Single is not the antithesis of married

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Boy, I don’t think I’d ever seen the whole movie, Fatal Attraction, until tonight. What a symbolic representation of the way society views the single woman! Alone. Lonely. Desperate. Trying to steal the peace and serenity of the “happily married” couple.

Wait a minute. First of all, the guy decided to have sex with this woman despite his “happily married” state. Then when he was finished, he decided it was inconvenient to know her any longer. The way they get beyond his BS is to make the “other woman” character crazy and obsessive. Interesting how they shift the blame for the situation to the woman rather than the guy who chose to cheat on his spouse.

It’s a really disturbing premise. And after the wonderful interview we had last night with Dr. Karen Gail Lewis (check it out here), I find it even more disturbing to consider the implications of this film. Bless Dr. Karen for helping us raise the consciousness of single, self-supporting, working women in our world today.

Yeah, yeah. Fatal Attraction is “just a story” – but it’s representative of the societal prejudice that shapes and informs our society’s attitude towards single women. The fact is that being single is not the antithesis of being married. It’s a state that doesn’t have to be related to “married” at all. It’s a way of being in the world that denotes nothing except independence. And the problem is that our society considers an independant woman vaguely–and sometimes overwhelmingly–threatening.

Well, everybody might as well get used to it. So far 51% of American women are single. But that number’s growing. Listen to Dr. Karen’s interview last night and you’ll begin to understand why.


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