Do gender roles play a part in how society views single women?
Over the weekend, the UK has been hosting the G7 summit where leaders of seven of the top economies in the world gather to decide on common policy and to network and negotiate with each other. In an effort to schmooze, Boris Johnson got the Queen and other members of the royal family down to Cornwall and I happened to come across a tweet from the official royal family Twitter account with some pictures of what our Queenie had been up to.
The pictures showed her celebrating a community lunch project (which I have actually written about before and it is a good project deserving of attention). Other pictures show The US president’s wife Jill Biden and Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge speaking with school children while Johnson’s wife Carrie has been pictured with their son and the women of the G7 (mostly wives of leaders) cooing over him. Meanwhile Prince William and Charles were pictured with the top business people discussing important issues such as climate policy and sustainable investment – and obviously the leaders (mostly men) have been pictured ahead of important bilateral talks.
It’s been a perfect study in gender roles – and how pervasive they still are. The women, in brightly coloured floral dresses raise awareness of issues such as loneliness, community, education and childcare, while the men, wearing mostly grey or blue suits, get down to business with “serious” issues such as the economy and trade. Aside from regularly wanting to throw things at the TV screen when these images have been shown, I also found myself wondering what would have happened if all the men were single. Would the causes the women were highlighting just be totally forgotten about? I think we can guess the answer.
For those who need a reminder, here’s a definition shared by Planned Parenthood: “Gender roles in society means how we’re expected to act, speak, dress, groom, and conduct ourselves based upon our assigned sex. For example, girls and women are generally expected to dress in typically feminine ways and be polite, accommodating, and nurturing. Men are generally expected to be strong, aggressive, and bold.”
I want to say that I am writing here from my own experience as someone who is both straight and cisgendered so apologies if this comes across as heteronormative and not inclusive of the trans experience. Hopefully it will still be interesting and relevant and food for thought for those who have different life experiences.
I’ve been thinking all week about gender roles and the part they play in how we feel about being single and the role women are meant to play in society. It started when I saw a post on social media by a woman that said something like: “Who else is happy the Euros are on? Now we can finally read in peace!” Obviously everyone has their own interests and I love many things that are considered feminine – crafts, cooking, gardening, and yes, reading. But as someone who loves nothing more than , I did roll my eyes because saying stuff like that just perpetuates gender roles; husbands watch football and wives do more feminine things like read quietly. Her post wasn’t the only one and they really grate on me because it feels like their is an assumption that they are speaking for all women.
I then listened to Glennon Doyle and her sister Amanda’s news podcast We Can Do Hard Things and was listening to the one about fun, which Glennon’s wife Abby Wambach appears on. They are talking about why it is that men often prioritise and know how to have fun as adults, even when work and life become more hectic. Many play sports or computer games, for example, whereas Glennon, Amanda and many of their friends don’t really have many hobbies or understand how to fully let go and have fun. This could be partly because of their roles as mothers, Glennon says, but she also believes it goes much deeper than that.
Glennon says she believes part of the reason is that girls are conditioned to worry more about appearing attractive and how we fit in to a group or society as a whole. She says: “Girls are trained to care about how we appear to other people or whether we’re looking desirable or looking attractive, or are we fitting in? And I think fun does require being unselfconscious and it does require losing yourself and not worrying about how you appear and that is what has trained out of girls so early.”
Then on Sunday night after a long news reporting shift, I started re-watching Bridgerton and a line of dialogue caught my attention as it really spoke to what Glennon and Abby were talking about on the podcast. I put it on as I was in need of some light relief after watching the Denmark v Finland Euros game. It was a traumatic thing to watch as one of the players, Christian Eriksen, collapsed and then received CPR which was shown on screen. Thankfully he survived but I was still feeling emotional about it later and Bridgerton was the answer. In one scene Penelope, a teenager, asks her mother if she can go and play with her friend Eloise. Her mother says: “Ladies don’t play.” Penelope frowns and replies: “Of course not. Might I go promenade for suitors with Eloise?” Obviously this is just a line in a TV show but I found it pretty telling about what is seen as appropriate when we’re coming of age. Young men should be having as much fun as possible while sowing their oats and young women should be focusing on looking attractive and trying to nail one of these men down.
These things also got me thinking about the way we are conditioned to feel about being single. So aside from all the fairytales, books, TV programmes and films, which I’ve discussed before, I have been wondering if there something in the way we are conditioned as children that makes us believe it’s unnatural to be single?
Women are expected to be nurturing so perhaps that’s why society still has a problem with those who are unattached. If we don’t yet have children and only really have ourselves to look after then society deems that we aren’t fulfilling our duties to care and nurture for others. This is frustrating to think about because there are many ways to nurture and care without being a wife and mother. Being single, especially long-term, is also one long practice in learning not to care about other people’s opinions and as Glennon says, we are trained to care deeply about how others view us. Therefore it can feel like a rebellion to let all those unsolicited opinions wash over us and not influence what we do. Side note, I loved this part of the episode that Abby has shared on Instagram:
Yesterday morning I then read a really interesting article in Refinery29, which I have talked more about below. It’s about the rise in popularity of femininity coaching for those looking for love. The article says: “Dating coach Sami Wunder makes over £1 million a year supposedly helping "high-achieving women attract lasting romantic love". Her blogs detail how ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine’ energy should coexist when dating. "[Women] accidentally devalue themselves in the eyes of men by practising masculine 'business'-like behaviours in their romantic relationships," she writes. This reinforces gender norms, binaries and long-established conventions according to which women who dare to leave the domestic sphere are overstepping.”
Many of you reading are not looking for love or at least not actively right now but I think this idea of feminine’ and ‘masculine’ energy seeps into how society views us. Is it too masculine to be self-sufficient and not need a man to provide for us and therefore that’s why people – and particularly the older generations – struggle to know how to speak to us?
I would love to hear your opinions. Perhaps you can pinpoint things from your past that have influenced how you feel about your single status? Or maybe you had a totally different upbringing. Please comment below, if you’re a paying subscriber, or send me an email.
Have a lovely week,
Nicola
Twitter: @Nicola_Slawson | Instagram: @Nicola_Slawson
What made me think
“Marry Rich”: Love Coaches Are Telling Women To Channel Feminine Energy
This is the article I talked about above. It’s a really interesting about the rise of people wanting to channel their feminine energy in order to find love. This quote says far more eloquently what I was trying to say above: “There is still, sadly, a worrying implied link between your inherent value as a woman and the extent to which you are prepared to perform vague and abstract ideas of 'femininity' which, particularly in the context of our shifting ideas about gender and sexuality, can be pretty rigid and isolating. "One of the really noticeable things that people bring into therapy is the feeling that women need to be the custodians of the emotional terms of their relationship," Cate tells me. "So women have to be the ones who are together, who don't fly off the handle, who apologise, who make things better when they go wrong, who are caring and loving."
Things you should check out
Why black solo female travel is a radical act – Love this extract of Georgina Lawton’s new book Black Girls Take World.
Losing a year to the Covid pandemic convinced me to freeze my eggs – brave writing from Becky who is a member of this community!
What my single mother taught me can help all parents – This is a nice antidote to the stigma single mothers still face.
Are You Happy Being Single? – Buzzfeed want to hear from people who are happy about being single. Fill in the form on this webpage if interested.
'Relationships end and that's ok' Liverpool mum on embracing new beginnings – Blogger Sarah Sandison asks why do we associate longevity with success?
Why this dating apps meme is going viral on Twitter, and what it says about us – in case anyone was wondering why everyone was sharing the same format of tweet this week.
I just want to say out loud (well typing actually) that I’m an ally of the whole LGBTQ+ community. Feel free to unsubscribe if that bothers you.
A new agony aunt column is also going out today so watch out for that if you subscribe.
Next week I’ll have an exciting interviewee! Can’t wait to share with you.
Don’t forget to follow me on Instagram if you don’t already!
A relevant tweet for today’s theme. The power of representation on screen will surely help dismantle some of the toxic gender roles!
Words I love
You alone are enough. You have nothing to prove to anybody.
– Maya Angelou
About me
For those who don’t know, I’m Nicola Slawson, a freelance journalist who lives in Shropshire, UK. If you would like to support what I do, please consider subscribing to be a paid supporter of The Single Supplement. Follow me on Instagram and Twitter.
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