32% of single women between 45 and 65 say they feel great alone. It is the result of research by the London-based market analysis agency Mintel. The same research shows that 61% of single women are satisfied with their status and that 75% of single women have not gone to great lengths to seek a relationship in the last year (compared to 65% of single men) focusing instead on work. Satisfied with their sentimental situation, they prefer to devote themselves to their passions rather than having a stable relationship. A particularly strong trend in those over 45: 32% of single women between 45 and 65 said they were very happy alone, a percentage that dramatically decreases for men: only 19% of men belonging the same age group responded the same way.
According to the systemic-relational psychotherapist Elisabetta Todaro, interviewed in Donna di Repubblica, it is a recent phenomenon that of considering oneself and being considered happily single that goes hand in hand with that of female assertiveness. Women are increasingly having the opportunity to assert themselves both at work and emotional level. Surely this is the result of a socio-cultural change that began for years and women who find themselves in culturally stimulating contexts are most influenced by it. These women develop their emancipatory abilities more and detach themselves from the female stereotype that the woman would like to be more linked to the domestic-family context. The difference, compared to not too long ago, is that these women have the opportunity to make a choice and distance themselves from the stereotype.
In the past, the woman saw in the realization of a family project and in the fact of accompanying a partner the possibility of social recognition. On the contrary, the woman who did not marry was defined as a “spinster” and was given a different value. Today, if a woman decides to accompany a partner (man or woman), she does so to have experiences, to share a part of life and their respective passions with this person. Today the presence of a partner is no longer linked to a need, but to a choice.
A choice that becomes more and more considered in the course of life.
Therapist David Schnarch says true sexual pleasure begins at age 50. This is because at that age no one torments you anymore about having children, you did not worry about how to get a home loan, the working life is almost started (even if today the living conditions are more precarious). At this age, one thinks of oneself in a positive light, one is less stressed by a series of life fulfilments. So probably women in that age group, knowing each other more, invest time on themselves: from tango lessons to writing poetry, from aperitifs to keeping fit. All activities that reward them.
And the men?
Often it is the companions who stimulate men to take care of themselves outside of work, to go out, to have interests, to grow culturally. During their lives, men are most likely to find gratification in working life and are the ones who suffer the most from retirement.
A mature woman is a woman who can digest not adhering to a social expectation. Probably the challenge that society should take up is to give space to these additional forms of choice, to recognize and value the status of single. If society took into consideration the fact that being single is not a temporary situation but can be a choice, perhaps things would be better. Those who choose not to adhere to the appropriate models, and this also applies to men, if they do not have great economic resources, they are “forced” to take counter-evolutionary steps, perhaps living at 40 with roommates (although in this case it may also be life choice) or living at home with their parents.