Some interesting stories in the news lately about the single life. USA Today ran a piece a couple of weeks back entitled “Free as a bird and loving it: Being single has its benefits” which calls attention to a number of new “single and happy” books. (Yep, it looks like we’re part of a trend, folks. ; )
While Single State of the Union is not mentioned in the piece (note to self, go back in time and pitch book to USA Today writer), they do interview one of our contributors, Bella DePaulo (author of Singled Out) and mention Naked on the Page, a new book by Single State contributor Jane Ganahl.
Another fun story, by AP writer Erin Carlson, appeared in The Seattle Times April 23. Entitled “‘The Bachelor’ women: Are they having fun yet?”, the piece skewers these so-called reality TV shows, which consistently “milk an unrealistic, retrograde version of romance, often at the expense of some strong personalities who signed on for sincere reasons and are instead served up as water-cooler fodder.”
My favorite quote comes from Sarah Bunting, co-founder of televisionwithoutpity.com, who says, viewers aren’t ”altruistically interested in seeing whether a good match is made. They just want to watch these women embarrass themselves because, evidently, your only self-worth in the culture according to this show is if you’re on television and you have a man.”
Grrrrrrr. Any thoughts as to why these shows — and this 1950s “catch-a-man” mindset — has made such a huge comeback in recent years? Is it the current conservative administration? The fear produced by an ever-growing population of singles? Are we still dealing with the legacy left of us by those damn Rules women? Any and all thoughts welcome.
One last find … I stumbled across a website called singleandfab.com the other day which looks like it might be sort of fun - a bit of beauty advice, some board room how-to, and a section called “Sexy, Single and Satisfied: Hot Reads for Single Women” that I’m all over. Let me know what you think
