Many older women quite content living their lives single and free
Being unmarried doesn’t mean they are damaged goods
Not all older single ladies want a ring on it, and they have a message for relatives, co-workers, neighbors, friends, acquaintances and life’s random buttinskys who think they need one:
Shut up already!
They have other messages: We’re not all sad. We’re not all divorced, unlucky in love or unlovable. We’re not all gay (and even if we were, have we not evolved as a culture, even just a little, to stop making that assumption? Don’t answer that.)
Singledom and a massive case of “singlism” are red hot right now as short hair, softball and being single at 50 swirl around Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan, and Samantha Jones cracks menopause jokes at 54 as she romps in the desert with her three fab friends in “Sex and the City 2.”
For women, say 45 and up, who are living single and always have, it’s a chronically sizzling subject as they face down the seemingly unstoppable tangle of stereotypes that has plagued them forever: Old maid. Desperate. Quirky. Cougar. Incapable of committing. Workaholic. Bitter. Damaged goods.
“There always has to be something wrong,” says Rose Clayton, 48, who works in the tasting room of a winery in Alexandria, Va., and has always been single.
“It’s always, ‘Oohhh, what’s wrong?’ I always go, ‘With me, you mean? Or other people?’
“I have plenty of friends, family. I go out and do things. I travel, go to dinner and parties, socialize.”
Social psychologist Bella DePaulo is 56 and a happy always-single near Santa Barbara, Calif. She’s been trying to turn off the stereotypes and end the stigma, first through a book, “Singled Out,” and now a blog for Psychologytoday.com called Living Single.
Older, single women are often painted as what DePaulo called “quirkyalones” when really they’re “singles at heart” and wouldn’t have it any other way.
“I think there’s really a belief that if you get married you are actually a better person than a single person,” she says.
Over-the-top hyping of marriage and coupling wasn’t necessary back when everybody got married, when they divorced less and when women had little opportunity for financial security or having children outside of marriage.
In 1970, 28 percent of the U.S. population was divorced, widowed or never married. By 2008, it was 45.2 percent, with single women 45 and older 27 million strong across those categories.
According to a 2009 census report, 11.5 percent of women between the ages of 45 and 49 have never been married, up from 10.7 percent in 2005. For women 50 to 54, it was 10 percent, compared with 8.7 percent four years earlier.
Betsy Robinson, 59, is madly in love – with the single life she’s always had.
“I remember really lighting into my grandmother when I was in my 20s for referring to a time when I was going to get married,” says the New York City writer.
“I told her never, and I think she went into shock. She was the sweetest person in the world, and I got really mad at her.”
Not so much has changed in nearly four decades, says Robinson, who has been following media coverage and commentary on Kagan’s single status and coded speculation on her sexual orientation.
Whether living happily single without hunting for a mate – or living happily single while dating, especially outside one’s age range – the stereotypes never end.
Take the cougar craze. Kim Cattrall of Samantha fame recently questioned the term, for herself and her “Sex and the City” character.
“I think cougar has a negative connotation,” she told Extra. “I was asked recently by a significant magazine for women over 40 to pose with a cougar, and I refused to do it because I felt it was insulting. They took away the cover because I refused to do so.”
Like Cattrall’s Samantha, 45-year-old Lori Goodwine of Las Vegas has her own public relations firm. She loves how her life is “really focused on me,” but falls somewhere in the middle on the issue of a long-term relationship.
Ideally, she says, she’d love to have “a great guy around,” so long as he doesn’t live with her.
“If I hear one more time, ‘You’re not married? You don’t have a kid? Are you gay?’ I’m going to scream,” she says.
“My life is pretty fabulous, a ‘Sex and the City’ story with the occasional pair of $500 shoes that I get on sale. I feel great about my life.”