the high cost of being single

[hitchhiker]

https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22788620/single-living-alone-cost

The celebrated single life is, in truth, incredibly narrow. For women, you have to be 1) actively and successfully in search of partnership; 2) unspeakably wealthy and above scrutiny; and/or 3) a self-sacrificing mother. “Confirmed” bachelors can sometimes get a pass so long as they don’t move back in with their parents; so do the elderly, the widowed (but only for a brief window of time), and the very young. Other single and solo-living people are still stigmatized in various and overlapping ways, depending on their age, class, race, and sexual identity. We don’t call single or unmarried people spinsters, deviants, or social problems anymore, at least not explicitly. But that underlying hostility to single and solo-living people? It’s everywhere.

Comments

[ororo]

Yeah, noticed that.

[minoanmiss]

ahahahha I needed this reminder today.

[rezendi]

I'm kind of baffled by this. "Many household costs are amortized across the number of people in the household" does not equate to "society discriminates against single people." Not all inequalities imply discriminatory unfairness. Housing is out of reach of many and there are many, many, many coupled people who make (much) less than the six-figure salaries of the single people in this story whose inability to buy a house is portrayed as a direct effect of society being, quote, "structurally antagonistic" towards single people. I am thoroughly unconvinced.

[pauamma]

Not living in the US and not a woman, so a large share of that article has no bearing on my situation, but "“Confirmed” bachelors can sometimes get a pass so long as they don’t move back in with their parents; so do the elderly, the widowed (but only for a brief window of time), and the very young." This. (For extra make-people-look-at-you-funny credit, check both "widowed" and "divorced" for marital status on a new-hire personnel form.)

[freyjaw]

It's not fair nor right. Sigh.

[amaebi]

And the repair/maintenance/delivery worlds are set up for households with an adult whose time is completely flexible.