There is an aspect of singlism (the
stereotyping, stigmatizing, and discrimination against people who are single) that continues to amaze me - it is often practiced without apology or even awareness. Those who engage in singlism can be clueless about their bigotry.
Example #1. Dumb Statement from "Smart Marriages"
One example comes the group, Smart Marriages. The goal of the group, according to their website, is to make marriage education widely available. In a recent e-mail, the listserv moderator included a group member's recommendation of the movie "Marley and Me." Now I haven't seen the movie or read the book, so my post is not about that. What is important is what was said about the movie.
The person recommending the movie began by explaining why she thought that the couple who owned Marley (the dog) had such a great marriage. Then she describes the contrast between the husband and his friend who is single, and expresses her approval that the movie never portrays the husband as wanting to be single and carefree like his friend. Here's the money quote:
"The contrast doesn't come across as judgmental. It just makes it seem like the friend doesn't have roots and that his life has a lot of emptiness while John has his family and a life with meaning."
Think about this for a moment while you shake your head in dismay. Here is someone describing a single person's life as rootless and empty, and the married person's as full of family and meaning, AND at the same time claiming that there's nothing judgmental here!
I wondered if other Smart Marriage members would have any response. Sure enough, in the next e-mail, another member complimented the first on her astute assessment. The movie, she added, is "a really good lesson on tolerance and empathy."
I'm not just complaining or making my own value judgments, though I am doing both. (I value people who do not practice singlism over people who do, and I vow to continue complaining about the latter.) I think we can learn a thing or two from the practice of bigotry toward singles.
First, this is an example of how singlism gets perpetrated. Dismissive statements about single people are e-mailed to probably thousands of people, and go unchallenged.
Second, notice the implicit strategy for promoting marriage. If you don't get married and join the ranks of people with meaningful lives, "Smart Marriages" seems to be saying, you will live out your single life rootless and empty. The group is not content to promote marriage; it wants to threaten, scare, and humiliate you out of your single life. Somehow I doubt that's an effective route to a smart and strong marriage.
The example is not an exception for the Smart Marriage group. In fact, they offer their visitors a page of quotes about marriage, including this one from Franz Kafka:
"It seems so dreadful to stay a bachelor, to become an old man struggling
to keep one's dignity while begging for an invitation whenever one wants
to spend an evening in company, to lie ill gazing for weeks into an empty
room from the corner where one's bed is..." [and so on for several more miserable and insulting lines].
Example #2. Heard on C-SPAN: Singles Are Like Obese People - They Lack Discipline
(Hat tip to Wendy Shields for alerting me to this example.)
At a panel hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, and later broadcast on C-Span, James Q. Wilson of Pepperdine University introduced Linda Waite as:
"co-author, with Maggie Gallagher, of a remarkable book about the benefits, in terms of health, well-being, longevity, etc., of marriage. So compelling is the book that you wonder why any man and woman of the appropriate age doesn't get married immediately. Well, that's akin to explaining obesity. Everyone knows that remaining slender is in your long-term interest but then someone puts fudge in front of you or chocolate cake and you can't resist the immediate temptation."
This is a twofer. In one brief introduction, Wilson flaunts his ignorance and bigotry both toward obese people and single people. I'll leave it to my fellow PT bloggers who are more knowledgeable about such matters to debunk the claim that obese people got that way by their utter lack of willpower in the face of fudge and cake.
As for the singlism, well, which is it? Is single life empty (as the Smart Marriage people would have us believe) or is it filled with tempting and delicious delicacies? Are we single people hanging onto our single states because we don't have the willpower to set aside those brownies and eat our peas? (And is James Q. Wilson really trying to persuade us of the appeal of getting married by comparing it to eating peas?)
The two examples, taken side-by-side, show how the practitioners of singlism get singles coming and going. First, claim that the lives of single people are rootless, meaningless, and empty. If that doesn't stick, then try this: Okay single people, so you think your lives are full? Well, they are full of frivolity, like eating nothing but dessert.
There are lots of these "heads I win, tails you lose" takes on single life. (I've described some of them in Singled Out.) For example, if you are a young single man, you need to "settle down." If you are an older single man with a home, a good job, and people you care about, well, then, you are "set in your ways." If you are a single woman, then maybe you are a slut. That doesn't fit? Poor thing - you don't get any.
The lesson is this: Live your single life fully, in the ways that seem most meaningful to you. Don't try to construct your life so as to dodge the slings of singlism - there's always another arrow of bigotry where the first one came from.
Once, when I was describing these gotcha dilemmas to the host of a radio show, she said the dynamic was familiar to her as a married woman who had decided, along with her husband, that she did not want kids. Sometimes she is told that she's just selfish - she's like a kid who just wants to have fun and does not want to accept the responsibilities of parenting. Other times she's told that she is missing out on all the fun and joy of having children. Either way, her decision is derided and dismissed.
One last and very important note. That supposedly "remarkable" book showing that getting married brings health, well-being, and a longer life? I've read it very closely, even going back to the original sources to check out the claims. Don't buy it (the book or the conclusions). As I explain in Chapter 2 of Singled Out, most of the claims made by Waite and Gallagher about the transformative power of marriage are misrepresented, grossly exaggerated, or just plain wrong.
