Spinster du jour

Yes, it's only a TV programme. Yes, there are terrible atrocities going on all over the world. Yes, there are probably other things I could get worked up about. I agree with you. But this is my blog and I have my soapbox right here to climb on. Will the world please leave Susan Boyle alone? I am fed up with the tone taken by most of the media: backhanded compliments and sly mockery camouflaged as admiration. Take the label that's been stuck on her, the Hairy Angel. Imagine you were a teacher or a boss and you heard one of your pupils or staff being called a name like that. You'd cry bullying and discrimination. It's not affectionate or fond. It's spiteful. "Look at the plain spinster. Who'd have thought she had a voice like that?" Why shouldn't she? And if she had a voice like a foghorn with colic, would that make her any less valid as a human being? The media must have wet themselves with joy: middle-aged spinster, living with cat, pottering along quite happily without Touche Eclat and Louis Vuitton. Were people really living like that any more in the twenty-first century? How quaint. Oh yes, let's thrust cameras into every aspect of her life, hold everything up for dissection, then lets drop her when someone else comes along to be chewed up and spat out. I hope she enjoys her time in the limelight. I hope she gets to sing in amazing places, loving every minute, because she has talent and deserves all the good fortune that talent can bring her. But I fear for her, because modern celebrity is merciless. I don't want to see her reduced to living out her life in the pages of glossy magazines, filling the hole left by Jade Goody. Enjoy her singing. Buy her records. Admire her talent and her determination. But don't snigger into your sleeve as you do so.

I don't want to be single

Strictly speaking, spinsters don't exist any more. We were abolished a few years ago. I don't know what marriage certificates say now. Single, probably. Factual, yes, but boring. I don't want to be a single. I want a label I can be proud of. As Marion Shaw said in Winifrid Holtby's South Riding, "I was born to be a spinster, and, by God, I'm going to spin." In times past, remaining unmarried was a misfortune. Women were objects with few rights. However, in this country (Britain) at least, since the earlier part of the last century this has been addressed, sometimes insufficiently, sometimes to this point of belittling men. The latter is something I'll discuss in another post. Spinsters have been, not infrequently, pigeonholed as mad old bats wearing tea cosy hats and tweeds smelling of cat. I don't think there's anything wrong with this, although it's not a compulsory uniform. Tweed can be scratchy, tea cosy hats are challenging in high summer and smelling of cat can be avoided by encouraging said cat to use a litter tray. But you can put the spin into spinster any way you choose. A quick vox pop in any British town centre would give you a few famous spinsters: Miss Marple (fictional but fiendishly intelligent), Ann Widdecombe (currently on people's Fantasy Parliament squad as the new Speaker of the House of Commons), Joan of Arc (French heroine and saint), Germaine Greer (feminist icon and part-time Big Brother contestant). The fact is, spinsters are seen as formidable. May I remind you that formidable is French for great. The term spinster is more loaded than the insipid single. It carries centuries of baggage. That weight is something to be harnessed. Modern spinsterdom is more of a calling than a curse. Marriage, cohabitation, even casual copping off on a semi-regular basis - these are not the goals of every woman. Some of us opt not to inflict ourselves on another person, opt not to compromise. It's a lifestyle choice, like having your ears pierced, only less sharp and pointy. Whatever modern culture says, being a single woman does not make you a freak. Being a perpetually single woman is perhaps a little more rare. If you're not happy with that, fine. Do something about it. But if you don't mind, if you're quite happy without a man, spin like crazy.