A Thing Called “Singleism” (Podcast Episode) – Societal Discrimination Against Single Adults

A Thing Called “Singleism” (Podcast Episode) – Societal Discrimination Against Single Adults

I have not listened to this podcast myself. Apparently, the part about being single is the second or so topic discussed in the podcast.

I’m a conservative, not a progressive or a Democrat. If the first part of this program discusses Democrats in a glowing manner, my apologies. I assume you can move the play head past the nauseating pro-liberal, pro-progressive commentary, if any exists.

(Link): A Thing Called “Singleism” (Podcast Episode)

Description on the page:

EPISODE SUMMARY
An odd late-August election date in New York gave Democrats new hope for the midterms thanks to surging voter energy. Is that the whole story?

Then, the social stigma against staying single past “marrying age” still exists and some call it Singleism. What does the data show?

Are Single People Discriminated Against? Many Say Yes – via YouGovAmerica

Are Single People Discriminated Against? Many Say Yes – via YouGovAmerica (February 2022)

Their page has some infographs on it, which I won’t be copying and placing in this post.

(Link): Are Single People Discriminated Against? Many Say Yes

Excerpts:

by Taylor Orth

Does discrimination against single people exist in the U.S.? According to a new poll, Americans are split, with unmarried women especially likely to say yes.

The Cambridge English Dictionary recently added a new word: singlism, which is defined as the “unfair treatment of people who are single.”

Social psychologist Bella DePaulo coined the term roughly a decade ago, and while it hasn’t permeated mainstream discourse to the extent of other “-isms,” such as racism and sexism, awareness surrounding the stigma and disadvantages faced by singles has arguably risen in recent years.

DePaulo’s thesis, that unmarried people are treated unfairly, is backed up by recent research showing that single people report lower levels of well-being compared to coupled adults, which researchers find is at least partially attributable to negative treatment and discrimination.

Covid Singles Are Supposedly Lonely and Miserable. But Some Of Us Are Thriving Instead, by B. DePaulo

Covid Singles Are Supposedly Lonely and Miserable. But Some Of Us Are Thriving Instead, by B. DePaulo

(Link): Covid Singles Are Supposedly Lonely and Miserable. But Some Of us Are Thriving Instead, by B. DePaulo

Excerpts:

I’m single. I always have been. I also live alone. Because of the pandemic, I have not stepped foot in a restaurant or even a grocery store for nearly a year.

Apparently, I am supposed to be suffering. At the (Link): Washington Post, a story about the consequences of being “cooped up with our families for nearly a year” paraphrased an economist reassuring families that “the steepest consequences … will fall on the folks who are stuck at home alone.”

…I fully acknowledge that for some single people, the pandemic has been a miserable experience (as it also has for many couples and families).

But I am not one of them.

The Nuclear Family Was A Mistake – by David Brooks – and Related Links

The Nuclear Family Was A Mistake – by David Brooks – and Related Links

If you want to get right to it, here’s the main link:

(Link): The Nuclear Family Was a Mistake by David Brooks  – via The Atlantic (off site link)

Before I paste in excerpts from that editorial by David Brooks below, I wanted to say a few words, and I will be pasting in any relevant links about the Brooks piece even farther below that.

I’ve been saying on this blog FOR YEARS many of the same things that Brooks has outlined in his essay.

Some of what I’ve been saying on this blog for years now includes:
that Christians and conservatives have turned Marriage and The Nuclear Family into idols,
that they have placed weight upon both that the Bible never did, and in the process of advocating marriage, these conservatives and Christians have marginalized the never-married, the divorced, the widowed and the childless or childfree among them, and this is wrong.

The Bible does not teach that marriage – or parenting – are going to “fix” society, or that being married or becoming a parent is necessary to make a person into a moral, upstanding, responsible individual.

If you’re a conservative or a Christian who keeps sounding the alarm about falling marriage rates, you need to accept reality for what it is: most people now are either single and childless by choice or by circumstance.

The United States is simply never going back to the June and Ward Cleaver family structures in mass droves that existed in the 1950s; (Link): so get over it already, and stop trying to punish or guilt trip anyone and everyone who doesn’t marry or have children.

Singlism: How Serious Is It, Really? by B. DePaulo

Singlism: How Serious Is It, Really? by B. DePaulo

(Link): Singlism: How Serious Is It, Really?

Excerpts:

….This time, the person [arguing with DePaulo] argued that singlism — stereotyping, stigmatizing, and discrimination against people who are single — does not even exist.

A different version of the objection concedes that there are ways in which single people are viewed and treated more negatively than married people, but insists that those instances are so inconsequential that they should simply be ignored.

After all, there are other “isms” that are far more serious than singlism.

…Singlism can be financially devastating.

In part because of laws, policies, and practices that favor married people and couples over single people, the costs of living single can be staggering.

For example, married people, with all their opportunities to draw from their spouse’s benefits, can get far more out of Social Security than single people do. Housing costs, health costs, and taxes are higher for single people.

The Study of Why Men Stay Single: What No One Is Telling You by B. DePaulo

The Study of Why Men Stay Single: What No One Is Telling You by B. DePaulo

According to DePaulo, aspects of this study are very victim-blaming and tell single men, ‘the reason you’re still single is that you are a big, fat, loser.’ (This is the sort of rhetoric that single women usually receive.)

(Link): The Study of Why Men Stay Single: What No One Is Telling You by B. DePaulo

Excerpts:

… If you are not familiar with Reddit, take a look at Andrew Marantz’s New Yorker (Link): article. He notes, for example, that on Google, three of the top auto-completions for Reddit are “toxic,” “cancer,” and “hot garbage.”

Presumably not all the Reddit threads are terrible, but the one in which users answered the question, “Guys, why are you single?”, drew comments such as:

-“Jesus titty-fucking Christ, this whole thread is depressing as fuck. If you like being single you can stop reading.”
-“This thread is Reddit at it’s finest.” [sic]

…The answer he expected to find came from his evolutionary perspective: In the past, marriages were arranged, so men did not have to have any social skills to have a mate.

Now, however, “men who have difficulty flirting or are unable to impress the opposite sex may remain single because their (Link): social skills have not evolved to meet today’s societal demands.”

Also important to Apostolou’s perspective is the assumption that men generally do not want to be single.

The entire empirical test of those ideas was that one Reddit thread [that asked men of that site why they think they are single].

In what strikes me as a very poor decision, the journal Evolutionary Psychological Science published Apostolou’s article. The title is, “Why men stay single? Evidence from Reddit.”

Six New Things Researchers Found Out About Single People in 2017 by B. DePaulo

Six New Things Researchers Found Out About Single People in 2017 by B. DePaulo

(Link): Six New Things Researchers Found Out About Single People in 2017 by B. DePaulo

Excerpts:

… The ensuing decades have done little to dissuade social scientists of their certainty that single people were doing themselves a disservice. Until now. In 2017, it was that conviction that got wrecked.

As a psychologist, I study single people – their lives, their happiness, the stigma they face – and I can say that this has been a banner year for the publication of massive studies challenging what we thought we knew about their supposedly inferior life voyages.

New insights just kept coming: on sex and dating, on self-esteem, on what it means to be an adult. And they came just in time: In recent history, there have never been as many unmarried adults as there are right now. Here are a half dozen of the coolest discoveries about single people from the year 2017.

Demographically, single people are more powerful than ever before.
In 2017, the Census Bureau reported that a record number of adults in the U.S. were not married.

More than 110 million residents were divorced or widowed or had always been single; that’s more than 45 percent of all Americans aged 18 or older.

And people who did marry were taking longer than ever to get there. The median age of first marriage rose to 29.5 for men; for women, it reached 27.4. (These trends are likely to continue: A report from the Pew Research Center a few years ago predicted that by the time today’s young adults reach the age of 50, about one in four of them will have been single all their life.)

Why Is There Shame Around Being a ‘Relationship Virgin’ by B. DePaulo

Why Is There Shame Around Being a ‘Relationship Virgin’ by B. DePaulo

I was engaged in my early 30s, so this isn’t wholly applicable to me.

I did have an internet friend who, when I was around my late 30s, she was in her early 30s, and she confided in me that she felt bad about herself because she had never had a boyfriend or been on a date or anything.

I don’t know if this would mean anything or not to the person who wants a significant other but can’t seem to get one, and who’s never had one, but – it’s not what it’s cracked up to be if you’re with the wrong person. I was engaged to a few years to a guy, but he was so self-absorbed and had so many other flaws, the relationship brought me misery.

In my view, it’s better to be single, or to be of a “never was in a relationship” status, than to have been  in a lousy, non-satisfying relationship. The only thing I can say about my ex is “hey, I was engaged once.”

And that’s about it.

My ex used me, he was awful. I didn’t gain anything good out of our relationship, except experience and a resolve to never allow myself to be mis-treated by a guy ever again.

(Link): Why is there shame around being a ‘relationship virgin’? I’d be proud to be one.

by B. DePaulo

Excerpts:

I knew something was up when I got five emails in one day from people I didn’t know, all telling me they were “relationship virgins.” The impetus, I soon learned, was an (Link): essay in the Guardian about a woman who “managed to get to 54 without ever having had a boyfriend.”

…At the heart of this story were this woman’s attempts to answer the question: “What’s the matter with me?” Was she too awkward? Too desperate? Too insecure? Some of the people who wrote to me were grappling with the same question. My best guess is that nothing was wrong with them.

Why We Thought Marriage Made Us Healthier, and Why We Were Wrong by Bella DePaulo

Why We Thought Marriage Made Us Healthier, and Why We Were Wrong by Bella DePaulo

Why We Thought Marriage Made Us Healthier, and Why We Were Wrong by Bella DePaulo

Excerpts:

The power of marriage to transform allegedly forlorn single people into blissfully happy and healthy couples is not just the stuff of fairy tales. For more than 70 years, social scientists’ studies havesupposedly shown that marrying improves people’s wellness. Award-winning scholars and leading magazines have all proclaimed that marriage typically makes people healthier and happier.

The promise is seductive: Find and marry that one special someone and all your dreams will come true.

Recently, though, new and methodologically sophisticated studies have been published that suggest something startling: Maybe we are wrong about the benefits of marriage. People who marry, it seems, do not become healthier than when they were single, and may even become a shade less healthy.

They do not become lastingly happier, either.

Stop Asking People Whether They’re Married – Even As An Icebreaker

Stop Asking People Whether They’re Married – Even As An Icebreaker

Another suggestion: if you’re meeting someone over age 35, and they’re alone, do NOT assume they have been previously married or have had kids (don’t ask them, “So, how long has it been since you divorced”).

A lot of church people are bad about that. Any time I’ve walked into a church post age 35, they always ASSUME I am divorced (I have never been married, so this really annoys me).

(Link): Stop Asking People Whether They’re Married – Even As An Icebreaker

Excerpts:

by Bella DePaulo and Joan DelFattore

…. But what one of you probably would say before long is, “Are you married?” It’s seen as the most natural of ice-breakers, as if it’s the first thing strangers need to know about each other.

We, and dozens of people we’ve asked about this, encounter the question everywhere. Even random strangers sitting next to us in a train or plane will ask, “Are you married?”

Sometimes the questioner assumes you’re married— like the car dealer who asks if your husband is with you, or the job interviewer who says, “Do you need to talk it over with your wife?” When setting up online accounts, security questions such as “Where did you go on your honeymoon?” or “What is your maiden name?” seem inescapable.

Cue the music from the Twilight Zone, because what we have here is a time warp.

Single Workers Aren’t There to Pick Up the Slack For Their Married Bosses and Colleagues by B. DePaulo

Single Workers Aren’t There to Pick Up the Slack For Their Married Bosses and Colleagues

(Link): Single Workers Aren’t There to Pick Up the Slack For Their Married Bosses and Colleagues by B. DePaulo

Excerpts:

Too often, employers believe that single, childless people are emotionally untethered and financially untroubled, which means they ought to be free to stay late, travel on weekends, show up on holidays, and take whatever vacation slots married employees haven’t already claimed— all of which puts singles in a highly unfair (not to mention undesirable) position. It’s time that employers stopped taking advantage of single employees—and started recognizing the truth about their lives.

Single people have important ties to friends, family, and community

Negative stereotypes about single people hold that they are isolated, lonely, and focused only on themselves—perfect candidates to come in to work, or to stay there, when no one else wants to. But research shows otherwise.

…In fact, single people do more to maintain their relationships with their friends, neighbors, siblings, and parents than married people.

…Single people are rooted in their communities and towns in significant ways. They participate in public events more often, and take more music and art classes. They volunteer more than married people do for a wide variety of organizations.

…The financial fragility of people who are single

Years before my employer mindlessly presumed that I had no one to support, my mother was widowed. But he never stopped to consider whether she needed my financial support. Other single people are providing support in other ways—for example, quietly accumulating college funds for their nieces and nephews, or welcoming them into their homes when times are tough.

What If Marriage Is Overrated? – A social psychologist has been chipping away at many claims about marriage changing one’s life for the better

What If Marriage Is Overrated? – A social psychologist has been chipping away at many claims about marriage changing one’s life for the better

(Link):  What If Marriage Is Overrated?  by Jesse Singal

– A social psychologist has been chipping away at many claims about marriage changing one’s life for the better

When I attended the American Psychological Association’s annual conference in Denver last August, the best and most well-attended talk I saw was by (Link): Bella DePaulo, a social psychologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who studies single people.

For years, DePaulo has been chipping away at the commonly held belief — a myth, in her view and according to her research — that marriage offers unique happiness and well-being benefits. These findings are seriously overstated or misleading, DePaulo has argued, and if there weren’t so much intense social pressure to get married, a lot more people would be single, and many of them might be happier as a result.