Do you have to be a father to care about women who are sexually assaulted? — You’ve seen it before. Many times before. And yet, it rankles every time. Adults who do not have children are described as if they have no humanity, as if only people who are parents could possibly care about children — or the adults they become. …

It seems ordinary, but I’ve enjoyed it every day of my life, and I’m immensely grateful — Imagine receiving a gift that you absolutely love, and can and do enjoy several times a day, every single day of your life. It is a gift that lasts forever — it doesn’t matter that the people who gave it to you are no longer on this earth. My birthday…

“She has nothing.” Why is it OK to say that about single women with no kids? — Preface: I wrote this three years ago, right after it happened. These examples — especially the first one — still stick in my mind. And, sadly, these microaggressions of single life are still continuing and are still going unchallenged. …

Kinneret Lahad explains what’s behind some exasperating media representations of single women — A few years ago, when Kinneret Lahad, a gender studies professor at Tel Aviv University, had just published her book, A table for one: A critical reading of singlehood, gender, and time, I asked if she would answer a few questions about it. Happily, she agreed. The interview was published…

Many examples of singlism are embedded in laws, policies, and practices — In everyday life, single people are often stereotyped and stigmatized in the conversations they have with other people. The kinds of things other people say to us, and about us, sometimes reveal that they think single life is something people are stuck with, and not something anyone would actually choose…

Ellen relentlessly pressured her to act interested in dating, but Saoirse Ronan never gave in — In 2018, when Ellen still had her show, I watched a clip in which she kept trying to get Saoirse Ronan to care about a game of picking the guy she would most want to date, despite Ronan signaling in all sorts of ways that she just wasn’t into it…

Why are single people’s home preferences questioned when coupled people’s aren’t? — When I wrote Singled Out many years ago, I described the exasperating presumptions that I and other single women encountered when we dared to look for a place to live that wasn’t just a studio or a 1-bedroom. At a time when the houses being built were bigger and bigger…

Sometimes the opposite of loneliness has nothing to do with being with other people — On the eve of her graduation from Yale in 2012, Marina Keegan wrote an essay that, within about a week, would be read by well over a million people from 98 nations. It was called “The Opposite of Loneliness.” But what is the opposite of loneliness? Keegan opened her essay…

The Community of Single People is 7 years old and now we also have Singles Helping Singles in Need — Seven years ago, in July of 2015, I started an online Facebook group, the Community of Single People, for people who want to discuss every aspect of living single except dating or trying to unsingle themselves. We talk about all sorts of things — our joys and accomplishments, our challenges…