

Ive been thinking about this further from my thoughts as spinster meaning virgin, as it was used in church records to put status of the bride to be marrying in church. In the baptism registers bastard was used to describe a child born out of wedlock - the term bastard is not favourable, sometimes base child was used instead of bastard fully written, or illegitimate, spurious.

If someone told me there parents weren't married when they were born, I wouldn't say they were a bastard based on that, yet at one time it wasn't seen as incorrect to use that in a parish register

It’s not just the word - it’s an odd thing to say to anyone.

’Ah, you are married. I have an aunt who is married’

’Ah You are a widow. I have an aunt who is a widow’.

’Ah you are single. I have an aunt who is single’.

I agree that ‘spinster’ is old fashioned, but the ‘I have an aunt…’ makes any relationship situation sound unsatisfactory.