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Web version of Boston Magazine's cover (Jan 2012)
Image Caption: The image is a full-color photograph of a young woman on a cheerful yellow background. The woman, on the left, is visible from mid-torso up, and is dressed in a black, form-fitting top. She’s slim, olive-skinned, brunette, with stylish glasses, long wavy hair, and large hoop earrings. She’s smiling broadly. The bold, black text to her left reads, “This is Terri. She’s successful, happy, and at 38, just fine with never getting married. Ever.”
To ring in the New Year, Boston Magazine ran a thoughtful piece about being an adult whose main purpose in life isn’t to get hitched. I know, right? When I saw the cover of the magazine while waiting in line at the grocery store a couple of weeks ago, my first thought was, “We’ve only just discovered this?” I mean, people have not been getting married since, well, forever. More or less. But apparently, we need to keep re-discovering the fact that, as Samhita at Feministing puts it, “single women are not tragic, lonely were-witches.”
Regardless of article content, I’d like offer the image above (a web variation of the magazine cover) for analysis as part of the Let’s Talk Images series. Because after thinking to myself, “We’ve only just discovered this?” my second thought was, “Apparently we’re still waiting for the day when an article about not marrying isn’t illustrated by a woman.” Because of course, when we — as a culture — think “single people” we’re really thinking “single women.” Men, like women, often live into adulthood without marrying, or without a primary sexual relationship. Yet they are rarely the cause for concern single women are.
As Hanna pointed out, “never getting married” is not the same as “being single” or “not being in a relationship.” So it’s unclear from the text in the image whether the woman depicted is just unmarried or actually unattached to other person(s). However, it’s clear from the punctuation in the text (“NEVER GETTING MARRIED. EVER.” That the married/not-married dichotomy is the key one here.
I do think it’s a positive sign that the woman in the image looks confident and happy, and that the text reinforces the fact that “successful” people can also be unmarried. I’d argue, however, that this type of imagery reinforces on some level that it’s okay to be marked as weird in some way (in this case, unmarried) as long as you’re not too weird. Non-conformity in small doses is much less scary than non-conformity in multiple ways. The young woman depicted is youthful looking, conventionally beautiful, slim, feminine. Although it is legal to get married to someone of the same sex if you’re in Massachusetts, somehow I don’t think this article is about lesbians who’ve decided not to get hitched. The text also tells us that Terri is “successful,” presumably in terms of her career. On the one hand, it’s women like Terri who are assumed to a) be panting for marriage, and b) a “good catch,” so probably more likely to be constantly questioned about whom they’re dating, etc. Women who are seen as undesirable in one way or another are likely questioned less about their marital status, since people expect them to be losers when it comes to marriage.
I could be completely off on this, since I somehow escaped those questions from friends and relations alike, despite the fact I was single and not dating into my late twenties. If y’all have a story to tell about being harassed as a single person, do share in comments!
Join the conversation Harpies — what else does this image tell us about perceptions of singleness and relationships in America today?
I’ve certainly gotten plenty of comments, some of them intended to be “helpful”, some of them not, about the fact that I’m single, successful, and unmarried.
A sampler:
“Oh, don’t worry. You’re still young.” Because if you’re not married by the time you’re “old”, that’s cause for worry. Let’s just say at 36, I hear this one less often than I did in my twenties, because NOW it’s supposed to be time for me to worry.
“At your age, maybe you should be a little less picky?” This one reliably makes my head explode. Because women, unlike men, don’t have the right to insist that they to get what they want or need from a relationship—they should be willing to downgrade their own needs/desires in order to meet society’s standards. And, of course, as I become less youthful and therefore less attractive, I have even less right to insist on what I need. (Also, no one ever tells men this, for obvious reasons).
And my personal favorite, courtesy of DaddySharper: “Maybe your standards are too high?” Of course, they’re not standards if they’re too low, so this is just a variant of the “too picky” criticism. Parents—and the rest of the world—should encourage women to choose unmarried happiness and personal fulfillment over simply getting married. Yes, my father really said this to me…even loving parents will occasionally regurgitate negative cultural stereotypes about marriage and women.
I do think Anna’s dead right by pointing out that this image represents non-conformity in a small dose. Obviously, the woman pictured doesn’t represent the diversity of unmarried women in our society. Still, I think the fact the woman depicted is slim and conventionally attractive is meant to overturn our preconceived notion—well, our Patriarchial society’s preconceived notion—that a good-looking woman will always get married because the whole purpose of female beauty is to attract men and get them to put a ring on your finger. And I think anything that pokes holes in that preconceived notion is a positive.
Sort of related, did you see this interesting interview about a new book about solitary living on a broad scale?
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/Eric-Klinenberg-on-Going-Solo.html?c=y&page=1
@JT there you go, again, adding to my reading list
!
@BeckySharper, yeah, I agree about the way in which conventional beauty works in this image to counter our notions of what Single Women Look Like — as in, it must be their fault for being so unattractive and/or dykey as to not catch a man.
I would like to chime in and say that this was also featured on another recent magazine cover (this time on the cover of The Atlantic) as written by another late-30s, single, conventionally attractive, and white woman. That article does touch briefly on singledom among women of other ethnicities. However, I should warn that the other article is off base in a few areas. For instance, stating that “women are increasingly confronted with deadbeats and players” is, at very best, reductionist.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/11/all-the-single-ladies/8654/
definitely agree with the “non-conformity in small dose” sentiment..
but it also interesting to see that the woman depicted is educated, would appear to be in the middle/upper class, and appears to have a career.
It is almost like this woman becomes the “poster-singleton” for non-married heterosexual women.
Am I the only one who noticed the woman has only one arm? I wonder if it was photoshopped out to show her life is missing something.
Looking closely at the picture, the edge of her left arm is visible all the way down to her breast, suggesting that she simply has it positioned diagonally behind her. It is certainly posed – and the pose was probably further Photoshopped, but I don’t think the intention was to present her as having one arm.