This is a real article in 2010

[sabotabby]

Dear Maclean's,

You suck. No, really. You're morons.

Do you honestly think there are that many single women out there who cannot possibly figure out what to do with their time because they don't have a man to fill the empty hole in their lives?

Really?

I didn't think anything could be worse than Maclean's political analysis, but it turns out I'm wrong.

Die in a fire,
Teh Sabs, crazy cat lady and spinster aunt

Comments

[poetic-pixie-13.livejournal.com]

Wat?

Srsly, wat?

[sabotabby]

I know, right?

A woman wrote this.

[poetic-pixie-13.livejournal.com]

Was it? I was too busy weeping over my lonely singledom to notice.

[sabotabby]

I think. It's hard to tell. I was distracted by my myriad cats who will inevitably eat my face when I die, alone and unloved.

[springheel-jack.livejournal.com]

The comments taught me a new fascist term: 'demographic winter.' i.e. Not enough white babies.

I'll get right on caring about that

[sabotabby]

I'm trying to work up a care and failing.

[lokilokust.livejournal.com]

that's awesome.

[springheel-jack.livejournal.com]

that's how feminism has destroyed 'the west.'

[sabotabby]

That's awesome. Lots of cats, no white people, free abortions? I can dig it.

[terry-terrible.livejournal.com]

Did the ghost of Oswald Spengler write this article? FFS.

[kadath.livejournal.com]

I do have a man to fill the empty hole in my life. He's currently totally absorbed in Dragon Age, so I'm still left to my own devices despite my A+ dude-snaring abilities.

HELP ME MACLEAN'S

[sabotabby]

Is that like being a WoW widow? I am sure they've done an advice column on that at some point.

[kadath.livejournal.com]

Something like that, but there's an endpoint to the game, unlike the WoW eternal treadmill. I'm not actually upset; this is his vacation week, so if he wants to sit around in his underpants killing orcs, the more power to him, and because I am a grown-ass adult, I am capable of informing him he has 10 minutes to get off the fucking Xbox 'cause I want to watch my stories.

...We do have a functional relationship, I swear.

[xturtle.livejournal.com]

I had this same completely functional week earlier this year.

[springheel-jack.livejournal.com]

but what are you doing about demographic winter?

[kadath.livejournal.com]

Sipping chardonnay* and laughing about it in my effete East Coast fashion.

*A lie. I prefer reds.

[troubleinchina.livejournal.com]

I thought that was the West Coast stereotype, and East Coast types are stealing money away from hard working farmers?

[sqrt-joy.livejournal.com]

Dear woman in the first paragraph: it's called a TAXI.

Dear woman in the third last paragraph: tell the town where to go and how to get there.

It all reads like strange surreal fiction to me.

[sabotabby]

I get so confused sometimes and think that perhaps I live in a parallel universe where people are relatively sensible.

(Of course, one of my co-workers asked me this week why I didn't just "buy a car and go into debt like the rest of us" so it's possible that I merely socialize in a parallel universe where people are relatively sensible.)

And then there's Clara ...

[ed-rex.livejournal.com]

... or at least, there was. And actually, I don't remember her name, but "Clara" fits.

She was in her early 20s (I in my mid, so it was some time ago), and we were both playing "support staff" at the then Sunnybrooke Hospital. Early on as we were getting to know one another, co-worker to co-worker, without even the remotest sign of resentment, anger or regret, she told me that (other than going to and from work) she "never [went] anywhere without [her] husband."

Not to a mall, not to a movie, not out with friends. Toronto was too dangerous, she told me, apparently in all sincerity.

Having just typed the above, I can't help but wonder if that husband wasn't some abusive, controlling psychopath, but at the time I was merely bemused.

My point? Oh, yes. Your co-worker sounds only somewhat insane.

P.S. Why don't you buy a car and go into debt like the rest of 'em?

[troubleinchina.livejournal.com]

"buy a car and go into debt like the rest of us"

LOL WHUT?

[silmaril.livejournal.com]

See icon for my facial expression in response to your coworker.

[terry-terrible.livejournal.com]

Dear woman in the first paragraph: it's called a TAXI.

But clearly there were no men around to tell her about Taxi's, and much woe was had.

[queerasmoi.livejournal.com]

Dear woman in the first paragraph: Aren't you Liz Lemon from last year's Valentine's Day episode of 30 Rock? :P

[springheel-jack.livejournal.com]

I think it's great that they bring out decades-old articles from the morgue to remind us of where we've come from.

....wait, what?

[sabotabby]

But I don't think there was ever a critical mass of single women with too much time on their hands and no friends at all.

Secret to successful singledom is to ensure your life passes the Bechdel Test? What's not to like?

[ed-rex.livejournal.com]

More seriously, the piece strikes me as utterly inane and condescending, but since I now make Ottawa my home I can totally pwn you on the idiot front, since the Citizen's star columnist is none other than David "(for I, like Rousseau, am a solitary walker)" Warren.

If MacLean's is your cross to bear, Nice White Lady, then The Ottawa Petfinder Citizen, is mine.

Re: Secret to successful singledom is to ensure your life passes the Bechdel Test? What's not to lik

[umadoshi.livejournal.com]

Your subject line is wonderful. ^_^

Re: Secret to successful singledom is to ensure your life passes the Bechdel Test? What's not to lik

[ed-rex.livejournal.com]

Thank you kindly ...

[doffs capp, shuffles feet]

[troubleinchina.livejournal.com]

Is MacLean's doing this thing lately where they want lots and lots of outraged hits on their website or something? This, the Quebec thing, and that "Is your university too Asian?" debacle make me think this is the plan.

[thegiantkiller.livejournal.com]

I was just wondering the same thing. Seriously, what is going on with this magazine?

[corwin77.livejournal.com]

I think if you have absolutely no one in your life that can drive you to/pick you up from the ER you have a more serious social problem than no boyfriend. I am single and can think of at least a dozen people who would perform this service for me even at odd hours.

[zingerella.livejournal.com]

This is pretty much exactly what Sabs and I said to each other last night. I can think of at least a dozen (and probably some of the same) people with whom I am not romantically involved who will do and have done any of the following for/with me:

come to the ER/Urgent Care and provide moral/physical support

help me put Ikea furniture together

hang out with me and talk about things other than men

do my damned grocery shopping for me when I am too sick to deal with it in the middle of winter

go to movies/plays/gigs/the symphony/the opera with me

come dancing with me

I realise that not everyone is as blessed with good friends and a strong community as I am, but srsly? If I were convinced that nobody would be there for me when I needed it, I would work on making friends and building a strong community long before I'd go on the prowl for a lover.

[laughingimp.livejournal.com]

If I were convinced that nobody would be there for me when I needed it, I would work on making friends and building a strong community long before I'd go on the prowl for a lover.

For real.

[misslynx.livejournal.com]

I actually didn't find the article itself to be particularly offensive - I find the fact that there really are a lot of women who don't know how to cope with being single (and I've met a fair number of them) offensive. The article just seemed for the most part like it was fairly gently (maybe too gently) trying to tell them that not being in a relationship didn't have to be the end of the world. So I think you may be shooting the messenger here...

Now, why there are still so many women in this day and age who can't cope with singleness, I have no clue. But they do exist, sadly. I've met them. And that is one of many reasons why I feel like an anthropologist studying an alien culture any time I have to associate with "normal" people.

And with regard to the ER story, I second corwin77's comment: that sounds more like a lack of friends problem than a lack of relationship problem. Though the two may be interconnected, in that it seems like a lot of the same sort of mainstream, non-feminist women who have no idea what to do with themselves when they're single also don't put a very high priority on friendship, because they centre their lives so strongly around romantic relationships. And that's a sad thing in itself.

[bike4fish.livejournal.com]

Egad! Many of my friends are single women. I never knew they had these problems. Wait. Perhaps they don't.

(I am a designated emergency person to call for several. What else are friends for?)

[lienne.livejournal.com]

The whole idea of seeking a relationship without caring about who that relationship might actually be with has always seemed fucked up to me.

Also, way to be heteronormative, assholes.

[revolution-grrl.livejournal.com]

I love the picture they used. I'll bet they weren't even trying to be ironic.

[mistersmearcase.livejournal.com]

The picture of the kitteh is super cute.

Ok but I sort of don't get your reaction. Some people (hi!) really are super pathetic when they're single, and a few words of encouragement are not confirmation that single people suck. In fact the book is actually saying, if I'm reading right, "don't focus your entire identity on getting back into a relationship." So this is not bad. It brings up a negative association, that society overvalues coupling off, but the book and the article, I don't understand how they're that offensive.

[zingerella.livejournal.com]

But the article wasn't about people. It was about women. There was no mention of the poor, sad, lonely single men who have nobody to turn to should they need to take a taxi to the hospital in the middle of the night, nor was there advice to single men to find single male friends who don't talk about their hunt for a girlfriend.

I rented a room in a house owned by a fellow who really felt his lack of a girlfriend. His parents live in B.C., where he had grown up, and he was quite shy, and despite being a really sweet guy, had little in the way of community. Had my roommate had to go to the hospital, he'd not have had anyone to take him (except me, if I had been home, and I'd have done it for him had he needed). And he did wish he could meet girls (and, once he actually left the house and hung out with people who shared his interests, wouldn't you know it, he did meet a lovely lady), and talk about how difficult it was to meet girls. So this article could have been written to take his lonely pre-girlfriend life into account, but it wasn't. It was all about the sad plight of the lonely single woman.

[mistersmearcase.livejournal.com]

I see your point of course but was the article about women and not men in a way that's harmful to women? To me it didn't seem to imply that single women are inherently more incomplete than single men, which would be the obvious lousy thing such a book/article could do. If anything I had the idea the author was conscious of such societal biases and not a proponent of them. I'll go back and reread it and see if I'm being a dolt.

[jenlight.livejournal.com]

Well that was sufficiently condescending. Thanks Maclean's!