The Temporal Limits of Single Positivity: Single Women in Postfeminist Culture

Abstract

This article evaluates the extent to which the recent ‘single positivity movement’ has reconfigured representations of single womanhood in the UK. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 19 heterosexual women, aged 21–52, I argue that, in a postfeminist and neoliberal culture where heterosexual women have been encouraged to ‘dump him’ and prioritise their self and happiness, to free themselves from heteropatriarchal constraints, single womanhood has been transformed into an identity characterised by self-discovery, self-prioritisation, and self-love. In light of this movement, I find that some heterosexual women have become defiantly single and are unwilling to settle for the sake of settling down, choosing only to revoke their single status should a partner contribute to their already fulfilled lives. However, for most women in this study, while singlehood offered them a period of liberation to find themselves, prioritise themselves, and love themselves, this was dependent on their life-course stage, with an apparent temporal limit to single positivity. Therefore, despite a pervasive narrative of single positivity, which has seemingly facilitated a newfound acceptance to single womanhood, this article concluded that while singlehood is celebrated, and encouraged, as a temporary phase for women in their twenties, the couple norm is maintained as the dominant social form.

Keywords

life-course neoliberalism postfeminism single positivity singlehood temporality

Introduction

While the fictional heroine Bridget Jones (Fielding, 1996) once symbolised single womanhood as a miserable existence, with isolation and loneliness at its’ core (Yodovich and Lahad, 2018), the single woman has undergone a postfeminist makeover (Taylor, 2012) in the last 20 years, wherein ‘the spinster has been replaced by the cocktail-swigging singleton’ (Spratt, 2020: no pagination). Since Emma Watson’s declaration of self-partnership (Cernik, 2019), Florence Given’s (2020) mantra to ‘dump him’, and ‘hot girl summer’ denoting living your best single life, the single woman has become synonymous with independence, empowerment, and personal growth (Lahad, 2017). Inspired by Anthea Taylor’s (2012) Single Women in Popular Culture, which highlighted the changing landscape of single womanhood in the wake of postfeminism, this article examined the extent to which recent ‘single-positive’ discourses have reconfigured single womanhood once again, as a time for women to love, invest in, and prioritise themselves.

Drawing on in-depth interviews with 19 single women, aged between 21 and 52, the article explored how the discourse of single positivity has become a product of a neoliberal, postfeminist culture, where being positively single necessitates self-work, self-love, and self-transformation. To clarify the conceptual framing of this article, postfeminism is regarded a sensibility in which notions of autonomy, choice and self-improvement exist in tandem with surveillance and discipline (Kolehmainen, 2012). Likewise, neoliberalism is seen to produce a particular kind of feminist subject, who is not only individualised but is ‘oriented towards optimising her resources through incessant calculation, personal initiative and innovation’ (Rottenberg, 2013: 422). In this context, I argue that the endorsement of self-prioritisation, agency, and self-actualisation, framed within the discourse of single positivity, establishes regulatory ideals around single womanhood (Gilchrist, 2023), and serves as a technology of the self (Foucault, 1982) by encouraging single women to develop a positive attitude towards being single, through self-work and self-improvement

In making such claims, it is important to clarify that this research does not suggest that women cannot be empowered by their singlehood nor be satisfied with their life choices. Amid a plethora of studies and stereotypes which posit singlehood as undesirable, it is important to recognise that women can, and do, flourish in their singlehood (DePaulo, 2023). However, like Ahmed (2010), I am a ‘feminist killjoy’ and find it important to highlight that the discourse of single positivity has become profitable in the wake of postfeminism and neoliberalism, where self-help literature, wellness podcasts, and social media content encourage self-work and self-transformation, and are typically marketed to young women. I should, therefore, state that the criticism put forward in this article is directed not towards single-positive women, but to single-positive discourses, with the latter dictating how women should feel about their singlehood; posing women with a problem that can only be fixed through self-work. Indeed, this criticism also applies to the temporal limit that is imposed on single positivity, as the study finds that while women of all ages enjoyed being single, only those in young adulthood were celebrated for this positivity, thus suggesting that single positivity does not serve to challenge the heteropatriarchal order, but rather reproduces it.

Contextualising singlehood studies

A dominant approach in scholarship on singlehood has explored how, upon the backdrop of the ‘couple norm’, which privileges coupledom as ‘the normal, natural and superior way of being’ (Roseneil et al., 2020: 3), singlehood is positioned as a marginalised and non-normative sexual identity (DePaulo and Morris, 2005; Macvarish, 2006; Wilkinson, 2014) in everyday practice (Kolehmainen, 2022), social policy, and legislation (Budgeon, 2008; DePaulo, 2023; Roseneil et al., 2020). In accordance with a couple-normative discourse that assumes ‘everyone yearns for a sexual partnership’ (DePaulo and Morris, 2005: 58), being single is seldom seen to be a choice, but is rather assumed to be the result of personal failure or defect (Reynolds and Taylor, 2005; Sandfield and Percy, 2003), with the extent of this assumption revealed in how single people are expected to explain or justify their singlehood (Budgeon, 2008; Lahad, 2017; Simpson, 2016).

As singlehood studies have tended to focus on the experience of heterosexual women, there is a wealth of research to suggest that the stigma endured by single people is gendered, with singlism often rationalised as a response to single women’s resistance of heteropatriarchal norms. Feminist scholars have argued that single women endure stigma, by virtue of their singlehood, as the threat of the single woman pertains to her dismissal of reproductive norms that determine marriage and motherhood as markers of femininity and success (Macvarish, 2006; Moore and Radke, 2015; Sandfield and Percy, 2003). While criticism is often centred on the single woman’s rejection of motherhood, scholars including Lahad (2017) and Pickens and Braun (2018) have also drawn attention to ageist and heterosexist discourses that surround the single woman, regarding how a woman’s ‘market value’ is dependent not only on her reproductive ability, but her sexual desirability (Lahad and Hazan, 2014). To this end, a temporal boundary regulates when, and for how long, being single is culturally accepted for women, with the acceptability of singlehood declining with age (Pickens and Braun, 2018). As Lahad (2017: 57) noted, ‘the warning addressed to single women is clear: they cannot rest on their laurels, as evidently they are in danger of losing their ability to perform as objects of sexual desire and to fulfil the role of future mothers’. Thus, while empirical research suggests that single women, of all ages, experience marginalisation due to their non-conformity to the couple norm (DePaulo and Morris, 2005; Kolehmainen, 2022; Roseneil et al., 2020), this is intensified if singlehood occurs in late adulthood, or as a long-term status, as the possibility of achieving the heteronormative ideal will be compromised.

Consistent with this temporal approach, scholarship on singlehood and queer temporality has focused on how singlehood threatens not only heteropatriarchal norms, but also disrupts the normative temporal order. According to a linear, ‘chrono-normative’ trajectory (Freeman, 2010), paradigmatic markers of life experience such as coupledom, marriage, and childrearing are expected to occur in a certain order, and in certain life stages (Aronson, 2008; Halberstam, 2005), and are idealised as ‘about the possibility of a happy ending; about what life is aimed toward, as being what gives life direction or purpose’ (Ahmed, 2010: 90). However, as single people seldom achieve these markers of experience in a linear order, if at all, scholars have argued that singlehood could be regarded a non-majority sexuality (Wilkinson, 2014), insofar as it is not culturally accepted to achieve happiness, without achieving these milestones. Congruous with this, the marginalisation of single people is theorised to be rooted in their disruption of the heteronormative life-trajectory, and failure to achieve corresponding milestones. This, therefore, may explain why singlehood is socially accepted as a liminal phase in young adulthood, when there is potential that heteronormative milestones can still be achieved, but problematised when surpassing its’ temporal boundaries (Budgeon, 2008; Lahad, 2012; Pickens and Braun, 2018) and when the potential of the heteronormative ‘good life’ (Ahmed, 2010) can no longer be actualised.

The emergence of single positivity

In opposition to the stigmatisation of singlehood, new representations of single womanhood have emerged, demonstrable in the ‘single girl identity’ (Macvarish, 2006) and ‘new single woman’ (Simpson, 2016; Trimberger, 2005), which sought to destabilise the privileging of the couple relationship, and draw attention to single life as rewarding and fulfilling. In the wake of postfeminism, Taylor (2012) notes that the single woman has become a glamourised figure who is characterised by autonomy and independence and, more recently, a ‘single positivity movement’ (Sanghani, 2022) has emerged in popular culture. Albeit a contested term, single positivity seeks to challenge negative assumptions surrounding single women, typically by presenting being single as an empowering lifestyle choice as opposed to a personal failure. Depicted in Florence Given’s (2020) mantra to ‘dump him’, and hot girl summer denoting living your best, single, life, single positivity has become synonymous with independence and liberation (Lahad, 2017). Indeed, recent research by Morris and Dobson (2023) on the ‘Single not Sorry’ Tinder campaign found that commitment was seen to compromise an individual’s spontaneity and self-sufficiency, with singlehood therefore understood as a lifestyle that is centred on freedom, fun, and socialising with friends, as opposed to being ‘tied down’ in a couple. In the wake of this movement, media representations and empirical research have begun to present singlehood as a lifestyle that facilitates career progression, wider friendship networks, and a fulfilling personal life, by having the freedom to prioritise the self (Morris and Dobson, 2023; Yodovich and Lahad, 2018).

For some women, remaining single serves to be an act of resistance against a heterosexist and patriarchal order, which is seen to be upheld by institutions of marriage and motherhood (Morris and Dobson, 2023). The 4B movement, for instance, has gained global traction in recent years as an increasing number of heterosexual women are choosing to remain single and celibate, to reclaim agency over their lives and bodies (Lee and Jeong, 2021). Originating in South Korea, the 4B movement is a radical feminist movement where heterosexual women disengage from dating, sex, marriage, and childbirth, as a means of resisting heteropatriarchal structures (Rashid, 2024). Albeit common in South Korea, amid an epidemic of violence against women and girls in the UK, and women’s reproductive rights under threat in the US, the 4B movement has since expanded to Western countries. However, the 4B movement is missing from the discourse surrounding single positivity, which rather focuses on what Favaro and Gill (2018) refer to as ‘glossy feminism’.

‘Glossy’ feminism denotes a particular subgenre of feminist thought, which rests upon the rhetoric of women supporting women, in a belief that anything can be feminist, as long as it a woman’s choice (Banet-Weiser et al., 2020). In the context of single positivity, the act of choosing to be single is seen to be a feminist act, at least in ‘glossy’ feminist thought, as it is believed that being single allows women to prioritise themselves and invest in their self-transformation, their ‘glow up’. However, critics have argued that seemingly inclusive and progressive ‘glossy’ feminist tropes around self-love, body-positivity, and being a ‘girl boss’, in fact reproduce inequalities pertaining to gender, age, race, sexuality, and disability, as they typically assume a heterosexual, white, young, able-bodied, cisgender, female subject (Butler, 2013; Dosekun, 2015). Moreover, while ‘glossy’ feminism purports to empower women, it is seen to contradict the feminist goal and reinforce, rather than resist, oppressive practices by framing women as the source of, and solution to, their own problems (Gill, 2017; McRobbie, 2004).

Single positivity as self-work

Contesting outdated and undesirable stereotypes of single women as spinsters, old-maids, or crazy-cat-ladies (Dupuis and Girme, 2024; Lahad and Hazan, 2014), single womanhood has recently been rebranded as an empowering and liberating lifestyle choice, under the guise of self-love and self-prioritisation. However, albeit a positive step in challenging unfavourable portrayals of single women, the transformative potential of single positivity remains uncertain as, much like in ‘glossy’ feminist tropes, single women continue to be posed with a problem that can only be fixed through self-work. In a late-modern age of individualism, the self has become a reflexive project to be worked upon and invested in Giddens (1992) and, in this context, feminist scholars have noted the proliferation of self-help, wellness, and therapeutic practices, which they argue has created a new feminist subject who accepts responsibility for herself, her happiness, and her well-being (Banet-Weiser et al., 2020). Noticing similarities in the single positivity movement, which is foregrounded in self-love, I consider the extent to which single positivity is intertwined in a therapeutic discourse of self-help that encourages women to undergo a physical (Ritter, 2022) and/or psychological transformation (Hazleden, 2003; Kolehmainen, 2012) to find themselves, and achieve self-acceptance. More specifically, contributing to literature on single women and postfeminism, I propose that single positivity emerges from, and contributes to, a ‘glossy’ feminist industry that encourages women to be confident and optimistic about their singlehood while regulating for whom, and for how long, singlehood is an acceptable identity.

Methodology

Considering recent media attention on singlehood, which has focused on single womanhood as a potentially liberating lifestyle choice, freeing women from heteropatriarchal constraints (Lord et al., 2023; Morris and Dobson, 2023), this article seeks to question the extent to which the recent ‘single positivity movement’ (Sanghani, 2022) has reconfigured representations and experiences of single womanhood. To address this question, a qualitative research design was selected, which utilised life-story interviews with nineteen women. To attract a diverse sample, variables of class, race, gender, sexuality, and ethnicity were not specified during the sample recruitment. Participants were required to be aged 18–65 and identify as single, though the advertisement did not define the term ‘single’, to allow for subjective interpretation and self-identification. In response, the advertisement attracted a range of single people, some of whom had never been in a relationship nor wished to, some divorced, and some who were actively dating but not in a committed relationship.

The choice to recruit a diverse sample was made in response to how a diverse representation of single people is missing from scholarship on singlehood, as previous research has tended to focus on white, heterosexual, middle-class, and middle-aged single women (see Kislev and Marsh, 2023 for notable exceptions). Hence, responding to Atkinson’s (2012) observation that ‘life narratives are needed especially from groups underrepresented in research’ (p. 118) and recognising that singlehood encompasses a range of experiences and identities, the project is not limited by age, sexuality, race, or ethnicity.

Recruiting the research sample adopted a volunteer sampling technique, whereby a public advertisement was posted to the author’s social media profiles. The advertisement included a brief description of research, the required demographic characteristics of participants, and the author’s contact details. With the post made public, the advertisement was shared a total of 115 times and reached a vast audience, with the advertisement reaching over 10,000 impressions on X alone. Seventeen participants responded to the advertisement directly and a further two responded to the advertisement via chain referral from existing participants. However, while the advertisement generated a high volume of preliminary interest, several participants did not pursue their interest when interviews were officially arranged. This was to be expected, as participants were required to volunteer their time without recompense and, fortunately, this did not impact on the quality of data retrieved.

While ethnicity was not specified as demographic requirement in the research advertisement, most participants in the sample were White-British, with only one Indian-British participant, one Chinese participant, and one Black-British participant. Moreover, despite intending to recruit a sample inclusive of all genders and sexualities, all participants identified as cisgender, and the majority were heterosexual, with only four women self-identifying as queer. It should also be noted that there was a lack of diversity in the age of the sample, with most women in their mid-twenties. From the nineteen women interviewed, thirteen were aged between 20–29, four aged 30–39, one aged 40–49, and two aged 50–59. As a White-British, heterosexual, cisgender woman in my mid-late-20s, my positionality ought to be addressed here and, while my positional influence is unavoidable, it is reflected on and considered during analysis.

This article is part of a broader study into the everyday experiences of singlehood, for which ethical approval was granted from Manchester Metropolitan University in May 2022. Interviews took place shortly after, from June 2022 to April 2023, with interviews lasting between 30 minutes to 2 hours, dependent on the information volunteered by the participant. The location of each interview was decided upon by the participant, including library study spaces on the Manchester Metropolitan University campus, cafés, restaurants, and participants’ homes and workplaces. While 11 interviews were conducted face-to-face, eight interviews were conducted digitally, with six interviews conducted via Zoom and two via Microsoft Teams.

With participants’ informed consent, all interviews were audio recorded and transcribed clean verbatim in an orthographic manner, with speech hesitations, filler words and repeated words omitted to facilitate readability (Pickens and Braun, 2018). To disguise participants’ characteristics and maintain their anonymity, participants were afforded pseudonyms and transcripts were modified where identifiable people, places or events were referred to. Transcripts were then analysed using Braun and Clarke’s (2022) process of reflexive thematic analysis to identify themes within the data, and across the data set. From this analysis, a key research finding was identified, which centred on the age-related discourses associated with singlehood at different life stages.

Findings & discussion

The postfeminist ‘journey’ to single positivity

Interview data from young women revealed that for women in their 20s and 30s, being single was characterised as a time to be self-loving, self-prioritising, and self-sufficient, with their experience typically framed within a discourse of single positivity. Albeit not clearly defined by my participants, single-positive discourses are centred around self-discovery and self-love, with being single a time for young women to work on themselves and become the best version of themselves. In this context, being single was presented as a positive and empowering experience for women, reminiscent of the ‘single girl identity’ (Macvarish, 2006) or ‘new single woman’ (Trimberger, 2005), who is characterised by her independence, freedom, and autonomy. Emma describes her ‘journey’ to self-discovery in neoliberal, postfeminist, terms as she explains

‘After always following someone else’s lead, I realised I’m the main character of my own story. I’ve learnt to find myself and be loving towards myself, because if you spend time alone and learn to enjoy your own company, you can thrive in being single. You need to learn about yourself, be loving towards yourself because, being single, you realise how much you’re worth, that your life is important. It’s something that’s very hard to do, but it’s completely worth it’. (Emma, 24)

By positioning the self as a reflexive project (Giddens, 1992), Emma describes her journey to self-discovery in terms of developing a relationship with her self, informed by the belief that by spending time to discover herself, without compromise, she could learn about herself and what makes her happy. However, in doing so, Emma positions her self as a project requiring self-work, in the form of reorienting her mind-set to become empowered by her singlehood,

‘I’m in my twenties so I’m still young, but I’ve learnt that I need to explore these avenues of myself, and the places around me, to get to know and feel better within myself, to feel confident, and feel comfortable’. (Emma, 24).

Participants, like Emma, spoke of the importance of self-help in their journey to self-discovery and, for those who desired a relationship, the solution was to develop confidence and achieve self-love as a prerequisite to finding a partner. This is reminiscent of Gill’s and Orgad’s (2015, 2022); scholarship on ‘confidence culture’, in which the authors find that, irrespective of the problems that women face, the solution is typically rooted in women developing self-confidence, foregrounding psychological change rather than social transformation. Framing her experiences of singlehood in similar terms, Phoebe (26) comments that she has ‘done the work’ and ‘put the effort in’, to be content with her singlehood.

‘I’ve done the work to feel better about being single, I’ve listened to podcasts about single life, read books, I’ve put the effort in to get to this point. I honestly think I could be happy for the rest of my life without getting back into a relationship and that’s a big statement that I never thought I could make, but I just don’t need anyone’.

Phoebe goes on to specify that feminist texts such as Florence Given’s (2020) Women Don’t Owe You Pretty and self-help podcasts, including The Single Girl’s Guide to Life (Dyson, 2022), transformed her attitude towards singlehood, allowing her to become more accepting of and confident in her singlehood. Phoebe suggests that this rhetoric of personal responsibility and self-work is particularly apparent online, where social media content is increasingly centred around manifestation and maintaining a positive attitude. Gaining traction on social media platforms such as TikTok, this can be depicted by the recent ‘let them theory’, popularised by Mel Robbins (2024), which encourages individuals to relinquish control by learning to let go of their expectations. Albeit appearing to minimise individual responsibility, I find that self-help texts such as Robbins’ ‘let them theory’ ultimately shift the onus onto individuals to engage in self-reflection and self-work. Moreover, as the primary audience for these texts tends to be women, feminist self-help literature is often presented as equipping women with the tools to develop a positive mind-set, but it ultimately reinforces ideals of self-reliance and personal responsibility.

In this postfeminist and neoliberal context, where individuals are responsible for themselves and their happiness (Ahmed, 2010; McRobbie, 2004), being single is seen to facilitate self-discovery, self-transformation, and self-actualisation (Reynolds and Wetherall, 2003), thus transforming singlehood into a feminist and empowering act which allows women to develop confidence, independence, and happiness (Gill and Orgad, 2018). However, as Gill (2009) observes, omitted from this repertoire of self-empowerment is the possibility that individuals may experience negative emotions and, to this end, it can be argued that single positivity is intertwined in a happiness industry (Davies, 2015) that dissuades negativity and encourages resilience, confidence, and optimism. Yet, by reinforcing a postfeminist and neoliberal mind-set that women can achieve happiness and success through self-improvement and positive thought, negative emotions and structural issues remain overlooked. An aversion to displaying negative thought was apparent, in this study, as women were often reluctant to discuss their singlehood in negative terms. Phoebe (26), for example, admitted feeling lonely at times, but did not allow herself to dwell on this, instead justifying that positive emotions outweighed the negative.

Perpetuating a narrative that singlehood provides an escape from the heteronormative and patriarchal constraints that are produced within the couple relationship (Morris and Dobson, 2023), women tended to reflect on the constraints they experienced when in a couple, to articulate the freedom of being single (Kolehmainen, 2022). For instance, by describing how being single had facilitated a process to self-discovery, Phoebe (26) recalls what she could not do when in a relationship, to articulate what she could do when single. Reflecting on her previous relationship, Phoebe describes being single as a turning point that has allowed her to ‘put [herself] first’ and free herself from being ‘tied down’.

‘I’m able to look forward to things and put myself first, just being excited about my life, not my life with someone else. [. . .] I usually put myself at the bottom of the pile when I’m in a relationship and I’d prioritise him, whereas now I can live for myself and don’t have to take anyone’s thoughts into consideration’. (Phoebe, 26)

Echoing a postfeminist belief that a woman’s sense of self is ‘diminished rather than achieved through relationships with men’ (Macvarish, 2006: 2), participants described being single as allowing them to develop a sense of self by being ‘selfish’ (Emma, 24). Here, participants responses suggest that to be single in young adulthood was a liberating period during which women could discover themselves by investing in their friendships, pursuing careers, travelling, and developing hobbies and interests. Albeit a positive message, insofar as women are given the autonomy to leave unsatisfactory relationships, and achieve empowerment in their lives, the message is clear that there is a desirable way to be single (Greig, 2022). Thus, if the single woman has not developed the confidence to be empowered by singlehood, the solution becomes to work on the self, with the individual the source of, and solution to, their own problems (Gill, 2017; McRobbie, 2004). While most participants internalised single-positive discourses, Sarah (28) is critical of this discourse and details how single positivity has become not only feminine, but feminist,

‘I’m almost seen as a trend, like I’ve involuntarily been branded as the independent single friend who doesn’t want a man and it’s very stereotypical. I actually got gifted Florence Given’s book as a present, because I’m seen as this feminist friend, and I love that I bring feminism to my friends but it doesn’t make me this radical feminist where it’s all I’ll talk about’.

Sarah’s recognition of her brand as an ‘independent single friend who doesn’t want a man’ highlights how young single womanhood has become associated with postfeminist traits of empowerment, independence, and self-prioritisation. Albeit affording a positive identity for young single women, it is important to acknowledge that single positivity serves to regulate an acceptable form of single womanhood by idealising the single woman who has developed the tools to become confident, self-loving, and self-prioritising. Therefore, developing Gilchrist’s (2023) theory that postfeminist discourses of singlehood have sought to regulate female subjectivity, I find that recent single-positive discourses serve as a technology of the self (Foucault, 1982) through which young single women liberate themselves by becoming self-regulating and self-reliant.

Settling to settle down?

As single positivity emphasises independence, empowerment, and self-prioritisation, to the extent that heterosexual women are encouraged that their sense of self is diminished, rather than achieved, through relationships (Macvarish, 2006), I find that some young heterosexual women have become defiantly single and are unwilling to settle for the sake of settling down. In the context of neoliberalism and excessive individualism, which Lasch (1979) described as a ‘culture of narcissism’, dating is comparable to a marketplace as individuals evaluate, and are evaluated against, one another (Illouz, 2012). In this context, individuals engage in relationships for their own sake and satisfaction, and, for my participants, a reluctance to settle for an unsatisfactory relationship became apparent. Phoebe (26) tells me,

‘Unless it’s perfect, I’m not going to settle for anyone just to be in a relationship. If I was really desperate to have a boyfriend, I could probably get someone from Tinder, but I don’t need to settle for the first person that comes along’.

Responses from my participants suggest that, in a postfeminist and neoliberal context, young women justify their singlehood by claiming that while they could be in a couple relationship, they opt to ‘hold out’ and wait for the best ‘option’. This was apparent in an interview with Scarlett (26) who described, ‘I’m quite happy on my own so if you’re not up to my standard, if you’re not going to add anything to my life, I’d rather wait for someone who will’, which was also echoed by Zara (32),

‘If you do want to be in a relationship, anyone can be, but it’s about looking for certain things and looking for someone who really complements your life and I think that’s what some people are holding out for, but people find that really difficult to accept’.

Akin to Lahad’s (2012) research on time-wasting in the context of dating, women in this study described settling in a relationship that is not completely satisfactory as a waste of their time. Indicative of a single-positive discourse which dissuades women from ‘settling’ and rather encourages self-optimisation and self-reliance, a partner was not seen as necessary to achieve satisfaction nor self-actualisation for the young women interviewed. Rather, women chose only to revoke their single status should a partner contribute to their already fulfilled lives.

‘I know what I want so I don’t want to settle. I had quite a good relationship with my ex so if anything is less than that, I won’t accept it [. . .] Unless someone can add to my life, I’m not wasting my time’. (Bryony, 26)

However, despite being happily single and reluctant to settle, singlehood was not anticipated to be a long-term or permanent choice for most women interviewed. For instance, despite recalling how being single in her 20s has allowed her to focus on her friends, career, and hobbies, Bryony (26) expects that she may panic if her singlehood exceeds its’ temporal limits,

If I don’t find [a partner] for the next two years, I’ll be fine, but I might start panicking in two years if I haven’t found someone because then I’d be looking at being twenty-nine, thirty.

Responses from the single women interviewed suggest that, as women approach the thirties, the pressure to couple up intensifies, with the age of thirty signifying an internal deadline, prior to which heteronormative milestones should be achieved. Hence, while most women in this study were satisfied with being single in their twenties, the end goal was to be in a monogamous couple. To this extent, while being single was embraced as a phase of self-discovery in young adulthood, the single-positive discourse was no longer available to those whose singlehood had surpassed its’ expected temporal boundaries (Lahad, 2017), as single women were expected to give up the autonomy, freedom, and self-prioritisation that this identity affords, to settle down in a couple relationship.

Temporal limits of single positivity

Consistent with a heteronormative temporal order, where singlehood is accepted as a liminal stage preceding coupledom, young women in this study pre-empted that the pleasure of being single in their twenties and early thirties would be replaced by a societal pressure to settle down, as they reach their late thirties. This was perhaps most clearly articulated by Robyn (25), who refers to implicit rules that regulate when heteronormative milestones are expected to occur, with the 30s regarded as a phase in which the single woman ought to ‘settle down’,

‘As a woman, it feels as if you’re on this societal timeline where it’s so embedded that by a certain age you have to be in a relationship, to start thinking about kids, it’s like a biological clock or something. People say that I’m still young and still have time, but it’s that internal thing that’s telling you that you need to be settled down by the time you’re in your thirties’. (Robyn, 25)

Albeit in young adulthood, many women in their mid to late twenties felt anxious about aging with the age of 30 symbolising a social death (Lahad, 2017). Internalising sexist and ageist beliefs centred on how a woman’s value is dependent on her reproductive ability and sexual desirability (Lahad and Hazan, 2014), many women in this study feared that their beauty and fertility would diminish with age, along with their chances of attracting a partner. Therefore, with an implicit understanding that ‘as [the single woman] gets older, her singleness becomes less accepted, or less sexy’ (Pickens and Braun, 2018: 442), participants such as Sarah (28) and Louisa (32) sought to revoke their single status before their singlehood was no longer acceptable, and their time would run out.

With 30 an internal deadline, prior to which women are expected to settle down, my findings suggest that the perceived ‘problem’ of the single woman pertains not only to her rejection of the female life plot and reproductive norms (Macvarish, 2006; Moore and Radke, 2015; Sandfield and Percy, 2003) but to her rejection of a linear trajectory where milestones are expected to occur sequentially and in certain life stages (Halberstam, 2005). Zara (32) demonstrates this when reflecting on her being single throughout her life-course,

‘It’s something that has the potential to be more uncomfortable with time, because when you’re younger it’s quite normal to be in and out of being single, but as you get older, most people are in relationships and all these milestones are happening around you, like friends getting engaged or having babies’.

By defining singlehood as ‘something that has the potential to be more uncomfortable with time’, Zara highlights the temporal boundaries of singlehood, suggesting there is a culturally acceptable time to be single, with this acceptance afforded only if singlehood occurs as a temporary phase in young adulthood, when singlehood is deemed normative (Reynolds and Wetherall, 2003). However, as singlehood begins to exceed its temporal limits by means of becoming long-term, or taking place in later life, the single person becomes minoritised. Rebecca (42) also alludes to this when reflecting on how she resonated with the ‘single girl identity’ (Macvarish, 2006) during her twenties and early thirties, but noticed that this identity became more difficult to claim once she reached her late thirties. Here, it ought to be recognised that while Rebecca’s mind-set remained unchanged, as she continued to be happily and voluntarily single, the world around her changed as it no longer accepted her singlehood as a choice. Thus, while women of all ages were positive about their singlehood, in this study, single positivity regulates for whom, and how long, women can be happily single, with older women excluded from this discourse.

As heteronormative milestones are afforded the greatest privilege and supposedly promise the greatest happiness (Ahmed, 2010), single women in mid and later life were assumed to be unhappily and involuntarily single. Like Rebecca, Tania (52) and Lydia (52) are voluntarily and defiantly single, choosing to embrace their freedom from heteropatriarchal constraints. While both women had previously been in long-term relationships, they enjoyed being single at this life-stage as they felt free from biological or marital pressure (Stoicescu and Rughiniș, 2022). Lydia (52), who had previously been married and has children, explains, ‘been there, done that, bought the t-shirt and the divorce!’. However, the women explained that their happiness is disbelieved and trivialised, as it is assumed that their contentment is a pretence, to avoid the shame of being undesirable and unwanted (Pickens and Braun, 2018). Therefore, while happy in their singlehood, they understood that expressing a preference for singlehood in later life is not culturally celebrated,

‘I’m 52 and my hair’s gone grey, but I’ve not shrivelled up in a corner and died twenty years ago. They seem to use relationships almost as a visible timeline of ‘she’s moved on because she’s got a new partner’ like the only way to get over one bad relationship is to get into another. [. . .] For them, I think being in a relationship would be the sign of happiness, but for me, that’s never been the case’. (Lydia, 52)

Due to a clear binary in how single-positive discourses represent young single women, while the spinster signifies single women in mid and later life, participants felt as though they were characterised by these identities, irrespective of their personal experiences. Moreover, with few identities to represent single women in these in-between life stages, women who were deemed too old to be single-positive experienced accelerating ageing towards spinsterhood. The degree to which single women experience premature ageing is perhaps best articulated by Georgia (21), who is content with being single in her early 20s, but who displays an aversion to remaining single as she reaches her mid-late 20s:

I’m still young so I don’t get the ‘when are you going to find someone?’ question, but as I get older, I think it’s going to be more of a problem.

Like Georgia, Corrine (23) also describes being single as empowering in her early 20s, but anticipates that she will not feel empowered, nor satisfied, if her singlehood is to become permanent. Here, young women pre-empt a negative experience of singlehood in the future, based on cultural scripts that denote singlehood in mid-later life to be a problem (Budgeon, 2016).

I like to think I would be satisfied on my own, but in reality, I don’t think I would. I do want a life partner at some point, it’s not something that I’m desperate to find immediately, I’m twenty-three so I’m not feeling like I need that right now, but I would like a life partner in the end.

These narratives highlight the extent to which life stages are bound to age-related discourses, where being single in the early twenties is deemed fun and characteristic of the ‘single girl identity’ (Macvarish, 2006), whereas, in the mid-late 20s, it is expected that single people will begin to settle down. Indeed, while the lived experiences of women in mid and later life refute this, it remains a dominant assumption, demonstrating the tenacity of the couple norm (Roseneil et al., 2020), and temporality of single positivity. To this end, despite single-positive discourses encouraging young women to be self-sufficient, self-loving, and self-prioritising, being single was understood as a prerequisite to coupledom for many women in my research, with coupledom typically assumed to take place during the late twenties and early thirties. Hence, the research findings suggest that an implicit assumption remains surrounding how singlehood is accepted and celebrated, only as a temporary phase preceding the couple (Reynolds and Wetherall, 2003).

Conclusion

These research findings refute claims that the ‘single positivity movement’ (Sanghani, 2022) has reconfigured representations of single womanhood in the UK. Through reflexive thematic analysis of interviews with heterosexual women, aged 21–52, this article draws attention to the tenacity of single-positive discourses in transforming depictions of the single woman. The accounts presented suggest that, in a postfeminist and neoliberal culture, the single woman has undergone a postfeminist and neoliberal makeover (Taylor, 2012), with the single-positive woman characterised by her self-discovery, self-prioritisation, and self-love. In light of this discourse, this study found heterosexual women have often become defiantly single and are unwilling to settle for the sake of settling down. However, albeit progressive to the extent that young women are given the permission, and freedom, to ‘dump him’ (Given, 2020), the message is clear that there is a desirable way to be single for young heterosexual women. In this regard, if the single woman has not developed the tools nor confidence to be empowered by her singlehood, the solution is to work on herself (Gill, 2017; McRobbie, 2004).

Albeit demonstrating the rebranding of singlehood as an empowering identity, participants’ responses highlight the tenacity of the couple norm (Roseneil et al., 2020), insofar as the self-discovery and self-love afforded by singlehood were often deemed a prerequisite to coupledom (Reynolds and Wetherall, 2003). To this end, despite presenting singlehood as a lifestyle choice centred on self-discovery, self-improvement, and self-sufficiency, there is an implicit understanding that single women are expected to give up the autonomy, freedom, and self-prioritisation that single positivity identity affords, to settle down in a couple relationship. I, therefore, identify a temporal limit to single positivity, to the extent that single positivity was afforded only to single women in young adulthood (Lahad, 2017) and as a liminal phase, before the pleasures of singlehood were expected to be surpassed by the pressure to settle down.

This article has touched on how single-positive discourses may reproduce inequalities related to age, gender, and sexuality (Butler, 2013; Dosekun, 2015), to the extent that single positivity assumes a young heterosexual female subject. In this study, this is demonstrated in how single-positive discourses are apparent only in the narratives of white, heterosexual, cisgender, able-bodied women in their 20s and early 30s. However, due to a lack of diversity in the research sample, the extent to which this discourse is racialised and perpetuates inequalities pertaining to class and disability cannot be ascertained. Therefore, while this study has argued that single positivity may regulate when and for how long singlehood is acceptable, it would be of further interest for future studies to explore how single-positive discourses regulate for whom singlehood is accepted.

Footnotes

Funding

The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by a Leverhulme Trust Doctoral Scholarship.

ORCID iD

Alicia Denby

Author biography

Alicia Denby is an early career researcher and Lecturer in Sociology at Manchester Metropolitan University, where she specialises in singlehood, contemporary intimacies, and technological transformations of dating. Her recent PhD research, which was funded by the Leverhulme Trust, examined the everyday experiences of singlehood in Greater Manchester. Using a creative qualitative approach, this work critically interrogates the privileging of the couple relationship and subsequent marginalisation of non-coupled intimacies.

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