New year, new feelings of failure
It's 2020, and because we have hit a new decade, my social media feed has been filled up with reflective posts, lists of achievements and comparison photos. I am sure it has been the same for you all.
For a self-confessed social media addict who is always the designated photographer at any social event with friends as well as being a total oversharer who is also incredibly sentimental, I should have been one of the first to leap on the trend. Instead, I hesitated and started overthinking it. In the end, I talked myself out of doing anything.
One reason was that a decade ago, I was just a couple of months into a disastrous relationship which ended in my worst heartbreak. If I had been in a much happier place ten years ago, I might have been more inclined to do one of those comparison photos.
But that wasn't the only reason. All the posts also just felt like a big huge reminder of all the milestones I haven't hit. While some people were talking about getting married (and even divorced), buying first and even second homes and having multiple kids, I am still here single, childless, renting and in debt. Life can sometimes feel a little like groundhog day.
What the unease boiled down to was that I was feeling like a failure. My age has a lot to do with this. In 2009, I was 25 and now I'm 35. That age range from 25 to 35 is surely when women are under the most intense pressure from society, our mothers and, of course, our biological clocks. In the decade where I should have hit all the major life milestones, I managed not to hit a single one.
When it comes to failures, Elizabeth Day, podcast host of How to Fail and author of the book of the same name, is the go-to woman. It just so happened that Russell Brand's podcast came out yesterday and Elizabeth was his guest. In it, she talks about her infertility issues and why feelings of failure around this is a patriarchial issue.
This part of the episode, which everyone can watch for free on YouTube, felt particularly powerful. She explains why she believes the patriarchy has everything to do with why women who can't have children are made to feel like failures. I believe this is also the explanation for why single women are also made to feel like failures.
"The reason I talk about it so much is that I want to excavate our shame and hold it up to the light so that we're no longer ashamed of it," she said. "We've been made to feel like failures as women because we're not fulfilling biological imperative. It suits the patriarchy for us to feel like that. It's suits the patriarchy to keep us as broodmares just popping out their children while they rule the world. And that kind of language has meant that – quote-unquote – 'women's conditions' have been marginalised."
Side note, the first sentence is something I'm going to remind myself of when I am feeling nervous/ashamed about how honest I am in these newsletters. I know from the responses I get that I need to keep going and I love the idea of holding this experience of being single up to the light so we're no longer ashamed of it (which in turn will hopefully make others change their perceptions of single women!).
The other thing that I realised was how much I was still comparing myself to other people's experiences, and it helped to listen to Lucy Sheridan speaking on Emma Gannon's Ctlr Alt Delete podcast. As I have already written so much, I think I'll make this a two-parter and delve into the dreaded problem of comparison next week!
By the way, for those who are wondering what I ended up doing on NYE, my best mate and I ended up hiking up The Wrekin, a big hill/landmark in Shropshire with a meet-up group. We got to the top at 11:45pm, and there were loads of people already up there. It was something completely different and was a great experience, so my fears of having a shit time were unfounded. I hope you all had a good one if you chose to celebrate.
Happy new year!
Nicola
Twitter: @Nicola_Slawson | Instagram: @Nicola_Slawson_Journalist
What has caught my attention
My Little Sister Got Engaged & People Keep Asking If I'm Okay (Spoiler: I Am)
This article by journalist Vicky Spratt caught my eye. What Vicky says at the end is the perfect response to everything I said above: "We don't live cookie-cutter lives (if we ever did). There is no step-by-step recipe for the perfect relationship or career. Perfection doesn't exist. What matters is not whether our lives follow the same path or whether they look the same but how we support one another along the way."
Cheryl Tweedy on Girls Aloud, Liam Payne and why she wants another baby
This article is behind a paywall, but I have shared a video of the important section on my Instagram stories if you can't access it. I could be wrong, but I think Cheryl is the most high profile British celeb to announce she wants to go down the sperm donor route. Personally, I am all for her being upfront about it. I hope her honesty will open up the conversation around this route to motherhood. Maybe I'm putting a lot on just one newspaper interview, but I do think when celebs are open about issues, it can have a positive impact.
These New Year's Resolutions Are For Single Women Only
I love these new year's resolutions from Shani Silver, a New York writer who writes a column about being single fro Refinery29. My favourite is the one about nesting. I’m hoping to move in a few months. When that happens, I can do as Shani suggests and nest to heart's content and without anyone else’s input! What a dream!
What made me rage
There are no words.
Heroine of the week
Ok, she is a fictional character but I went to see Little Women at the cinema and fell in love with Jo March all over again. The quotes in the film are amazing. I think I’ll have to go and watch it again and then do a proper review/analysis as I was too busy weeping through it the first time!
The lowdown
I hope you like my new branding! It was designed by Samantha King and you can check her other work out on her Instagram page as she also sells prints and greetings cards. (This is not an ad, I just think she deserves the praise!)
You can now find The Single Supplement on Instagram and Facebook as @thesinglesupplement and Twitter as @thesinglesupp.
I was interviewed for this article about mindful fitness. While it is not to do with being single, the ladies pond on Hampstead Heath makes me feel like a badass independent woman whenever I go so thought I would share.
I am thinking of starting an online book club for a mixture of fiction or non-fiction books centred around single women / strong independent women. What do you think? I would love to hear your thoughts!
About me
For those who don't know, I'm Nicola Slawson, a freelance journalist who lives in London, UK. I don't get paid to do this newsletter (maybe one day I will), but if you enjoyed it and would like to buy me a coffee, you can.
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