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A conversation I once had with an Uber driver…
Him: How old are you?
Me: 28.
Him: You got kids?
Me: Nope.
Him: Are you married?
Me: Nope.
Him: But you have a partner, right?
Me: Um, nope.
Awkward silence…
Apparently, it blew my Uber driver’s mind that a woman in her late-twenties could be single, like single-single: no husband, no dependants, no boyfriend, not even a pet goldfish for that matter. I found it quite amusing that the mere act of revealing my marital status had made a grown man utterly incapable of producing sound from his mouth! Who knew it could be that easy to shut a person up? My experience with the nosy Uber driver is just one of many odd experiences, and I am but one of millions of singles who endure similar (or worse) negative reactions and perceptions about singleness.
We live in a society that largely values pair-bonding and matrimony, so those who do not conform to this ideal (whether by choice or circumstance) often experience some form of negative bias against them. As put by social psychologist, Bella DePaulo, “Singlism is the stigmatizing of adults who are single. It includes negative stereotyping of singles and discrimination against singles.” Singlism is such a fascinating cultural issue that it has warranted attention from academics whose studies have revealed that singlism is far more pervasive than meets the eye.
Social
You’ve suffered looks of pity cast in your direction when you’ve shown up to an event without a date. You showed up with no date because plus-ones don’t apply to your invitation since singles obviously don’t have important people in their lives. You’re accustomed to giving tight-lipped smiles in response to your friends’ and family’s well meaning words like, “You still have a little time.” While men and women both experience these types of social pressure to become coupled, women, especially, get it worse.
There tends to be more tolerance for men to be single for longer than there is for women. If you’re a single man in his thirties or older, you’re basically cool, like Leonardo DiCaprio (who doesn’t want to be Leo?). But if you’re a single woman in her thirties or older, then you’re an impossible-to-love cat lady, an old maid, or a desperate raging sex animal who needs to be reined in. Gradually, your married female friends greet you with suspicion and keep their partners away from you (because those singles just can’t keep their pants on!). Now people ask if you’re being too picky, and how you plan to lock one down while you’re still f-ckable. And if you live in China, there’s a name for you there: “sheng nu” which means “leftover woman”.
Workplace
Whom is work-life balance for? Companies will tell you that it’s for every employee but when you get down to the reality of it, singles often experience less flexibility than their co-workers who are parents. In a Marie Claire article (The Single Girl’s Second Shift), Ayana Byrd writes about a single childless woman named Tanya Kelly who voices her frustrations about this very issue. “Each year I ask for the week off after Christmas, and my supervisor says no every time because another employee has to be home with her kids that week… After giving 110 percent all year, I can’t spend this time with my family?” she wrote.
Of course raising children is no walk in the park, and I am certainly not saying that little Timmy should suffer grueling hunger pangs while mum and dad work tirelessly in the office. But some consideration and respect should also be given to the lives of childless singles — just because a person is single without kids doesn’t mean that their time outside of work is meaningless.
Taxes
Things get worse for singles when you factor in that being single will cost you more than not being single — and I mean that literally.
According to Bella DePaulo, “there are more than 1,000 laws that protect or benefit only those persons who are legally married.” These include our federal tax laws: it is generally more advantageous to file jointly if you are married than it is to file separately, and federal estate tax law permits the transfer of a deceased spouse’s unused estate tax exemption to a surviving spouse.
Doesn’t this sound a little unfair?
