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.