If Hilary Clinton were a Spinster I'd vote for her!

So it's been awhile since my last post, but I just found out today that I have readership! Exciting! So I thought I better get cranking out a few more posts, so my readers don't get bored and stop visiting my blog. I should probably say here that my posts aren't in any particular order and don't follow any agenda except to be an outlet for my thoughts on spinsterhood and anyone else's who would like to comment. I hope to shed light on the pros and cons of spinster life and look at how society views us and how we view ourselves. It's really a complicated topic, but I intend to look at it with some serious reflection, but also a good deal of humor. So dear readers please let me know how I'm doing and make comments. Thanks! Now on to the topic of the night. Famous Spinsters.

No doubt you know many unmarried woman. Everyone it seems has an aunt in their family who never married and did all of their genealogy work (really would any genealogy get done if it weren't for spinster aunts?) or were a part of some noble cause. I wish I knew their names and could tell their stories. Spinsters have always been in good company and some have become famous to history. Here is a very incomplete list of famous spinsters that I have complied (note some are fictional). If you find any more names please send them along.

Jane Austen (she heads the list because she is very well known for being a spinster and perhaps is a hero to single unmarried women everywhere)

Louisa May Alcott-writer of Little Women (she is probably my favorite spinster)

Emily Dickinson-poet

Emily and Anne Bronte-Emily wrote Wuthering Heights, they were sisters to Charlotte Bronte

Harper Lee-wrote To Kill A Mockingbird

Beatrix Potter (until the age of 47)

(It looks to me that spinsters make great authors.)

Miss Havisham from Great Expectations (spinsterhood gone very wrong)

Elizabeth I-ruler of England, daughter of Henry VIII.

Florence Nightengale and Clara Barton -both famous nurses

Susan B. Anthony-Women's rights advocate

Helen Keller

Joan of Arc

Mother Theresa- obviously she was a nun.

Mary Cassatt-artist

Janet Reno

Condoleeza Rice

Also some actresses of note: Sarah Bernhardt-early actress of the stage; Diane Keaton; Jodie Foster; Oprah Winfrey

And what of famous LDS single women? Well no list would be complete without Sheri Dew- the role model for all single LDS women everywhere. Also, Barbara Thompson is unmarried at the age of 55 and is the new 2nd counselor in the General RS presidency. Then we have Ann Osborn Poelman, a prominent cardiologist, who was a spinster for a long time before marrying Ronald Poelman, an emeritis general authority. She wrote a book about her story titled, The Simeon Solution, a very good read. And I've mentioned before Wendy Watson, a professor at BYU, who was single until her 50's when she married Elder Nelson. (Jenn do you know her?)

This famous spinsters list is quite interesting. Although all of the women found in the list were unmarried, they were not all the same. Some had torrid love affairs, some harbored unrequited love for unattainable men and some were quiet spinsters. But all in all they were strong women, who tried to make a difference with whatever talents they had been given. We are not alone.

for a more complete list of famous spinsters visit the following sites:

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=320630

http://spinsterchronicles.wordpress.com/info/fame/

Spinster Entertainment

There is nothing I love more than a movie or tv show about a spinster making good. Usually this involves snagging a guy, but that isn't the be all end all. Sometimes in the really good shows the spinster comes into her own and becomes her best self-- more confident and sure of herself, more successful, etc. The guy is really just icing on the cake. Take for instance the recent movie Miss Potter. Without wearing a smidge of makeup Beatrix Potter (Renee Zellwegger) becomes a children's book mogul, stands up to her parents, charms Mr. Ware (Ewan McGregor), buys her own farm and in the process becomes a conservationist. All I can say is GO BEATRIX!
My other favorite shows about Singletons making good:

Bridget Jones Diary I and II; My Big Fat Greek Wedding; Persuasion and The Nanny.
Also entertaining to me is any movie based on something written by a spinster: This includes anything by Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte or Louisa May Alcott.

Does anyone else have any favorites out there?

Spinster Sisterhood

As it turns out there are many self-proclaimed spinsters out there online. When I googled Spinster Blog I got 366,000 hits. Of course I didn't look at every hit, but here are some of the spinster blog titles I found interesting:

The Spinster Chronicles, Spinsterella, Urban Spinster, The Spinster Sister, Diary of a Mad Spinster, Spinster War Diaries, A Spinster for Life, Celibate in the City: My Spinster Prize, Spinster with Cats, Stories of a Silly Spinster, FrankenGirl: Who's afraid of a Spinster, The Spinster Girl's Guide to Love, Latter Day Spinster, and many others!

Some are by LDS women, some aren't. I haven't gotten around to reading many of them yet, but you will for sure get my views on them as soon as I do.

So why are we so ready to calls ourselves spinsters? I was starting to call myself spinster at 23! Did that become some sort of self-fulfilling prophecy? I don't know. Maybe we want to call ourselves spinster before anyone else has a chance to. Maybe we have resolved to stay single, so spinster just sounds appropo. Whatever the reason the word spinster doesn't have to be a bad word, actually it sounds kind of hip when you strip all past connotations from it. So lets do just that, let go of the past and embrace the future as single swingin' SPINSTERS!

So what is a spinster really?

I found the following synonyms for spinster on Thesaurus.com: miss, old maid, unmarried, virgin, woman.

I think virgin is my personal favorite. But even better are the synonyms for the above terms:

Old maid:-bachelor girl, fuddy-duddy, lone woman (like the lone ranger?), maiden, prig, prude (I guess we didn’t want to get married because marriage is just too naughty), single woman, spinster, unmarried woman

Unmarried (just the ones that relate to women):celibate, chaste, cherry, eligible, fancy-free, footloose, husbandless, maiden, old maid, single, sole, spinster, spouseless, unattached, uncoupled, unhitched, unwed, unwedded, virgin, virginal, widowed

Miss:damsel, female, gal, lass, lassie, maid, maiden, missy, schoolgirl, spinster, virgin, young lady, wench (oh, it just meant girl?),

What about Bachelorette?

So the synonyms do throw a light on how society views spinsters, they are prudish, virgins that are all alone. Interesting. I think the only definition that everyone could agree on though is that a spinster is an unmarried woman. But herein lies the question that all spinsters agonize over. Is a spinster someone who just happens not to be married or someone who is not marriable?

Sometimes it feels like that latter is true, but really can a spinster be stereotyped into a certain kind of person? Do they look or act a certain way? It can't be that all mousy girls with glasses and frumpy clothes are spinsters or that they are all pudgy and socially awkward. If those stereotypes were ever true, they definitely aren't true any longer. I know many gorgeous, confidant spinsters and actually very few demure, awkward ones.

Of course all women are nubile at any age in life. They may be getting married for the first time or for the tenth time at any age. And I'm not kidding about the tenth time, my mom's friend has been married at least that many times (is she going for a world's record?). Anyway just think of Wendy Watson who married Elder Russel M. Nelson recently. That was her first marriage at like the age of 50. But even though she was a spinster for a long time, it didn't stop her from becoming a marriage counselor. Well more later on famous spinsters, LDS and not, but I think the conclusion here is that a spinster cannot really be stereotyped. There may be a myriad of reasons for not being married, but I don't think any of them includes wearing glasses.

This blog is by an LDS spinster for LDS spinsters. How would I define spinster? Well in society at large it's any woman say 40 or over that isn't married. In the LDS world it's much much younger than that. Anything over 25 feels spinsterish, but once you hit 31 and you haven't mangaged to enter marital bliss, well sorry, but you've reached your expiration date. They kick you out of the single's ward. because obviously the system has failed you. and you're put out to pasture. Not that giving up the singles ward scene is some great loss, but the message is loud and clear-it's too late for you. Ouch!
So in preparation for that event I got on the internet and started googling for some kind of support group for unmarried LDS women over a certain age. I couldn't find anything!
I know there are quite a few women out there in my same situation. I know more than a few of them myself. Great gals-- beautiful, intelligent gals, somehow marriage had eluded them, either by choice or happenstance or cosmic forces, who knows. But they are out there and they need to have a voice. So lack of a better option I have stepped in as that voice.
Now I don't know who is going to read this blog and how exactly they will find it. But I know it will serve as an outlet for me and maybe we can rally the troops and stop being a silent minority.