The first episode of the Beaut.ie podcast - Up Beors! focuses on the stigma of being single.
Approaching your thirties can be daunting for many women, and it seems this approach to middle age can be made even more daunting by your relationship status or lack thereof. In Ireland, we seem to have a stigma attached to being single, especially when it comes to women in their 20’s and 30’s.
In the first episode of Up Beors!, I recruited two fabulous single ladies Shauna Lindsay and Catherine Carton to explore this single stigma and find out why it exists.
Our conversation was full of eye-opening chats, which ranged from creepy DM messages to learning of how up until 1973, married women had to leave full-time employment in the civil service.
The older generation, in particular, can project this stigma onto us, mainly because they grew up in a world where women did settle and get married a lot younger. However, we see women these days waiting much longer to start families and get married and are more focused on their own lives - finding joy in their careers, friends and travelling amongst other things.
However, sadly our society is still very much couple-orientated. Our mid 20’s and 30’s are filled with events where we spend so much time and money celebrating other couples, and it’s usually against the grain to not have another half at this stage in life. While bachelorhood is something to usually be celebrated amongst men, it’s normally commiserated when it comes to women, which is something that needs to change.
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One of the main things I took away from the podcast was the importance of just ‘doing you’. No matter whether you are in a relationship or single, the most important thing is that you can’t rely on anyone else to make you happy. Just because your Auntie Mary thinks ‘it’s mad’ you don’t have a fella, doesn’t mean that you need someone and that you can’t have a fulfilling and joyful life going solo.
Unfortunately, the stigma surrounding being single will always exist, so it is up to ourselves to do the internal work where we don’t let Auntie Mary’s negative comments get under our skin.
If you like this episode, don’t forget to subscribe and leave a rating and review. If you have any feedback or suggestions, I would love to hear from you! You can email me on [email protected] or tweet me.
Up Beors! is available now on all podcast platforms.
