I've been thinking. Thinking about what I might want to focus on in my phd work (see that, how I go from wishy-washy to determined in just a matter of days? How fickle am I?), and I keep thinking about how single girls (women, sorry) don't get much attention in the world of poetry/academia/generally creative pursuits...or at least, we don't get as much attention as our ring-wearing, baby-making counterparts. (And it seems, at least when we're talking feminism, not as much as our lesbian counterparts, either.)
Before I go further, let me make it clear that I'm not saying wives and mothers don't deserve the attention they get. Obviously, since I don't have a child, I can't begin to talk about the difficulties of balancing the writer's life with the mother's life. On the other hand, since I'm not a mother and don't ever plan to be, I'm just not that interested. I know it sounds callous, but that's how it is.
This is where the single girl thing comes in. When I think of the women's rights movement and feminism as a way of life rather than a literary theory, I don't think of the woman who chooses to do/have "it all" with a career and a family, but of the woman who says "f*** men, I can do this on my own." The woman who figures out a way to carry a box spring up the stairs by herself (even if it takes an hour) because she's not going to wait for her brother/boyfriend/dad to find the time to come over and help her. The woman who buys her first house on her own and has to deal with the good-old-boy appraiser treating her like she doesn't know a stud from a support beam. The woman (me) who gets ripped off at the car dealership because she doesn't know what questions to ask, but she'd rather learn from experience than bring a man with her to ask those questions.
But wait. I know what you're thinking, "Christ, another man-hating feminist." Nope. I love men. Love 'em. Would love to marry one some day. Prefer when they help with the box spring or change my tires or wash my car for me. I like being treated like a lady and pampered just as much as the next woman. However...it's become the reality in my life that more often than not, I'm on my own. Sure, sometimes I get a little bitter about it, but for the most part, I'm happy. People always get on my case when I start talking like this: "don't say that, Sara, you know you want a family, you're just trying to make yourself feel better." But really, that's not it. When I look back on the last 8 years, the best times I've had have been as a single girl on my own. With my friends and my family. Boyfriends just clutter things up.
I'm getting off track. My own personal experience aside, I think there are a unique set of challenges and struggles that single women face that impact their success as writers, artists, and professionals as well as their happiness and contentment in their personal lives, and I think these challenges and struggles would be interesting to research and write about. Right off the bat, I'm thinking of Simone Muench's poem "Fix-It Man" and Brandi Homan's "Open Letter to a Crush," two poems that deal with the single girl on the prowl. But there are so many other things that offer unique challenges to the single woman: house-hunting, moving (worse, moving after a break up), car trouble, dealing with the "when are you going to find a nice man and settle down" questions from well meaning (but frustrating) friends/family, going to the work function/dinner party and being the only person without a significant other, deciding your own rules/boundaries and coming to terms with words like spinster and slut. Just to name a few.
I don't know how much work (if any) has been done on the subject, but this seems like a point of entry for me as a scholar. Perhaps a single woman anthology is in my future?
What do you think, readers? Any single woman poets or criticism I should know about?
