According to statistics released in 2009, single women outnumbered married women for the first time in U.S. history, and the percentage of married women is now below 50 percent. In other words, women are getting married less and less, which means single women rule the world. And it’s about damn time.
- Single women want that gender pay gap closed once and for all. Because they’re not financially dependent on a man, single women are front and center when it comes to demanding that women get paid just as much as men. This isn’t to say that married women aren’t as concerned, but as Rebecca Traister wrote in her piece, The Single American Woman, “practicalities of female life independent of marriage give rise to demands.” So, yes, we’re making some demands.
- Single women demand gender equality. In keeping with the list of demands for which single woman fight for is gender equality, single women who are working just as hard as their male counterparts in the same position aren’t willing to take a backseat in their quest for equality. They fight tooth and nail right up to that glass ceiling. Some of them even break it the wide open.
- Single women fight for paid family leave. Since women no longer need marriage or a man to have a child, paid family leave is extremely important to them, especially since they’re the only one bringing home the dough. Although all women deserve paid family leave, single women who don’t have a partner to help them out need it even more.
- Single women have their acts together. After centuries that dictated to women that their worth was dependent on being the wife of some man, women are now bucking that past social norm. In doing so, they’re conquering so much solo and have their acts together at the same time. In order to rule, one must be the complete package on their own, which single women are.
- Single women are deciding politics. Although the last presidential election was a disappointment because of the electoral college, in 2010, single women made up 23 percent of those who voted. That’s almost a quarter of the voting population! It’s both stunning and fantastic. Not only that, but when the percentage of who voted for who was broken down, 67 percent of single women and only 31 percent of married women voted for Obama that year. Takeaway? Single women are apparently more left-leaning and, honestly, those on the left have a higher percentage of revolutionaries who get stuff done.
- Single women have a big impact on women’s reproductive rights. With the voter turnout being what it was 2012 for Obama, it shows that single women are more concerned with protecting their reproductive rights, which makes sense in some ways. Although married women are more likely to use birth control, according to a study by the Guttmacher Institute, single women might have more at stake when it comes to these rights. According to the National Abortion Federation, 83 percent of women who terminate a pregnancy are unmarried. This mindset to protect a woman’s autonomy and these votes trickle down and profoundly affect women’s reproductive rights.
- Single women give a damn. Most of all, what the voter turnout of single women taught us is that single women care more than those who are married. I’m not passing judgment, of course, but the numbers don’t lie.
- Single women have set needs that need to be met by the government. As Traister wrote, “The fact that single women — living their lives outside of the institution around which tax, housing, and social policies were designed — have a set of needs that has yet to be met by government.” Basically, the government has to make changes and cater to all these single women, therefore changing long-standing policies. Thanks, single ladies!
- Single women are owning it. From their education to their career to their sexuality and everything in between, single women are owning not just who they are, but where they’re going and how they’re getting there. They are completely independent, free of the entanglements that come with marriage, and in many ways, that’s exactly how people rule the world: by standing on their own two feet and snubbing the past that had once caged them.
- Single women have actually always ruled the world. Throughout history, where the single women are in abundance, their impact is inevitable. When there were more single women after the Civil War finally came to an end, women got out there and worked to reform things that didn’t work in their favor. They fought for the right for women to vote, made changes that resulted in amendments to the constitution, and even founded colleges.