The happy singleton, now that almost sounds like any oxymoron doesn’t it? A few days ago I was listening to one of Ghana’s most popular commercial stations, and heard an advert which more or less said, “This film is the story of 6 successful career women who have everything they could wish for except a relationship”. Arghhh! I am sick and tired of all these films that present single women as unhappy because they are not in relationships. The story line for these films and TV series has become ever so predictable. Present a cast of ‘strong’ women who excel in their jobs, 1 of these women will be a nymphomaniac or a ‘cougar’, another woman is dying to get married but her boyfriend cannot commit to a relationship and yet another woman is just plain unlucky in love. Does this sound familiar?
Now the conspiracy theorist in me says this new trend of ‘girl power’ films (please note its not the empowerment of women) is a deliberate attempt to subliminally (or maybe not so subliminally) say to women, ‘Hey you may have a great career, you can pay your own bills, you may even have bought your own house BUT if you’re not in a relationship then you must be lacking something’. Am I being paranoid? Can you think of a single film or television series that presents a ‘strong’, single woman as happy and complete? A single woman who has a great job, a supportive network of friends and family, a date whenever she wants one, an amazing sex life? No? Neither can I.
So is the happy singleton such a rarity that she doesn’t come to the attention of screenwriters, authors and poets? Can the happy singleton please stand up?
[cue Nana Darkoa standing up 🙂 ]
21 comments On The Happy Singleton…
LOL. The whole “woman is incomplete without a man” thing is, in my opinion, just a ploy to keep women in the subservient and seeking role. Heaven forbid that a woman actually be happy and single instead of on a 24hr prowl to land a husband. Men know that if women stop being desperate to find a man, that they wouldn’t be able to get away with anywhere near the amount of nonsense that they do. #TeamConspiracyTheory lol
@Lady Ngo – Lol re #TeamConspiracyTheory. I wonder what will start happening if we started representing single women as happy and complete? Will single women recognise that what we need to work on as a priority is our self, our personhood, our goals, our desires. And I so agree with what you said about “if women stop being desperate to find a man…”, so true. A lot of men get away with murder because women have sometimes been brought up to believe that ‘half a man is better than no man’. Really?
(Cue Daniella standing up)
Totally agree with all of this! I have not had a serious boyfriend since I was 16, and it looks like things will stay the same for a while. I, honestly, couldn’t be happier. The amount of personal, professional, and spiritual growth I’ve experienced over that time is amazing, and I would not wish for things to have played out differently.
And I’m in complete concurrence with the above comment that constantly portraying women as ‘needing’ or ‘longing for’ a man/relationship is only chauvinist desire to keep women subservient. If we need a relationship, then we need a man; then, all of our amazing social and professional advances mean nothing toward our independence.
Women (and maybe men, too) sometimes forget (or perhaps were never told) that the most important relationship in your life is the one with YOURSELF. Then come your family, close friends, colleagues, etc. If you’re really lucky to find a man (or woman) who will commit to you and support you and love you as an equal life partner, then that’s amazing and beautiful. But lacking that does not take away from your happiness and self-worth.
Did I mention that I’m standing up on this issue? 🙂 Love you, Nana, for posting this!
I love you too Daniella 🙂 Especially for these insightful comments. I so agree with you that the most important relationship in your life is the one you have with yourself. I don’t think women especially are encouraged to focus enough on the self. Their needs, their desires, their wants. Its always about someone else. As a girl child you probably have to focus on helping your mother, your siblings, your Dad. As soon as you are ‘adult’ enough you are expected to get married and then focus on your husband or children (or both), then you become a grandmother and then focus on your grandchildren. When in this process of caring for others are you allowed to care for yourself?
Thanks Nana! I’m standing up with you. Maybe we need to go into film making and produce a documentary or something.
@Kuukua – You know! At the very least I want to write to write a screenplay focused on a woman who is happy, single, has a great job, a good network of friends, good sex when she wants it…let’s change the narrative of single women!
reasonably happy male singleton here….! but looking. 🙂
You forgot the part about how the single woman has to have a cat…
Have been googling to see if there are any movies out there – couldn’t think of any. So far I’ve managed to come up with Amelie…
Will keep looking.
I’m gonna link you a copy of Kiini Ibura Salaam’s “The Single Woman’s Manifesto”. I keep it by my bedside to remind me EVERYday that aint nuthin wrong with learning to love and (LOVE) yourself. Trust me the most successful woman is one who is in a healthy strong relationship with her physical, spiritual, emotional, sexual being. That is what people don’t understand. Being single is actually the starting point for being great…You build self then you consider whether there’s anyone remotely close to matching that. So yes, you can have it all…as long as you have “self”.
…and yes we standing right here with you lady! #allthesingleladies! 🙂
Tired of all this mediocre movies in Ghana about singleton.God bless tyler perry.C’mon single Ladies look me straight up in the eye and tell me “You can do bad all by yourself”
I aint saying you dont have to work and get your own stuff.I love a hard working career woman cos ma mom is one.But somewhere along the line she got married and had me.
Do think it’s right for you to preach “Miss independent”.God created Adam and Eve Not Adam and steve or Eve and Evelyn.
Get a man and quit making gestures at me when am with ma girl up in the club,i was gonna get somefin,somefin tonight till she caught me looking at your voluptuous self.Cos am a man and got wickness.Lol
Ladies don’t you get tired of dating a new guy every 6 months.Stop playing hard to get,when you actually hard to want.Cut the shenanigans.Burn that long arse list of what your fairy tale man shd or shd not be like.Cos he aint no dragon slayer.
Genesis 2:24 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh
Single Woman’s Manifesto is awesome! Just googled and read.
Love comment that “Being single is actually the starting point for being great…You build self then you consider whether there’s anyone remotely close to matching that.” this should be a mantra for all teenage girls.
@ Kofi – and can I just say that you would be such a catch for any woman 🙂
@Fiona – I never watched Amelie, heard loads of good reviews though. Let us know how the movie search goes 🙂 As for the single woman and the cat…the less said the better.
@SheRoxLox – My fellow loc sistren, you always manage to say the right thing. I will follow Fiona’s lead, google and print the document. Mwah!
@ Mo Decker – Sometimes I leave a comment unanswered for days in the hope that someone would say what I would like to say. This is one of those comments. I don’t even know what to say in response to you. Lemme think for a second…I am confused by your comment in the first place. At the beginning I thought you were saying ‘Go Single Women’, and in the next breath you’re accusing women of making eyes at you in the club? And as if that’s not bad enough, God created Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve or Eve and Evelyn? I think I need to ask Corey Gilkes to break it down for you 🙂 Over to you Corey, in 50 words or less 🙂
I am still hopeful, Nana D.
And, ooh, you didn’t hand him over to Corey, did you? Man, some heavy stuff is gonna come down on his head.
I think its just a frame of mind really. there’s absolutely nuffn wrong in bn single. some ladies just believe they cant b wivout a man and i see that as a stage of inferiority complex. ave got a friend who wont got to weddings and all that cos she doesn’t wanna go alone cos peeps are gonna be asking where her man is. i really feel you need to gain confidence in urself. its good to be in a relationship alrite but who says that shud be the ultimate goal?sometimes i think the whole thing is overhyped really. id rather be single and happy alone than in a so called relationship where i wont have my piece of mind. in a nutshell, every1 is different and i think we all got different destinies. its cos of movies like this that women settle for anything at all and to me thats totally unaceptable.
Oh Please. All these screen and script writers need to get a grip and start telling the stories behind their fantasy relationship worlds. Ask the majority of Ghanaian women who are “lucky” and “fortunate” enough to be married or in some sort of convoluted long term relationship if they’re really as happy as Gollywood makes them out to be. Their spouses and boyfriends are more often than not cheating on them, or are GAY or are cheating on them AND GAY.
If you’ve got a great career, good friends and positive sense of self, you can do “good all by yourself.” Forget the bad! Great post Ill. ‘)
… BEING SINGLE IS ACTUALLY THE STARTING POINT FOR BEING GREAT…YOU BUILD YOURSELF THEN YOU CONSIDER WHETHER THERE’S ANYONE REMOTELY CLOSE TO A MATCH.Women (and maybe men, too) sometimes forget (or perhaps were never told) that the most important relationship in your life is the one with YOURSELF (for me personally there are two). Then comes your family, close friends, colleagues, etc. If you’re really lucky to find a man (or woman) who will commit to you and support you and love you as an equal life partner, then that’s amazing and beautiful. But lacking that does not take away from your happiness and self-worth….THIS REALLY SUMS IT ALL…its a shame people like Mo decker and largely most people cannot analyse, appreciate and/or tolerate ideals,views etc outside what has been ingrained into subconscious thoughts and conscious efforts by culture/religion from infant years. This is the reason why they are a lot of bad relationships and marriages which for some reason some people believe would make all the shotcomings and inconsistencies of the other person ‘self’ vanish.
There is really no conspiracy working against us women portraying us to unhappy bitches when we are not in a relationship. We ourselves should be held accountable for society’s perception of a single woman. No one else. Let’s be honest, the liberated women who have commented on here are the tiny minority. I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard women bleat on about how happy they are being single and the next minute couldn’t wait to jump into an ill-fated relationship. A bit like the big curvy celebs who go on about being happy curvy and then drop all the weight ‘for health reasons’ the following year.
The problem is that most often the argument/debate becomes a for or against issue and some ladies when single feel the need not to be true to themselves in admitting that ‘you know what? being single sucks and I’d like to have that other person (doesn’t matter the sex) who cares for me as I do him or her’. They just go overboard with all some feminist man-bashing crap that they are not able to keep up for long; and only succeed in making themselves appear bitter and insincere.
What we should be encouraging is sincerity to self, self-empowerment, open-mindedness, tolerance of others (partners), ‘careful risk taking (if there is anything like that), tenacity etc. There is nothing wrong with working on being successful for self but still leaving the door open for a life partner to share life with. Yes, we can have it all.
You are not the only one. I had to stop watching movies like that because I found myself feeding into that madness.
Ps. It’s been a very long time (since I commented)… lol
Hi Lovelylind, welcome back 🙂 Don’t stay away so long okay?
was kinda thinking of Samantha in sex in the city. she fits the bill of a happy single strong woman who has a great sex life.