I’m a spinster! Please, if you can skip making those faces in front of me! It’s rude if you must know! Well, being a spinster is far worse than being rude. In other words, everything is better than being a spinster! I know exactly what goes through your mind and what images your conditioned imagination creates for you. I even know what emotions make you suddenly quiver. Desperate, neurotic, a little lost, she is not beautiful; if she was beautiful, she would have been married. So simple! Furthermore, she doesn’t know how to keep her mouth shut; she always has to have her own opinions instead of agreeing with him. She just won’t bend her tail… Right?
Even if you do not have an eye for details, it will not be difficult for you to notice that I am not just a regular word but that I am burdened with a social and cultural context that makes me a repulsive and unwanted companion.
I want to ask for your help with one experiment! My first cousin is a bachelor. Do not overthink; tell me right away the first three things that came to your mind when you heard this word – bachelor. Okay, I’m listening:
- Good-looking
- Entertaining
- Fancy-free.
No, these are not double standards at all! No, no, no, not at all!
If you look it up in a dictionary, you will find the following description of me: a woman who is not married, especially a woman who is no longer young and seems unlikely ever to marry.
And, as for bachelor: a man who has never married.
Of course, you won’t find the “No longer young” phrase here. HE is forever young! Absolutely!
Another remark at my entry says: This word is likely to be offensive unless it is used about people in the past. The part – people in the past – brings us to the etymology. When spinster first entered English in the mid-1300s, it referred to a woman who spun thread and yarn. The jump from spinner to single lady is likely an economic one. Some scholars suggest that during the late Middle Ages, married tradeswomen had greater access to raw materials and the market (through their husbands) than unmarried woman did, and therefore unmarried women ended up with lower-status, lower-income jobs like combing, carding, and spinning wool. These jobs did not require access to expensive tools like looms, and could be done at home. By the 17th century, spinster was being used in legal documents to refer to unmarried women.
While there is no note next to my cousin’s dictionary entry, I can openly say that being a bachelor is not offensive at all, but on the contrary, it is a kind of status symbol, pride, and the desired next level.
Society already has previously made molds. All you have to do is enter and adjust yourself to them and their borders so you can immediately get the appropriate role, responsibilities, duties, and even all the accompanying emotions are provided. That is, it’s a predetermined life. Society is kind to everyone who unhesitatingly fits in that frame. But not towards me.
Here I’ll put it simply for you… Are you ready? I’m not listening to you! Are you prepared to hear one big, until now undiscovered truth? It may sound crazy and baffling to you, but… the truth is that (a small dramatic break) THERE IS STILL LIFE OUT OF THOSE MOLDS, TOO!
I can see some alarmed faces, wondering how it is possible for someone to be happy outside marriage and find meaning. No, no way, the opponents are loud!
I can be vicious just like you and say that those who mocked me are usually envious of my freedom, of uncompromising decision-making, and they deliberately want to belittle me, so I would feel the same pain they are going through. But I will stop here. Because life is colorful and beautiful, and I just stand for equal treatment.
I must admit that some determined executioners, who want me to disappear, frighten me. It is nothing but Nazi politics. That is why I am especially fond of those who try to refresh me, to redefine me, because, in the end, people are the ones who should change, not words, right? As the proud spinster Kate Bolick made it in her book Spinster: Making a Life of One’s Own, and for the first time in a long time, I sounded exactly how I really deserved. My girlfriends’ life is not sad, desperate or lonely at all. That should have been clear to all of us by now. Have you wondered what your life is like?
* Only one dilemma at the end: If words have to be changed and rejected, not according to their natural course, but intentionally, then how many other words bother people! However, they are not here by chance!
