I value psychological studies and strategies that not only offer insights and understanding, but also tip the scales toward social justice. I’m particularly interested in justice for single people, who are systematically disadvantaged in laws, policies, the workplace, the marketplace, the health care system, and just about every other major domain of life.
In pursuit of this goal of psychologically informed advocacy, I have conducted research documenting ways in which single people are stereotyped and stigmatized. My colleagues and I have found evidence for housing discrimination against single people. That seemed like an important first step – showing that singlism (the stereotyping, stigmatizing, and marginalizing of single people, and discrimination against them) really does happen.
I’ve written about psychological research on ways to achieve social justice and what motivates people to be allies to disadvantaged groups. I’ve studied political science research on the psychological underpinnings of voting patterns. I’ve examined writings by legal scholars on the factors likely to improve the odds that anti-discrimination policies will be adopted.
I’ve also engaged in direct advocacy. For example, many years ago, when Unmarried Equality was called the American Association for Single People, the executive director organized several trips to Washington DC in which he and other members visited the offices of congressional leaders.
I never dared to dream of something more than incremental progress in raising awareness and inspiring support for single people, at least in the short term. I suppose if I were to script a fantasy:
- Every major television network and every major publication would be talking about the issue of fairness to single people.
- Reported stories, opinion pieces and blog posts would proliferate.
- Countless people would be inspired to generate creative and witty memes about the awesomeness of single people and the depravity of people who demean single people, and those memes would go viral.
- Some of the biggest celebrities on the planet, such as Taylor Swift and Oprah Winfrey, would make their supportive opinions known.
- Political candidates would be challenged on their stances toward single people.
- People who conduct focus groups with prospective voters would report that the theme of fairness to single people had broken though. Their participants report that they’ve heard these cultural conversations and they care about them.
- Unwavering support for single people would be declared not just by single people, but also by people of every marital or relationship status.
- Huge numbers of people would flaunt their support by wearing t-shirts and buttons and jewelry proclaiming their love of single people, and displaying posters, yard signs, mugs, candles, and more.
Something like this really did happen, in a way I had never anticipated. In the midst of a super-charged U.S. presidential campaign, Republican Vice-Presidential candidate J. D. Vance made some snide comments about “childless cat ladies” (saying, for example, that they “are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made, and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too”) and all hell broke loose. Historians and political scientists will be writing about this for generations.
Of course, “childless cat ladies” and single people are not exactly the same. Single people include men as well as women and people who identify in some other way. They include people who do and do not have cats. “Childless cat ladies” can include women who are married or romantically coupled. But really, the caricatures of cat ladies are typically single women surrounded by cats. I think all this enthusiastic embrace of childless cat ladies can also be seen as an embrace of people who are single.
I don’t know if any of this will translate into votes or more enlightened laws or policies. But it sure has been a fascinating time.
[Notes: (1) The last chapter of Single at Heart, “The Resistance,” describes (2) The opinions expressed here do not represent the official positions of Unmarried Equality. (3) I’ll post all these blog posts at the UE Facebook page; please join our discussions there. (4) Disclosure: Links to books may include affiliate links. (5) For links to previous columns, click here.]
About Bella DePaulo
