BRITISH Vogue’s timely article asking “Is Having A Boyfriend Embarrassing Now?” has set social media — and TV and radio shows and around the world — on fire.
It has lit a flame that will be impossible to extinguish.
If you put your ear to the ground, you’ll hear the sound of a gargantuan army of single women marching to the beat of their own drum, roaring “Yes!!” as if this is the moment they have been waiting for.
The smug-married might want to look away. The newly in-love may wish to scroll past.
I’m telling you now, in the world of love and all things relationship-y, there is a revolution going on.
The article claims that being attached to a bloke is “out of style” because it “waters women down”.
As someone who’s been married three times but has been a proud singleton for the past seven years, I couldn’t agree more.
The premise is quite simple.
Women are loving being single for a million reasons, but essentially it comes down to two things:
Having a boyfriend no longer elevates a woman’s social status like it did generations ago.
And many, many men out there are turning out to be, well, crap. What do they actually bring to the table?
Women are now capable of being financially independent — we’ve even been allowed to get our own mortgages since 1975.
We can look after ourselves (and others); we work hard – in our careers and dedicate time to personal growth. We are finding joy and strength in our female friendships. We’re loving our pets and working out.
The number of single women having IVF has tripled in a decade, showing we don’t even need them for procreation.
Giving up our much-valued freedoms and independence just to dedicate our lives to someone else is over.
And, let’s face it, in relationships, women mostly have to be the support act. The understudy. If we dare to be the star of the show, we are deemed too much.
I had to wave goodbye to my last dalliance a few months ago because the guy kept telling me he was a “closed book.”
Explaining basic respect and communication skills to a grown man is time I don’t have and I wasn’t prepared to compromise what I’ve built up in my life and within myself over the past years.
That would have been a personal betrayal and an embarrassment to myself.
It’s little wonder then, that single women report higher levels of happiness.
Formidable actress, Jodie Turner-Smith, said recently that she wants a man who “isn’t emasculated by my success”. Exactly.
Since the beginning of time, women have been made to believe that their goal in life is waiting to be chosen by a man.
Marriage and children have historically been the goals. Disney films ended with women being picked or saved.
Now we’re not waiting for a man to ‘put a ring on it’. We don’t lie awake at night hoping a man will ‘complete’ us.
All of that has become, in the words of British Vogue, very “beige”.
A huge part of the blame for this revolution taking place, has to rest on the shoulders of single men.
While women have been working on their personal development, men have been navel-gazing and moaning about the (self-inflicted) ‘loneliness epidemic’ they’re being forced to endure.
Women have discovered that there is actually no need to have a boyfriend if he brings nothing to the table except insecurity; a wandering eye, emotional unavailability and a lack of intention.
If that’s all you’ve got, boys – we’d rather take the ‘spinster’ option.
In the words of the great Marilyn Monroe: “I wish brilliant women had the confidence of mediocre men”.
Well, we do now, Marilyn. We do now.
THANKS TO NHS FOR BO
MY oldest daughter, Bo, turned 25 at the weekend.
For some, this might just be another birthday but as she was born with a serious congenital heart defect which has – and will always – hang over us like a heavy cloak of foreboding, it feels special, if not miraculous.
Not just because she has, so far, had to endure one closed-heart and two open-heart operations since birth and she requires regular health check-ups.
Not just because her biological father took it upon himself to desert us when I was eight months pregnant and we have ploughed our own furrow in life together as a strong unit.
But because before she was born I was told – at the time – that the medical establishment knew these “heart children” could live as far as their teens, although many have successfully made it into adulthood.
We all have many complaints about how the NHS as an institution fails us on many levels.
But Bo and I will be forever grateful for it saving her life countless times, and for actually working when it really needs to.
So, thank you to all the porters and nurses and cleaners and doctors and surgeons for helping us get here.
We couldn’t have done it without you.
I KNEW ANDY’S SNEER
I WALK a tightrope as I write this, on account of Princess Beatrice being my youngest daughter’s godmother. But write I must.
Because while it’s unlikely my past encounter with her father, the Andrew formerly known as Prince will do him any further damage, I think it remains quite telling of the man.
Aged just 20 and in the first week of my first proper job, I was invited by a guy in the office who just happened to be best friends with Prince Edward to attend a ball for his charity.
Yikes! Borrowed one of my mum’s dresses and was taken to Windsor for drinks before said ball.
Fergie and His Royal Nibness were there and we all sat outside on a terrace and I will never, ever forget how deeply uncomfortable Andrew made me feel.
This is nothing I’m making up today in respect of all we now know – I said it at the time and wrote about it in my autobiography.
He silently X-rayed me up and down, over and over for an extended period without making eye contact, and eventually sneeringly asked: “So, what do you do, then?”
To which I nervously but also proudly replied: “I’m a secretary.”
As a tomboy brought up on a council estate in Sweden, the question was oozing with arrogance and was encrusted in snobbery.
In view of what we now know, I dread to think what was actually going through his mind.
To paraphrase the great Maya Angelou – you may not remember what someone said but you WILL remember how they made you feel.
I HAVE been a loyal listener to Radio 4 for over 30 years – and continue to be.
With that in mind, I found it strange that during the Today programme’s discussion of the mess the resignation of Director-General Tim Davie, they only interviewed ONE woman among a bevy of men in suits.
The irony of a corporation accused of bias against women’s rights continually churning out men to contribute is not lost.
As women make up nearly 51 per cent of the population, you’d think they would strive for better.
AS the daughter of a driving instructor, I have always had the highest respect for road safety.
The mum Crystal campaign for a Graduated Driver’s Licence (GDL) specifically aimed at 17-24 year olds.
This would delay full driving privileges for new drivers to help them gain experience under lower-risk conditions.
Male drivers aged 17-24 are four times more likely to be killed or seriously injured than are all drivers aged 25 and over.
My youngest is currently having lessons and, once he passes his test, there will be strict rules about who he is allowed to drive around, and where he will be allowed to go and when.
Harvey’s death was entirely avoidable and it was such a waste of a young, beautiful life.
A petition presented to Parliament already has more than 109,000 signatures. I’ve signed it. I urge you to do the same.
FOR anyone who was always late with their homework, take a leaf out of Maryette McFarland’s book.
This amazing woman finally received her English Lit degree, in Belfast, at the tender age of 90.
Maryette started her degree in the 1960s but, after taking an extended break for marriage and children, reconnected with her course through the Open University.
I didn’t go to uni, but 14 years ago I was one click away from enrolling for a degree in psychology with the OU but decided that, with young children and a career, I might struggle with the juggle of it all – and chickened out.
Maryette is an inspiration to me and I now have renewed impetus to make my educational dreams come true.