First Person Singular by Wendy Braitman

filed in Myths and stereotypes

The Unexpected Spinster

July 27, 2009 ⋅  Email This Post ⋅  Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment

At first, when I decided to write out loud about the ups and downs of unmarried life, I wanted to call it, “The Unexpected Spinster.” Unexpected as in, I was a popular girl in school with the usual amount of dates and boyfriends, and couldn’t pinpoint the moment that I segued into a perennial dater, who could never find the right man. Almost everyone married in my family and stayed married – brother, parents, grandparents and great-grandparents. Exploring how I became the odd woman out had a ring of destiny.

And then there’s “spinster.” I liked watching people flinch when I described myself that way.  I wanted to upend the stereotype, and reclaim the word, help make it hip, as gays and lesbians did with the word “queer.” I got immediate pushback from a literary agent for using spinster in the title. She was sure it would spell doom for any publishing prospects. The agent had a point. The word has had a bad rap for hundreds of years. I relented, and said goodbye to the spinster instead.

Apparently I’m not alone. Unmarried Women Do Not Want Pity, is an article appearing today in The National, an English language newspaper for the Arab world. It describes an organization “Harraer Society” for single women over thirty in Jordan. It was founded by Zakiyyah Bourini, who was fed up with the misconceptions of unmarried women as pitiful, old and useless. “We are using the name Harreera instead of spinster,”  she said, “which means the pure sand or the rainy cloud that has so much to give.” Bourini hopes her organization will help dispel the spinster myths.

Words matter. Pure sand.. Rainy cloud.. Forces of nature. I like it.

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