Why Can’t a Woman Just Be a Woman?
A woman’s worth should never be dictated by her relationship and reproductive status
To celebrate International Women’s Day, I want to discuss the power of women just being women without needing to identify themselves based on who they are to other people.
Happy International Women’s Day to everyone, including the fabulous feminist men out there.
For 15 years, I was perpetually single. Because of this, society made me believe I was flawed.
But in reality, society is flawed in thinking we must be in a relationship to be happy and content.
I wish I could go back in time and tell the insecure 20-year-old me to relax and enjoy life and that just because most of her friends were in relationships, they weren’t necessarily happier or better people.
The external and consequent internalised pressure resulted in me participating in a bad relationship for too long. I wanted to be like everyone else. Having a boyfriend was a way to mask my oddities.
Coming out of that relationship was like a rebirth.
My years of being single in my 30s were the polar opposite of my experiences of being single in my 20s. By this time, I’d reclaimed singlehood.
My worth is not based on the status of my love life, nor is yours.
Not all romantic relationships are happy
I never knew what the rush was about.
But all around me, friends were getting married and racing to get pregnant. I’ve never been someone who dreamt of marriage and children. Marriage was something I was indifferent about, and children were a hard no.
It felt like being single was a virus no one wanted to catch.
And I can understand why. Because in the single years of my 20s, conversations centred around boyfriends, dating, and relationship progression.
Being single was akin to being unwanted and rejected and waving a flag to this effect for the whole world to see and judge.
The overarching message was clear.
It was better to be in a bad relationship than to be single. So, ever the creature who just wanted to fit in and be accepted, I sought a relationship.
I entered a five-year relationship in my mid-20s, and I lost myself. I settled. I bent, adjusted, compromised and accommodated. And I suffocated and faded.
On paper, I was living the dream. Co-habiting with my partner, two dogs, a successful job, holidays, and a fun social life. I had the makings of a good life.
But I was empty inside.
Single people are not broken
It took me several years to understand that it’s better to be single and genuinely happy than in a relationship and pretending to be happy.
It’s not simple. Because without this relationship, I also lost my ticket into the VIP suite where other couples hang out. A few friendships deteriorated because I was no longer an option for double dating.
I’ve heard some say women deem a single woman as a threat. Thus, single women are kept at a distance in case they try to snatch other women’s men.
But despite the distancing from some friends, I blossomed and bloomed being single in my 30s.
I tapped into my authentic self and lived true to my values.
I felt alive and vibrant.
Isn’t it peculiar that during one of the best times of my life, my love life (or lack of it) was at the centre of other people’s conversations? All people wanted to know was whether I had a boyfriend yet or if I was dating.
A single male colleague had the hypocrisy to tell me that I was getting dusty up on the shelf and that I better “hurry up and find a man.”
I looked him square in the eyes and told him I was happy on my shelf, and if I saw something I liked, I would swoop down and scoop him up to my shelf.
It’s perverse, isn’t it, because a single woman is faulty, whereas a single man is empowered. Oh, and apparently, being single made me a man-hater.
During this stage of pervasive singleness, no one thought to ask if I was happy. So deep is the presumption that single people are miserable and coupled people are happy.
People sure act funny around single people, as if they are trying to avoid catching single.
Love is all around us
Bella DePaulo writes extensively about being single.
Bella has published books and research papers and has her own TED talk. She speaks of finding joy, meaning and fulfilment in her single-by-choice life.
I’ve witnessed first-hand the amount of pushback Bella sometimes gets on social media.
I can’t help but wonder if it’s a classic case of misery loves company.
Some people in unhappy relationships doth protest too much and don’t want to believe they drank the Kool-Aid. In their heads, they are doing what they were supposed to do. Happy single people make them feel they’ve been conned.
Bella strikes fear into people’s hearts because they perceive her as unloved and unloveable.
This fear that we are innately unloved and unloveable is a universal core belief, which we subconsciously scramble around trying to disprove. I know I’ve been in some short relationships to prove I’m loveable to others.
The truth is that we are expected to live a compliant life.
This means doing what is expected of us. Marriage, children, pay our taxes and adhere to laws. Those who don’t subscribe to this are seen as troublemakers and are to be mocked, shunned and discredited.
But we are forgetting something.
Being loved and loveable is not limited to romantic love or familial love. Those of us not pedalling the standard path aren’t deprived of love or connection; we just find it in different ways.
My love for my friends and dogs is no less real than someone else’s love for their partner.
Challenging patriarchal norms
What if we were to place friendships at the centre of our relationships?
Sure, it would upset the capitalist and patriarchal apple carts, but who cares? Nuclear families have been a catastrophe for the majority anyway.
Most cultures have a hierarchy pyramid regarding the importance of our relationships.
This hierarchy places parents, partners, children, and extended family on the highest rungs of the hierarchy, with friendship at the bottom and pets not mentioned.
We are prescribed who we can love and have intricate lives with. Heck, most workplace compassionate leave policies rarely extend outside the familiar spheres for bereavements.
But I say we have it all wrong.
What if we pushed our romantic relationships to the background, or at least didn’t place them front and centre and instead invested more time nourishing our connections with friends?
I highly recommend this thought-provoking piece titled Reimagining Life with Friendship at the Center, an interview by Anne Peterson with Rhaina Cohen.
Anne Peterson is a culture studies professor and writes the popular Culture Study newsletter on Substack. She says, “Everything is interesting if you just spend some time analyzing and contextualizing it.”
Rhaina is the author of a new book, The Other Significant Others: Reimagining Life with Friendship at Its Center.
Without giving too much away, Rhaina writes of the merits of building a community based on mutuality. A chosen family is not dictated by familial obligation but by the want and will to nurture, support and love each other.
If we knew we had valid options for how we relate ourselves to others, many of us wouldn’t feel such a sense of shame in being single or end up in bad relationships.
You are more than your relationship and reproductive status
I know many people do this, so I mean no offence. But when I see women fill their bios with “wife” and/or “mum,” I feel a little sad.
Because the Patriarchy has peddled the message that the value of a woman is inextricably linked to who she is to others.
And yes, men may complete their bios with “husband” and/or “father”, but it’s not as prevalent. Take a look for yourself.
We’ve subconsciously lapped this up.
All around me, women jump at the opportunity to fill their bio in with their relationship status and then their reproductive status. An exclamation to the world: “Look, I’m loveable. I’m relevant to someone. I’m chosen. I’m doing what is expected of me. I’m not flawed.”
We claim our “wife” and “mum” titles as accolades, life flexes, and badges of honour. By this very notion, I can’t help but think we silently suggest that being single and not having children is associated with inadequacy and a lack of love and, by comparison, is less than.
Heck yeah, be proud of being a wife and mum. But I’m curious about what message you are trying to convey by including it in your bio. Does it define you? And by this notion, why don’t we include “friend” in our bios?
It’s that prescribed hierarchy coming in again. Being a friend isn’t considered valiant and virtuous, especially compared to being a wife or a mum, but let me tell you - good friends are gold dust and being a good friend is worthy of shouting about.
We are forever told (mainly by right-wing governments) that women who are in relationships and have done their duty of reproducing are happier, more relevant and worthy. This is a form of coercive manipulation to try and keep women on the right path.
You are enough
I feel like I sold the sisterhood out by getting married last year.
But I want you to know that I ardently believe that marriage isn’t for everyone, nor are relationships.
I’m a happy person on a journey of personal growth. And despite some archaic thinking, marriage itself has not made me a better or happier person. And I haven’t allowed my valuable friendships to disintegrate into the background.
On International Women’s Day, my wish for all women is that you know your worth.
Whether you are single or in a relationship — no matter what that looks like to you — I hope you are happy.
Stand tall as a woman. That is enough. You don’t need to prove yourself by leaning on what nouns you can claim.
Yes, we are all daughters. Some of us may be sisters, nieces, aunts, wives and mothers. But the familial link between you and others doesn’t dictate your worth as an individual.
First and foremost, you are a woman. And that is enough in itself.
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You may like my article from last year’s International Women’s Day.
You can also find my writings and musings on Medium. I write about kindness, psychology, social injustice, the nuances of living childfree, friendship, social justice, feminism, personal growth, and much more.
