51% "single"

I saw that article - and heard it mentioned on the news - about how apparently now 51% of American women do not live with a husband.

And I kind of sighed. And I thought, "Let the spin commence!"

And it already has. Lileks has semi-fisked the piece today (for one thing: they include 15 year old "women," apparently, in their assessment. I don't know of too many 15 year olds, outside of historical novels or perhaps some parts of the Arab world, who are married). He seems to be taking the tack that it's being presented as "striking a blow for feminism" when it really isn't. (I agree with him on that).

But I will admit to cringing at the line:
"I expect it’s one thing to be a hard-core spinster who’s forged an individual path from day one and has a hard shell, a gimlet eye, and a perspective on human relations as vaulable as a film critic's assessment of cinema. (He's never slapped a reel o film in a camera, but he knows the difference between Citizen Kane and Porky's IV.)"

Yeah, nothing like those gimlet-eyed spinsters, like me. Who never having loved, are probably incapable of love, but have an opinion on it nonetheless.

I tend to picture myself more as being like that girl in the Roy Lichtenstein parody poster who wakes up one morning and exclaims, in best comic-book exclamation fashion, "OMG! I forgot to get married and have kids!"

(Seriously: when everyone else was "dating" in high school I was either (a) still not mature enough to feel comfortable doing that or (b) swotting to get into a good college. In college, when people were "hooking up," the whole "hook up" culture kind of repulsed me, but it was very difficult to find guys at my college who were outside of that culture. And then by grad school - well, everyone in grad school was either already paired up or was (and I include myself in this category) a bit of damaged goods, either with personal issues or with a string of failed romances or with something else that was repulsively weird enough about them to mostly keep them out of the dating pool.

And now, my options are, at this point, narrowed to being a "replacement mama" for some guy's kids (and a "replacement housekeeper" for him while I'm at it), or getting involved with a possibly-gay-but-not-admitting-it-to-himself-yet mama's boy. Things like that).

I suppose on the other end from the NYT with its pseudo "blow for feminism" attitude there will be other commentators screaming about how all these selfish women are destroying the American family, and how we will soon be overrun by little brown people because the educated American woman thinks herself too good to stay home and pop out sprogs on a regular basis.

And that attitude kind of frustrates me as well.

Look. I'm someone "in the trenches," as you might say. I'm part of that illusory 51% (And they also include widows in that category which is NOT THE SAME THING as never-married women. There's a huge difference - in terms of your view of life and also your "respectability" if you're an 87 year old who just buried your husband rather than a 37 year old who somehow never managed to get hitched).

And I'm not out here striking a blow for feminism. I'm also not out here to take down the American family, motherhood, apple pie, any of that.

To be honest, I'm more bemused than bitter about my state. And I'm not making some "statement" with my single life. My main goal? Keep body and soul together and not lose my mind in the process. And some days, that's about all I can manage.

So please don't paint me as some kind of Enemy of the State because I'm not a mom with kids.* But likewise, don't portray me as some kind of icon to be lived up to, someone who's "making it work" and "doin' it for herself" and all those damnable cliches. Because, you know? "Makin' it work" and "Doin' it for herself" ring pretty hollow when you're:

a. standing at the mechanic's, he's talking to you like the classic "little lady," your B.S. sensors are going off, but you're not sure what he's talking about EXACTLY and you don't have anyone around you can ask to talk to him, man-to-man, so you don't get screwed on your car repairs.

b. preparing to mount a ladder and remove a large heavy branch that threatens the phone line going into your house, because the phone company has disavowed any responsibility in taking care of it ("It's YOUR tree, after all") and wondering if you are going to die falling off the ladder or with the 50-something pound branch falling on you.

c. you wake up in the middle of the night and hear a sound...and lie there for the next fifteen minutes trying to determine if it's just the refrigerator or if someone's trying to pick the front door lock, and calculating whether you can get to your phone in time to dial 911, or wondering if maybe it's better to grab some shoes and slip out a back window and hope you can wake up at least one of the neighbors and ask them to call the cops.

I don't know. I tend to look at these demographic studies and think about how they're lumping a big group of people - people who are individuals, who are all different, and trying to make it "signify" something.

True, they have quotations from newly-divorced, newly-freed women. (And again, the Lileks: "Ms. Terris said. “There was only one way to go. Now I have choices. One night I slept on the other side of the bed, and I thought, I like this side.”

That’s the saddest thing I read in the paper today. I have no doubt she’s probably happier, and if she ends up spending the next 20 years throwing pots and taking extension courses, fine."). Yeah, I suppose it is kind of sad, when you look at it coldly, that a woman's rejoicing that she can sleep on either side of the bed now, and that seems to be the only thing she's looking forward to at the moment.

But what of looking forward to another 20 or 30 years of miscommunication, and sad moments, and doing things you may only hear criticism for? I think a lot of people are kind of broken and screwed up and don't know HOW to have a good relationship where they're neither completely self-absorbed, or little dictators (or dictatresses), or people who never throw a kind word anyone's way. (And women are as guilty - if not more so - of that last than men are).

(I must hasten here and say I don't think divorce is a good thing; too many people get hurt, and it ultimately seems to represent the taking-lightly of something that should be taken seriously. But I also think there are a lot of people who get married for the wrong reasons: either it is the "thing" to do, or they are told by their friends and family that they will be sad and alone when they are old (and again: what of the 87 year old widow whose children never visit? Is she not sad and alone?). I also think in some respects, marriage is too easy to enter into. I used to belong to a congregation where a condition of getting married in that church building was that you took a 6 week (minimum) "class" and series of counseling sessions to make sure you were ready to marry. And I knew a judge who imposed a 30-day waiting period on marriage licenses; he told me more than one couple had come back to thank him for the enforced wait; they had really THOUGHT about things and decided they needed to work on their relationship first, or they really weren't right for one another. And I do think it's better to realize that before saying "I do" than after).

Anyway. I don't look at women in the U.S. and go either "shameful group of selfish hussies" or "striking a blow against The Man!" or "crypto-lesbians bent on destroying all that is good or has been good about our country!"

No, rather, I look at a society where sex appeal is rewarded over intelligence and personality. And I look at a society where you're designated as some kind of a "sicko" if you're unwilling to put out after the third date. And a society where so many things are commodities - where some women won't date a man who makes less than a certain amount. And I look at a society where few people seem to really talk anymore. And a society where so many things have become so sexualized. And I'm not entirely surprised, you know, that there are a lot of never-married women out there (though we are probably only about 10 to 15 percent when you actually look at the numbers correctly; maybe even less).

Would I RATHER be married? Sometimes, I think yes. Certainly, it would be easier in a lot of ways: people don't always know where to "put" me, category-wise. It's sort of odd to be in a roomful of other women and have the conversation turn to husbands and kids, and I sort of sit there in a little shell with nothing to contribute, sometimes for hours on end.

But sometimes, I also think no. I can be a difficult person: I'm moody, I'm a bit of a slob, I get obsessed by things. When I'm in one of my black moods you do not want to even try talking to me. I'm not sure I'd want to subject a fellow to the less-pleasant side of my personality, and excising or keeping that side entirely covered does not seem to be entirely possible.

So, I don't know - but I do know that I'm not living my life as any kind of a symbol or any kind of a part of a movement. I just want to earn enough money to keep a roof over my head, and food on the table, and books on the shelves. I just want to make a wee tiny difference in the world suggesting that it's better off than it would be if I weren't here. I just want to make it through life relatively unmolested.

So please, don't use me as a symbol. Don't look at how I am living and somehow psychoanalyse it to fit in a neat box. Because you don't know me, totally, and you've probably not walked in shoes like mine.


(*It just occurred to me: Could Pelosi's criticism of C. Rice somehow fall into this whole mess? I tend to look up to Condi; she's smart, she may have chosen to sacrifice a more "conventional" happiness to use her skills in life. And I don't think she deserves crap from ANYBODY over having not married or having had kids).