You Talkin' To ME?

The other day I heard a piece on NPR's Marketplace about advertising. It started with the unsurprising news that when marketers want to appeal to women, they include images of motherhood and happy couples. The only commercials that regularly feature single women are for cat food. Ouch.

I've often wondered about how or what to write about the phenomenon of being a single woman in my mid-30's. As I read other blogs in which people share the joys and challenges of being married with children, I find myself without the words to use to write about the reality of being single. I think that is in large part because we, as a society, are still struggling to understand what being single really means. Even with 44% of all woman over age 18 being single, I think we still view being single as an abnormal variance from the expected norm, rather than a valid mode of adult existence. I think this is especially true for women.

Some advertisers, it seems, are finally learning to expand their understanding of the single female. The NPR piece talked about a Lowe's commercial that features a 30-something single woman thrilled at owning her own home and excited to redo the bathroom. I know that feeling. A recent Chrysler commercial shows a woman being picked up by her friend from a miserable date ("He said he was a professional student...of life.") I liked that commercial the first time I saw it; I laughed out loud and knew exactly how the woman was feeling. And now I know I liked it because they were talking to me.

I certainly do not define my worth by whether or not I am an advertiser's target market, but the ads follow the tides of the culture. Hopefully this is a sign that the culture is starting to re-examine its understanding of "single." I must confess that I still do not understand it entirely myself, but I hope that as our definition and understanding of being single expands, we will find new ways of talking about the experience, so that we can all better understand one another and ourselves.