Gemma Cartwright writes...
I don't know why I bother reading The Daily Mail. It just makes me angry. Every day there's another picture of a slim celebrity 'piling on the pounds' or a scathing attack on the dress sense of Sarah Jessica Parker (followed quickly by a 'get her look' fashion feature). Today's biggest gem is an infuriatingly generalised column from agony aunt Dr Pam Spurr that suggests all women over 30 who say they're happily single are lying.
The column is - of course - accompanied by a picture of Bridget Jones, and features comments like "behind that confident demeanour and fulfilled exterior is crushing loneliness and desperation" and "the majority of single women I speak to would give up a high-flying career in a flash in exchange for life with a good man."
*groan* Shall we all take three steps back?!
Now I suppose, at 24, it's very easy for me to scoff at this. I'm not yet into the age group that the column is aimed at, so I can only assume that, for now, Pam Spurr might actually believe me when I say I am both single and happy. I'm not saying I don't sometimes get home and think 'well, it would be quite nice to have a boyfriend to cuddle up to right now', but my singledom doesn't make me miserable in the slightest. In fact I'm more miserable in a relationship, because all I do is worry and over-analyse. On my list of priorities, plenty of things sit above 'boyfriend', including friends, family and work.
Perhaps, if I'm still single when I'm in my thirties, I will feel a bit sorry for myself and look back over this blog and think 'hah! if only you knew!'. But there's every chance that I won't. The suggestion that all women are slaves to their hormones and their biological clock is absolute rubbish, but that's what Spurr insists.
"outwardly women in 2008 are supposed to aspire to careers and self-fulfilment, but inwardly they also long to satisfy an urge that's been around as long as humankind: to connect with a partner - and if their biological clock is ticking - to fulfil it and produce children together...it's absolute tosh to think it's any other way"
The suggestion is that women can have a career and be happy...but only if they're also in a relationship. Which as far as I'm concerned, is an out-dated and surprisingly sexist way to think. If men can be satisfied with the single life and a high-flying career, why can't women?
Throwing in one catch-all "granted, there are some truly happy single women" doesn't really cut it for me. This article - especially coming from a woman who's supposed to be helping people - just reads like the smug opinions of someone from another generation who's lost touch with the women of today.
But what do I know? I'm Gen Y (just!) and by the time I'm in my thirties I'll probably be able to pick my robot boyfriend from a catalogue and upgrade him whenever I start feeling 'miserable'.
Gemma Cartwright is Shiny Media's fashion Editor-in-Chief. She has no time to be miserable about being single, there are important Kate Moss updates to go online.
