Why Are We Scared Of Single Women?

Where did the idea of the bunny boiler come from? In this episode we're exploring how single women got such a bad rap in popular culture. From Miss Havisham to Bridget Jones, Caroline Young joins Kate once again. Caroline is the author of 'Single and Psycho: How Pop Culture Created the Unstable Single Woman'. This episode was edited by Tom Delargy and produced by Sophie Gee. The senior producer was Charlotte Long. Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener surveyhere https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/6FFT7MK. All music from Epidemic Sounds. Betwixt the Sheets: History of Sex, Scandal & Society is a History Hit podcast. Voting is now open for the Listener's Choice Award at this year's Podcast Awards! UK & Ireland listeners please place your vote on the Spotify mobile app here: https://open.spotify.com/s/xhg6PJa Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Kate Lister?

  Do you want even more shocking and scandalous history? Like why the ancient Greek statues had such small manhoods? Or what went on behind closed doors in the Georgian era? Well, sign up to History Hit, where you can see me discover the scandalous side of history, as well as hundreds of hours of original documentaries, plus new releases every week, covering everything from prehistoric Scotland to the Treaty of Versailles. Sign up to join me in locations around the world and explore the past. Just visit historyhit.com/subscribe.

• 0:37Speaker 01

  In Our Time is a world-class seminar every week. Why was Jeremy a lonely snail? What were lines doing in York in the third century? I'm Misha Glennie, and every week I'm joined by expert guests to explore the ideas that shape our world.

• 0:53Speaker 02

  It's one of the first times, really, that you consistently see someone painting teeth. I know that sounds bonkers.

• 0:57Speaker 03

  If I was going to define mathematics, I would say it's the study of structure.

• 1:01Speaker 01

  In Our Time, listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Tea or coffee? Love a cup of tea.

• 1:11Kate Lister?

  Hello, my lovely betwixters. It's me, Kate Lister. You are listening to Betwixter Sheets, and we do like to get a bit mucky around here. So if you're a newbie, this one's for you. This is an adult podcast, spoken by adults to other adults about adulty things and an adulty way, covering a range of adult subjects, and you should be an adult too. Right, fair dues, we have warned you. On with the show.

• 1:33Kate Lister?

  As a single woman, I have to say I do thoroughly enjoy myself. Honestly, it's great. But growing up, I didn't have any role models around me to tell me that. When you think about the TV shows and the films of the 80s and 90s, and even into the 2000s, you'd be forgiven for thinking single women were all, what was it Bridget Jones said, covered in scales? Whether we were watching Friends, or Sex and the City, or Single White Female, or even Miss Havisham running around her house going completely back crap crazy, the message was everywhere. Being single as a woman is a very, very bad thing. But here's the secret, it's not, you know, it's absolutely fricking amazing.

• 2:18Kate Lister?

  In today's episode, we are going to be looking at the history of the single woman in film and trying to unpick where that message comes from.

• 2:29Speaker 04

  What do you look for in a man?

• 2:31Speaker 05

  Oh, money, of course.

• 2:32Speaker 04

  You're supposed to rise when an adult speaks to you.

• 2:34Speaker 05

  I make perfect copies of whatever my boss needs by just turning a knob and pushing it.

• 2:47Speaker 04

  Yes, social courtesy does make a difference.

• 2:49Speaker 06

  Goodness, I feel for them. Goodness has nothing to do with it, dearie.

• 2:58Kate Lister?

  Hello and welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets, the history of sex scandal in society with me, Kate Lister. There have been lots of studies on single people, but one in 2008 found that single people are often called immature, insecure, self-centred, unhappy, lonely and ugly. Well, that's brutal and I certainly didn't participate in that. Those kind of results are not all that uncommon. I'm hoping that attitudes are starting to change, but it's been a rough old ride. The media is forever perpetuating the idea that nobody would ever want to be single. That's the worst thing that you can be. And when we look at the way single women have been portrayed throughout history, well, they're either frigid or high maintenance or completely mental. They're the cat ladies, they're the bunny boilers.

• 3:43Kate Lister?

  Basically, we get a bad rap when all we want to do is be at home with our snacks doing a jigsaw. Today, Caroline Young is back on the show to talk to us about her new book, Single and Psycho: How Pop Culture Created the Unstable Single Woman. And frankly, I can't wait to find out more. Let's do it.

• 4:04Kate Lister?

  Well, hello and welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets. It's only Caroline Young. How are you doing?

• 4:11Speaker 02

  I'm great, thank you. Yeah, it's great to be back on the podcast.

• 4:14Kate Lister?

  Oh, I had so much fun talking to you last time about hags. That was brilliant. And you are back with another book.

• 4:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, slightly similar, but maybe slightly younger hags, I guess. That's the kind of idea.

• 4:27Kate Lister?

  This is one rather close to my heart, it has to be said. Single and Psycho: How Pop Culture Created the Unstable Single Woman. Hmm, Caroline, now what provoked you to write this book?

• 4:39Speaker 02

  I was going through a bit of a crisis. I was in my 40s. I really wanted to have a child, but I felt like I'd made so many mistakes.

• 4:47Speaker 04

  My past, like I'd just been in rubbish relationships. I really felt like I'd messed everything up. And I actually found comfort in horror movies and watching psychotic women on on screen. Fatal Attraction, The Hand That Rots The Cradle. I really found it quite cathartic. And I just got this idea to write a book and explore, explore those films, talk a bit about myself as well and how I relate to them. So yeah, the idea was kind of born from that.

• 5:14Kate Lister?

  So it's exploring the idea of singleness, but in particular, single women and how the image of the single woman has been negotiated in popular culture, but not just popular culture, in sort of like legal precedents and cultural frameworks. And I mean, it's a big topic, this one.

• 5:33Speaker 04

  Absolutely. Yeah. So I generally focused on film and television, but I also dipped into history, some sort of social aspects, literature. So yeah, I kind of touched on lots of different strands because yeah, it's a big, big topic. It's basically how the single woman, if she's single, if she's childless by a certain age, she's traditionally been treated as psychotic or as unstable, as frigid. Basically, she's got a whole lot wrong with her if she's got to a certain point in life, not having gotten married or having had children. And it's sort of ingrained in our culture.

• 6:05Kate Lister?

  You're really honest in the book when it comes to disclosing your own experiences and your own background. And it was really nice to see an academic textbook with a lot of this is what I'm bringing to it. Did you feel at all vulnerable around that because I am a single woman and we are not done with the stigma of single women yet?

• 6:27Speaker 04

  Yeah, it was kind of difficult. I don't think I meant to reveal quite so much. It just came out. Some of the feedback I got when I submitted my first draft was they thought I should bring in a bit more about myself. So I was like, okay, fine. So I added in a lot more and I think it adds to it, but it's scary because like when I'm talking about things, I do sound like a train wreck. And I realised that things sound quite messy in a way.

• 6:48Kate Lister?

  I don't think you sound like a train wreck. I think it was really funny in places. Actually, I really enjoyed it.

• 6:54Speaker 04

  Oh, thank you. Yeah. I mean, I think even going back to when I was Uni, when I think about it now, all my friends, they all had long term boyfriends, like even when I was like nineteen, twenty, like they were going out with these guys for like for several years. I felt like I needed to have a boyfriend too.

• 7:09Kate Lister?

  Oh, that pressure.

• 7:10Speaker 04

  Yeah, it really was. And it was crazy because I was like nineteen, you know, and or twenty, and I felt this pressure, like I couldn't be the single one because I didn't have a group of single friends. So I think from that point, it was kind of ingrained in me, this idea that, you know, you have to be coupled up. It's a bit odd not to be in a relationship. I wish I'd had like more of a sort of positive sense that it's okay, actually, and I should have just enjoyed myself.

• 7:32Kate Lister?

  But where on earth were you gonna get that from? Like when you came of age in the nineties and the noughties, like you go back and you watch, I mean, I'm not saying that, you know, our entire culture and world outlook was shaped by Friends and Sex and the City. But if you look at those shows, like the attitude towards singleness is appalling, like the attitude in both of those shows, you've got a very, very strong friendship group who all look out for each other and agree. But the attitude to partners is just find anyone, literally anybody. I mean, they're saying to each other, do you know anyone at work? Do you know anybody just you could fix me up with? It's literally just anyone is better than nobody.

• 8:05Speaker 04

  Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. When you watch Friends, you've got Monica always on her quest, you know, to find somebody. The first episode was quite interesting. I don't know if people maybe don't remember what was in the first episode, but she goes on a date with someone from work and she sleeps with him on the first date. And some of the feedback from the network was, you know, that that made her look quite slutty because, you know, you shouldn't, women shouldn't sleep with a guy on the first date. But the whole thing was he lied to her and pretended he was like heartbroken over his ex-wife. And so it was that double standard in Friends. And yeah, Sex and the City, Always on the Quest, you know, having to be a certain way, do your singleness in a certain way. Bridget Jones, I guess, kind of.

• 8:43Kate Lister?

  God, Bridget, oh.

• 8:44Speaker 04

  To me, that's fine because she's so sort of accident prone and it's like, I kind of see myself in her as well, you know, because I think she just reflects all those worries that I had, you know, about being fat. When I look back, clearly I wasn't fat and, you know, all these things that she was kind of thinking. So, yeah, so it was there in my life in the late nineties and the two thousands.

• 9:04Kate Lister?

  God, terrifying, isn't it? And when I think about. About the status of single people, not just single women, but in particular, single women. I think that we are actually at a very new point in our history because this is one of the first points where women can earn their own money and support themselves. Like, we've kind of moved out of this financial obligation to pair up that was there only a few generations ago. So this really is some of the first groups of women en masse who can go, actually, no, you're all right. I'm not very interested in that.

• 9:35Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think there is that sort of sense of freedom. It's so expensive having children. So I think, you know, back in the 50s or whatever, women were just expected to give up a job. They wouldn't work, they'd stay at home. Now it's like, women have to have a job plus raise children. I think it's put so much pressure on either option, really.

• 9:50Kate Lister?

  It does, doesn't it?

• 9:51Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 9:51Kate Lister?

  Well, let's talk history because I've already jumped ahead and want to talk about everything that's happening now. Like, what are some of the examples throughout history? Has there ever been a point where it's like, yay, single women are great?

• 10:02Speaker 04

  Hmm. I think it's always been slightly mixed. Mixed messages, really. I mean, I suppose you could argue, yes, there were times when, I suppose in the 1920s, you know, you had kind of the flappers living it up. There was a shortage of men, basically, because they'd been killed off in the First World War. And there was this sense of kind of hedonism and living for the moment. But at the same time, there was also a pushback against that. So there was that kind of undercurrent of, you know, there's something wrong with women. Freudian theory was coming into place. So it was this idea of like diagnosing single women. So it was, the idea of celibacy was kind of seen as sort of something wrong with it. So the idea of being single was tied in with being celibate. And because it was always, you know, you'd have sex in marriage. That was kind of what the message was pushed. So,

• 10:47Speaker 04

  yeah, it's by the 1930s, there was a real kind of pushback on conservative values and family values. So, yeah, I think there's always a kind of ebb and flow, really. And particularly in times of male, when there's a man shortage as well, there's this interesting idea of what to do with surplus women. So it was this idea that, oh no, there's too many women, spare women. In the 19th century, one of the ideas was to kind of ship them off to to Australia, you know, to send them off.

• 11:11Kate Lister?

  That doesn't sound too bad.

• 11:12Speaker 04

  I mean, it doesn't really.

• 11:16Speaker 04

  But yeah, it was like, how do we get rid of them? So.

• 11:19Kate Lister?

  It's probably not what I'm imagining though, is it? It's probably not like.

• 11:22Speaker 04

  No, not maybe.

• 11:23Kate Lister?

  Lying out on Bondi Beach, enjoying yourself.

• 11:25Speaker 04

  I think, yeah, I think maybe it wasn't quite as pleasant.

• 11:29Kate Lister?

  No, you can see the stigma around it, kind of all throughout history. I guess you get like pockets of where women are single, like, I'm thinking like nunnery's and things like that, where women get together and go, right, men can fuck off. We've got a herb garden. Stay away. That's us. Done.

• 11:47Speaker 04

  Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, there were those little pockets of women, kind of, yeah, particularly within sort of religious communities as well. And there was sort of an unofficial group of women. So in the 19th century, American women who were excelling in literature, in campaigning for women's rights, they called themselves the cult of single blessedness. And it was kind of this unofficial group.

• 12:06Kate Lister?

  Oh, I like that.

• 12:08Speaker 04

  Yeah, or like, you know, nursing, medicine, all these kinds of things that women weren't supposed to be sort of excelling at. They they chose to do that. A lot of women writers rejected this idea of marrying because they felt that it would impede on their time to write, which, you know, is obviously.

• 12:22Kate Lister?

  Which you would have done.

• 12:23Speaker 04

  Yeah, like Jane Austen and the Brontes, Charlotte Bronte didn't really want to get married. She did. But then tragically, she, when she was pregnant, she died.

• 12:30Kate Lister?

  I know, she was so young.

• 12:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 12:32Kate Lister?

  Wasn't she? But all of their books are about not being single.

• 12:37Speaker 04

  They know the audience, I guess.

• 12:38Kate Lister?

  Like, damn it. Where does the word spinster come from, by the way? Because that's sort of a comedic word now. I'm not sure if anyone would actually deploy it in all seriousness.

• 12:48Speaker 04

  No, I know. I like, I like to use the word spinster just to kind of.

• 12:51Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 12:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, just to throw it in there.

• 12:53Kate Lister?

  Ironically.

• 12:55Speaker 04

  So spinsters are sort of a medieval term, basically to spin. So, single women were often employed with spinning. So, yeah. This idea of spinning. So it would be a task for everyday women as well, just sort of spinning threads. And during the crusade, again, this surplus of women, because men had gone off to fight. And there were crusades, so there was a lot more single women. So there's an interesting fact in Philippa Gregory's book, it's all about the history of women or the history of order. Woman, I can't remember what it was called, but she mentioned how with the sort of spinning wheel, a change in technology meant the spinning wheel had to go into the home. So it meant these single women were kind of hidden in the home, whereas they used to kind of just walk around spinning yarn and a handheld device.

• 13:40Speaker 04

  They'd be much more sociable and then they'd go indoors. And so it was kind of keeping them out of sight, which I thought was really interesting.

• 13:47Kate Lister?

  That isn't it.

• 13:48Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 13:49Kate Lister?

  I read a book recently about early modern Germany, as you do, and I was struck by this one word that I'm now going to massacre. It was like eigenbrutlerin and it basically meant women who weren't their own bread. And these were women who sewed, again, like the spinsters. And there was such a threat that like local districts passed laws against them, that they weren't allowed to do it anymore.

• 14:10Speaker 04

  Oh, wow. Yeah.

• 14:11Kate Lister?

  Yeah, isn't that crazy? I'd never ever heard of that before, but you sort of get a sense of the threat of it. Do you think that a spinster contains that same level of threat?

• 14:23Speaker 04

  I think it does because I think it's this idea of there has to be something wrong with a woman who's still single, like why is she not married? Either she's been rejected, so she's unwanted, or she's frigid. So also that was kind of frowned upon by the Protestant Church as well. So this idea of like staying, by being celibate, it meant you weren't married, as I, you know, mentioned. And so, yeah, there was kind of various expressions around that, like the idea of the old maid was kind of like all kind of, you know, haggard and unwanted. But yeah, so I think spinster kind of, even though it is a practical word, then it kind of was used just to kind of describe a single woman. Then it took on those negative connotations of being unwanted.

• 15:00Kate Lister?

  When does she start becoming psycho? Because that's quite an important feature of your book, they're single and psycho. When does the sort of the mental instability start to emerge?

• 15:12Speaker 04

  Well, I think it kind of an undercurrent, I suppose, with, I guess, this idea of the witch and, you know, that kind of. The woman who's sort of outside of the norm, she's single, she's.

• 15:23Kate Lister?

  In her house.

• 15:24Speaker 04

  In her house, there's something a bit odd about her, a bit scary, a bit freakish. So I think that's always kind of there under the surface. And then I guess it's like, you know, in the 1920s, the sort of Freudian theory. And then when you're looking at movies. There's kind of like this sort of idea of the psycho girlfriend kind of coming into play, but that term wasn't really used, but it was just kind of seemed to be a bit easy as well. And then that was kind of maybe that link between sort of unstable, maybe drinking too much, or having these kind of psychotic disorders that would make her nymphomaniac. So those were all kind of like tied, it's like in particularly after the war as well, after the Second World War, when men were coming home from the war and they felt threatened by independent women. So yeah, this idea that, you know, what's

• 16:08Speaker 04

  she been up to when we were away? And sort of the idea of being too promiscuous.

• 16:12Kate Lister?

  Sneaky women.

• 16:13Speaker 04

  Drinking too much. Yes, exactly. Then you see the unstable characters coming in in film noir.

• 16:19Kate Lister?

  God, I mean, I suppose like sort of early forerunners of that might be, I mean, you do see isolated examples of single women who aren't doing very well, like Miss Havisham, for example, in Charles Dickens' Great Expectations. She didn't handle her singledom very well, did she?

• 16:34Speaker 04

  She didn't, no. She took it to heart a lot, didn't she? So she's described as a witch, you know, she's got her white hair, she's in the white dress.

• 16:41Kate Lister?

  The witch again.

• 16:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, she's all skin and bones. She's like, his description of her is like, she's wearing her wedding dress that she once filled, but she's now shrunk. The dress is kind of baggy on her. And so that idea of locking herself away, dwelling on the past.

• 16:55Kate Lister?

  Driven mad.

• 16:56Speaker 04

  Yes. This is all the stuff that was in the Aggie horror movies that we talked about before.

• 17:00Kate Lister?

  It is, isn't it? I suppose there's some like Miss Havisham, we get this, like, she's not singled by choice, but when do we start to get that, like, oh, I'm singled by choice? Or has there long been a sort of a tinge of, yeah, but it wasn't your choice?

• 17:12Speaker 04

  Exactly. Yeah. I think, yeah, this idea of being singled by choice, often the woman is kind of chasing after the man and he has to reject her. So, yeah, the idea of singled by choice, yeah, the kind of frumpy spinster who's sort of given up on life, I think you like Betty Davis in Nye Voyager, but she has this kind of awakening when she meets the right man.

• 17:31Kate Lister?

  Of course.

• 17:32Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 17:32Kate Lister?

  Of course.

• 17:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 17:34Kate Lister?

  Because they don't often in films and books, they don't, the single woman doesn't often realise that she's fine by herself and she's going to do some self-care and perhaps try a bit of therapy and she'll be fine. That doesn't happen. Some prince turns. Ends up at the last minute to save her from herself.

• 17:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, all those films of the spinster in the nineteen forties, that was kind of, I mean, I love those movies, but yeah, it's this is really, really interesting just to kind of see that evolution.

• 17:59Kate Lister?

  What about after the Second World War, I'm thinking like the fifties and my girl Marilyn and that kind of era, how is singleness negotiated at this point in Hollywood? I mean, obviously it can be singles bad, but like, what do you see changing?

• 18:13Speaker 04

  Marilyn, actually, her career is kind of interesting because she started off playing, she actually, she did a whole mix of roles. She's most known for doing her kind of ditzy blonde, where ultimately, you know, the goal is marriage and she'll kind of, she will get that. And then she played these kind of more complicated women later on, you know, they're really unlucky in love, she's kind of heartbroken, she's been around the block a bit, there's the hint, you know, that she's kind of had a bit of a past with men, like a sugarcane in some like a hot and bust up.

• 18:40Kate Lister?

  The fuzzy end of the lollipop.

• 18:42Speaker 04

  Exactly, yeah, she's worn, but we hope that she has a happy ending in these, so. In the nineteen fifties, there was a real push to get women back into the home and they were sold that message that marriage was basically what their destiny was, um, you know, they had all their home appliances they could play with. They should be happy just looking after their children.

• 19:01Kate Lister?

  You don't need a career, you have a washing machine.

• 19:03Speaker 04

  You don't need, exactly, and that's what Betty Friedan's the feminine mystique came from. Because she realised that there was this entire generation of miserable women who were self-medicating, who were harming themselves, who were just deeply unhappy and not fulfilled creatively as well because they were told that, yeah, their washing machines should give them all that they need, they don't need anything that's more fulfilling to them.

• 19:25Kate Lister?

  And obviously, if people find fulfillment in that, then the best luck to you, but it's the idea that this was all that there was. It's like, isn't that one of her lines, is this it? Is this all there is? Or something, that was a Betty Friedan idea, wasn't it? And my grandma was off her face on Valium, she was one of those women that was just like, Jesus Christ, just stuck at home all the time, cleaning stuff, I mean, it's not a good place, but you can see why they went a little bit off the rails. Some of the women that you speak about very eloquently in the book, speaking of going off rails, Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction, what was her name, Alex?

• 20:01Speaker 04

  Alex Forrest.

• 20:02Kate Lister?

  Thank you, yes, Alex Forrest. Now, why did she focus in your attention? Because it wouldn't have immediately occurred to me that she was single, because the whole thing is about how she got laid and then she got dumped. I don't know why I don't think of that as single.

• 20:15Speaker 04

  Well, I mean, so that was basically when I watched that film, that was kind of like the instigator for the book. I kind of based, the book kind of fell into place when I watched that film again. What she did in that film led to a whole concept, the bunny boiler, that came from Fatal Attraction. Interestingly, I was talking to like a guy, I think he was about thirty, he had never heard of Fatal Attraction, but he knew Bunny Boiler, which I thought was so interesting that it's just kind of taken on a life of its own, really. But yeah, so Alex Forrest, even her surname, Forrest, you know, very witchy, think of Sabbath and, and the idea of, you know, boiling the bunny, the cauldron. So yeah, she's the witch and she has to be put down by the other woman, the good woman, the good wife.

• 20:58Kate Lister?

  Yeah, the good family wife, the one that stays at home, yeah.

• 21:02Speaker 04

  Exactly, yes. And who is, you know, happy with caring and nurturing and forgiving. She forgives her husband for, for cheating on her. Whereas Alex, you know, is the one has to be punished. And she was pregnant in the film and people forget about that as well.

• 21:16Kate Lister?

  Yes. That is definitely overdue for a revision of like the story from Alex's point of view, because she wasn't the one who was married.

• 21:25Speaker 04

  Well, she did know that he was married, so she didn't, yeah, he didn't, he didn't lie to her about that. But I think she just is fed up. She's just like, you know, I've had it, you just kind of use me for one moment and then cast me aside and expect me to be cool about it. And.

• 21:39Kate Lister?

  I did remember, because there's that bit in the film where she's become so unstable, she's now resorted to recording herself ranting on a tape and giving it to Michael Douglas's character to play, because he won't talk to her. But there is one bit in it and she goes, and it's, I can't remember what she says, but it's along the lines of like, did you expect that you could just like shag me and then move on? And I do remember at the time thinking, good point, Alex, badly delivered, but good point. Is that what he thought he could do? Just have like a quick shag and then, and then he'd be able to go back home to his wife and his children and all would be well?

• 22:10Speaker 04

  Yes, exactly. I think that's exactly what he thought. And she's just had it. I guess she's been treated, you know, like that on other occasions. And I think she talks about how she had a bad miscarriage in the past. That kind of stuck in my head. Because you think, okay, she's had all this trauma in the past and all these things. And now she's pregnant and she's been told, you know, the guy just wants her to get rid of it and she doesn't want to. She says she's thirty six and it's her last chance in life. I think thirty six is a bit young.

• 22:36Kate Lister?

  Yeah, so do I. But it was the eighties, wasn't it? So let's face it.

• 22:39Speaker 04

  So I felt great sympathy for her. You sort of think, okay, maybe. Cool it a little bit, but I definitely feel some understanding.

• 22:47Kate Lister?

  You say in the book that you identify a lot with Alex. That struck me in the book. Why? Why do you feel that? What is it? It can't be the sneaking into someone's house and murdering their pets, or at least I hope it's not.

• 22:57Speaker 04

  It's definitely not that. No, it was more just that kind of disappointment and heartbreak. And I think just experience that kind of frustration, you know, of being ghosted. I'd been ghosted and I think I understood that is not nice and I understood how that that feels. So yeah, um, obviously I didn't do any stalking or anything like that. There is parts of you that you kind of want, you have this idea of taking revenge and.

• 23:21Kate Lister?

  That's so true, actually. We're now tapping into a very dark part of ourselves, but that is true.

• 23:27Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 23:28Kate Lister?

  There is a tiny part of you that's like, I kind of wish I could break into his house and burn his pets, fucking dickhead.

• 23:33Speaker 04

  Or yeah, do something like email his work, something like, but obviously not do that.

• 23:40Kate Lister?

  And don't do that, people listening, please.

• 23:42Speaker 04

  There is that kind of, you want to, but obviously the sensible part and the kind of moral side of you knows not to do that. So I could kind of understand.

• 23:51Kate Lister?

  Is it true that there was actually a different ending of that film originally filmed that got rejected by test audiences?

• 23:58Speaker 04

  Yes, yeah. So in the original ending, Alex killed herself, she stabbed herself. But when the audience watched that, they felt that Alex needed to be punished and she needed Dan or his wife to punish her. And so, yeah, they filmed another, another ending. Glenn Close was really like not wanting to do it. She felt it just kind of made the film, turned the film into a horror. But yeah, the studio insisted and yeah, it made so much money. It was just this. Yeah. And apparently in America, audiences were just like cheering, you know, all that kind of thing that they do. So, yeah.

• 24:35Kate Lister?

  So that image of the obsessive woman, because that's a sort of a slight shift in the narrative. Because it's not, if you're something like Jane Austen sort of earlier and was lavish and blah, blah. The idea of a single woman and it's like, oh, it's sad. Oh, it's so sad. She's, she's so sad. She's gone completely mad. And now she's sat at home being sad in an old wedding dress. This is a shift to like, oh, she's fucking mad now. That's quite scary. What other examples do you have that where it's like, it's like the rejection or it's like the sex? She's become predatory.

• 25:08Speaker 04

  Actually, interestingly, there is a film from the 1970s, which was directed by Clint Eastwood called Play Misty for Me. And that's very similar to Fatal Attraction.

• 25:16Kate Lister?

  Oh, really?

• 25:16Speaker 04

  And he was also, yeah, it's, it's, it's good. And he also directed a film called The Beguiled, which is about civil war school run by women. And they all live together without men and he's a soldier who they mend back to health. And they all fall in love with him, but they're also dangerous. And it's this idea of kind of the single isolated woman who can become dangerous. And I think that's, that was developing in the seventies as a sort of reaction to the feminist movement. When I was writing the book, I also thought about the Manson family, that trial in 1971. It was those young women who are like completely brainwashed. They're so blank. They're like the, the girls from, from The Shining. And I think there was something really quite horrific to society when they saw these women, like young women,

• 26:01Speaker 04

  out of control, brainwashed, murderous. And that tied in with the feminist movement as well, and this idea of like the dangerous, single woman and what she was capable of.

• 26:10Kate Lister?

  And the sort of, you could see there's something emasculating happening as well. But it's not just that she got dumped. It's now that she's an emasculating figure as well.

• 26:20Speaker 04

  Yes, absolutely. Yeah, definitely. In the 1980s, as family values were really being pushed, this idea that the single woman, she doesn't belong in the family. She's pushed out because she's predatory, but she kind of needs to be pushed away. And she's preying on the ideal domestic setting.

• 26:39Kate Lister?

  I'll be back with Caroline after this short break.

• 26:56Speaker 03

  Land a Viking longship on island shores, scramble over the dunes of ancient Egypt and avoid the Poisoner's Cup in Renaissance Florence. Each week on Echoes of History, we uncover the epic stories that inspire Assassin's Creed. We're stepping into feudal Japan in our special series Chasing Shadows, where samurai warlords and shinobi spies teach us the tactics and skills needed not only to survive, but to conquer. Whether you're preparing for Assassin's Creed Shadows or fascinated by history and great stories, listen to Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hit. There are new episodes every week.

• 27:53Kate Lister?

  And then you've got something like Single White Female, which specifically uses the term 'single' in its title. What was your take on that?

• 28:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, so that's interesting. That's, again, this idea of the threat coming into the home, but this time it's single women living in the city who need to be afraid of other single women in the city.

• 28:11Kate Lister?

  Yes, it's a good twist.

• 28:13Speaker 04

  Yes. So, yeah, because I think, yeah, that idea of the independent young woman living her life, but the character played by Bridget Fonzar, she was living with her boyfriend, but he cheats on her, so now she's alone. And so she lets this other woman into her life and this other woman starts copying her, getting the same haircut and dressing the same way. I guess it could be read as a warning about living on your own in a city. And if you're single too long, you could let someone bad into your life.

• 28:37Kate Lister?

  You could be murdered, basically, seems to be the message there. In extreme cases, singleness will lead to stalking and then death, possibly.

• 28:46Speaker 04

  Yes. Like The Cradle was also another one. And that again was like, the woman who, without a child, who wants to steal someone else's child. So I love that movie. But, yeah, again, it feeds into this idea of... Also, actually, kind of a warning about using childcare. So it was like saying, well, the mother should stay at home and look after her own children.

• 29:05Kate Lister?

  God, it is, isn't it?

• 29:06Speaker 04

  Letting this nanny in to do all the work. And this is what happened, you know?

• 29:11Kate Lister?

  One of my favourite single women, and you're not supposed to like her, but I do, Cruella De Vil. I hadn't put it together, but that was released the same year that the contraceptive pill was released.

• 29:19Speaker 04

  Oh, interesting, right.

• 29:20Kate Lister?

  Hmm.

• 29:21Speaker 04

  Uh huh, yeah.

• 29:22Kate Lister?

  I don't, I don't know if there's a connection there, but I just sort of see, and again, it's everything that you're saying about, like, she is that very unstable, very single, very anti-family. She has a whole big talk about how, you know, more women have been lost to marriage than war, famine, disease and disaster. And you can, yeah, actually Cruella, good point. But again, we see that, I guess the puppies become like a proxy family that she's trying to destroy there as well. And of course, the career, she's career orientated.

• 29:54Speaker 04

  Yeah, oh, that's, that's such a good point. Yes, I never thought about Cruella De Vil, but yes, she is basically Alex Forrest, trying to destroy.

• 30:00Kate Lister?

  God, she is.

• 30:02Speaker 04

  Children's animals, children's beloved pets.

• 30:04Kate Lister?

  Where else do we see that emphasis on that career woman? That's another stigma is that, that you, you're so career orientated, you just don't have time for a family, families again.

• 30:13Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's definitely in the eighties, that message was starting to come through. Uh, you have Working Girl, where you've got Sigourney Weaver, who's, you know, very ruthless.

• 30:23Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 30:23Speaker 04

  At work. And then you have Suspect starring Cher. It was this idea of burnout as well. That was the big thing in the eighties, that women were.

• 30:30Kate Lister?

  Burnout.

• 30:31Speaker 04

  Yeah, they were exhausted because, you know, they were working so hard and they didn't have time for families. They'd been put in all that, they'd forgotten about it. And female writers were talking about how, you know, they'd been sold a lie. They'd been told, you know, that feminism was the answer, but it's not because now we've lost our chance. So there's a lot of fear mongering.

• 30:49Kate Lister?

  Hmm.

• 30:50Speaker 04

  If you lost your chance of getting married, then, you know, you lost your chance of maybe able to have a baby as well, so.

• 30:55Kate Lister?

  Heaven for fend.

• 30:57Speaker 04

  It was all tied in together, so.

• 30:59Kate Lister?

  We kind of like moving out of the eighties where it's just like, single women are gonna kill you. They're gonna come into your home and they might actually murder you. But then we sort of move into the nineties and the early two thousands, equally as judgmental and awful, but we do have a, I don't know how single women are being treated at this point, not well. I mean, the dominant narratives are things like Sex and the City and Bridget Jones, and she becomes. Again, that tragic bit has come back again.

• 31:24Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, it became a bit more, so rather than the predatory single woman, it then became more comedic. So it was kind of like sitcoms, dealing with singleness and Bridget Jones, Sex and the City, which were kind of, I guess, supposed to be celebrating this idea of being single. But also, it was kind of like, they're slightly tragic, you know, Bridget is a slightly tragic character. And Carrie in Sex and the City, yeah, it's kind of a celebration, but at the same time, it's that question of, but it's not fulfilling.

• 31:55Kate Lister?

  No, it's very relationship orientated, isn't it?

• 31:57Speaker 04

  Yes, exactly, yeah. And that idea of the kind of psycho, single woman also comes out in the 2000s. Because there's this idea of the dating manual, so the idea of the rules, that you have to stick with the rules. And if you don't stick with the rules and do the right thing, then you'll be, end up being left alone. And that's kind of what a lot of Sex and the City kind of played into the idea of that, of the dating manual and

• 32:20Kate Lister?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 32:21Speaker 04

  Films like How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. It was like, you must, if you do all these bad things, you're going to chase the guy away and you're not going to have the happy ending that you want. The idea of being the cool girl, that was kind of what it also taps into.

• 32:34Kate Lister?

  It's just that, I'm trying to think, when I was growing up, like, if I ever heard a narrative where it was like, it's all right to be single. I don't believe that I encountered that anywhere. There's this assumption that you're going to get married and have babies from everywhere that you take on board yourself. Everyone around you is just instinctively getting coupled up. All of our media is screaming at us, like we've, you know, Bridget Jones, the whole film was about the fact that she wasn't in a relationship. And it's just like, no one ever says to you that it's all right, you don't have to do that, it's optional.

• 33:07Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly. There is such an expectation on it and I loved reading gossip magazines. So I would always like buy Heat magazine or I'd buy, you know, All those kind of things. And there was always the idea of sad Jen as well, you know, who'd been dumped or who'd, you know, lost her chance of having a family. And young celebrities were attacked for living their lives in a particular way, for partying too much, for putting on weight, for losing too much weight, for being the wrong kind of women that get dumped. So, yeah, it was all these messages about that, trying to, you have to be the right, you have to look the right way, you have to act the right way.

• 33:44Kate Lister?

  You have to be attractive.

• 33:45Speaker 04

  Yes, yeah. And all these things, you know, just battled with all the time, like just throughout my twenties and thirties.

• 33:52Kate Lister?

  So how did you go about unpicking some of that then?

• 33:54Speaker 04

  I was kind of thinking about that in terms of, yeah, those messages that you get sold. I mean, because the thing is, I've tried to write it in a fun way because I love these movies. I'm not saying, you know, this is terrible, we mustn't ever watch them. But I think it's just so interesting when you put it in a social context, I suppose, and just say, what was actually happening at the time when these films were made? Like, what's happening in the eighties when Fatal Attraction was made? Why was that message so dominant then? And then you can kind of apply that to now and look at like our culture now and see how these things are working. Actually, everything just kind of rolled into place. Just start researching and watching. And kind of, I was thinking about things in my life and thinking, oh, yeah, that's, that's interesting. And one of the stories that I talk about is I hadn't really lived with anybody when I was in my early thirties.

• 34:36Speaker 04

  And someone actually, a guy at work said, oh, have you never lived with anyone? And he kind of implied that was weird. And so I ended up stupidly letting this boyfriend move into my flat. And I didn't get rid of him for six years.

• 34:49Kate Lister?

  Oh, we've all done it.

• 34:50Speaker 04

  It was terrible. It was really bad. And I think it was from that person saying that to me. And it just made me think, like, that's really abnormal. And it's not. And I see, that's the thing. And that's what I also wanted to get in the book is like all these messages. But actually, you know, you should just embrace where you're at in life and not sort of worry.

• 35:09Kate Lister?

  I couldn't agree more. It's a really strange thing, having been single for as long as I've been single and like encountering the stigma and encountering the head cocks to one side. Oh, don't worry, you'll meet somebody. Oh, like people endlessly trying to fix you up with somebody, people worrying about you, people assuming that it's a temporary state or some kind of failing. And to me, it feels like I've got the cheat sheet to life. I'm so sorry to anyone listening to this who's in a terrible relationship. I'm very sorry. But it's just so quiet. It's just so peaceful. It's just, I just, I go to bed and I starfish on my bed and I scroll through and I'd spend my money on what I want to and I go where I want to, I do what I want to and, and I don't, men out there, you are lovely, but unfortunately, the ones I've dated

• 35:53Kate Lister?

  have been massive knobheads. And they're just not there wrecking stuff.

• 35:57Speaker 04

  Yes, yes. You know, I loved living on my own when I was in my early 30s. I just, I had such a good time. And, you know, I decided that I wasn't going to have flatmates anymore. I was just going to live by myself. And it was amazing. I loved it so much. And I wish that I'd kind of not let this person destroy that. Suddenly your space isn't your own. And it's like, I think women, we always sort of maybe let them take over a bit.

• 36:19Kate Lister?

  Yeah, we do.

• 36:21Speaker 04

  Yeah, push us, you know, like suddenly I can't put my yoga mat down on the floor here because he's watching something, playing computer games, or I can't do this, or, you know. Yeah, I think I just always like shifted my behaviour to fit around someone else.

• 36:33Kate Lister?

  I recognise that within myself. If I'm in a relationship with somebody, like myself starts to become second place, like I start like centre in everything around this other person, until I find myself just like, what, what is going on here? And it's not a good place to be. But we can't turn this into an impromptu therapy session.

• 36:56Kate Lister?

  I'll be back with Caroline after this short break.

• 37:13Speaker 03

  Land a Viking longship on island shores, scramble over the dunes of ancient Egypt, and avoid the Poisoner's Cup in Renaissance Florence. Each week on Echoes of History, we uncover the epic stories that inspire Assassin's Creed. We're stepping into feudal Japan in our special series Chasing Shadows, where samurai warlords and shinobi spies teach us the tactics and skills needed not only to survive, but to conquer. Whether you're preparing for Assassin's Creed Shadows or fascinated by history and great stories, listen to Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hit. There are new episodes every week.

• 38:10Kate Lister?

  Where are we up to today, do you think? Because single women are often back in the news with the rise of your alt-right, men's rights, incel influencers, who are so keen to tell everyone how awful it is to be a single woman. What's your thoughts on that?

• 38:25Speaker 04

  Oh yeah, I mean, it's kind of depressing, really.

• 38:27Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 38:28Speaker 04

  So, yeah, I guess you could laugh at it, but there is something very sort of insidious about it, just kind of like nasty.

• 38:33Kate Lister?

  It's nasty.

• 38:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, the way that women are kind of talked about by men as being properties and of having to kind of bend to the will of men and not being considered human, I guess, in some ways. So, yeah, just not treated as equal. And it's just really kind of, yeah, it's depressing that I think young women are kind of growing up with that now. Because I thought we'd kind of moved on a bit. I mean, there's a lot of things I thought we'd moved on a bit since like the 2010s, but yeah.

• 39:01Kate Lister?

  There it is.

• 39:03Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's just that way, you know, it's the way it kind of, the pushing pool, it just comes back. We had the kind of feminism of the 2010s and the Me Too movement. So I guess it's inevitable there's going to be a pushback against it. So, yeah, it was interesting, that kind of dynamic between childless cat ladies. Tradwives.

• 39:19Kate Lister?

  Ladies.

• 39:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 39:21Kate Lister?

  The trad, I shouldn't say, if there are any tradwives listening, God, God bless you, off you go, do your thing. But I find that fucking terrifying. And what's the weirdest thing about that is they aren't traditional wives. They're cosplaying as traditional wives. They're, they are business women. So if anyone's listening to this and doesn't know what a tradwife is, could you quickly explain that, please?

• 39:40Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, so it's, it's a social media phenomenon, really, it's like a TikTok. They were, you get these women who are very nurturing, they enjoy staying at home, looking after their kids, making.

• 39:50Kate Lister?

  Sour dough.

• 39:51Speaker 04

  Making sour dough, making their own cheese, making these like really elaborate.

• 39:55Kate Lister?

  Making their own butter.

• 39:57Speaker 04

  Yeah, often, you know, wearing these like organic cottons, like this kind of flowing sort of dresses. Very sort of prairie, Little House on the Prairie kind of style. Yeah, it's that idea that their satisfaction is just looking after the kids and staying at home. But obviously they're putting a lot of time into their social media. So actually they are working really, so they're working women, but they're just, you know, creating this fantasy life.

• 40:21Kate Lister?

  And not only that, they're probably bringing in more money than this dope, sorry, man, that they're supposed to be like, I'm just like, I just love my husband. She's the breadwinner.

• 40:30Speaker 04

  Yeah. And then there's that kind of sort of layer underneath, you wonder how much they're being controlled by their husbands. There was that interesting article in the Times with Ballerina Farm.

• 40:39Kate Lister?

  I know.

• 40:40Speaker 04

  Where she's saying that he told her not to have an epidural during.

• 40:44Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 40:44Speaker 04

  Childbirth, like she's got like eight kids, I think.

• 40:46Kate Lister?

  And she was a dancer at Juilliard, wasn't she? With these huge ambitions and it's, you know, the article didn't explicitly state it, but it's clearly held up of like, mate, that was like your dream and now you're fucking making cheese on a farm. My God, what's happened?

• 41:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I mean, she, I think she pushed back against that sort of.

• 41:04Kate Lister?

  She certainly did. She certainly did. So if she's happy, but.

• 41:08Speaker 04

  Yeah. I mean, I guess there is that kind of sense of wanting to escape with this kind of slightly old fashioned, making your food.

• 41:15Kate Lister?

  Easy to become radicalized, but they're all Mormons as well, by the way.

• 41:18Speaker 04

  Well, there's that, yeah.

• 41:19Kate Lister?

  Radicalized by Mormons through TikTok.

• 41:22Speaker 04

  Yes, exactly. But that, but it reminds me of, of Phyllis, was it Phyllis Shafley? Have you ever seen Mrs. America with Kate Blanchett?

• 41:28Kate Lister?

  Yes.

• 41:29Speaker 04

  So this idea that she's pushing back against progress, women's progress. But at the same time, she's a working woman. She's trying to encourage women to stay at home. But she's spending all her time campaigning against women working. So.

• 41:41Kate Lister?

  See.

• 41:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, it just.

• 41:43Kate Lister?

  See.

• 41:43Speaker 04

  It's going back to the seventies again. It's, yeah, it's that pushback.

• 41:46Kate Lister?

  No, just keep going, ladies. If some guy tells you that you're not allowed to go out to work because you have to stay at home and make him cheese, just hit him with something, please. Just, do you think that we're moving to, because sometimes when I'm feeling more generous about this stuff is like, I look at it as this is a severe reaction to where feminism has brought us to today, which is that women do not need men in the way that they financially and socially needed them. The, the dynamics of relationships have to shift. And sometimes I think that this kind of very aggressive misogyny is a sort of a last death rattle. What do you think? Do you think I'm very wide of the mark with that?

• 42:22Speaker 04

  No, I think, I think it's kind of that sort of desperation point where people are like, hang on a minute. Guys, you know, they feel like they've lost control, which I don't know, maybe they kind of like had slightly sad lives when they were younger and then now they've become powerful. I don't know.

• 42:37Kate Lister?

  For anyone that's listening to this that might be single or is in a relationship that's crap and fears being single. What, after all your research, would be your message to them about being a single woman?

• 42:47Speaker 04

  I think you just should enjoy where you're at in life. Yeah. I mean, I know it's kind of like, you see all these things about how you're supposed to be in a relationship and you'd find happiness. Yeah, I mean, being in a relationship can be great. You know, I know lots of people who have been very loving, happy marriages and it's, you know, wonderful. But I think if you're in the wrong relationship as well. So I think feeling like you're rushed, like you have to be in a relationship or you're rushing into something, it could just lead you to kind of into toxic situations and that's worse. You're better off enjoying like.

• 43:17Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 43:17Speaker 04

  Being single and it's not, I used to feel such anxiety about it, but yeah, I don't, you sort of think, what are you, what are you anxious about? There's nothing to feel anxious about. And also, you know, if it's because you want to have a baby, you can have a baby by yourself. It's not.

• 43:29Kate Lister?

  You can have a baby by yourself.

• 43:31Speaker 04

  Yeah. You know, because I think that was for me was kind of like the, I was never worried about marriage, but I always wanted to have a child. But yeah, you know, there, there's so many options now that you, you know, you don't need to think that that's like finding someone is like the be all and end all of that.

• 43:45Kate Lister?

  No, and don't boil anyone's pets. I think.

• 43:49Speaker 04

  No, that is, yeah, because also we like animals. What's our animals?

• 43:54Kate Lister?

  Oh Caroline, you've been marvellous to talk to. I knew you would be.

• 43:57Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 43:57Kate Lister?

  If people want to know more about you and your research and your new book, where can they find you?

• 44:02Speaker 04

  So I'm at Caroline J Young dot com. I'm on Instagram as Caroline Jill Young and my book is, yeah, out soon.

• 44:10Kate Lister?

  Shall we give it the full title one more time?

• 44:12Speaker 04

  Yeah. Single and Psycho: How Pop Culture Created the Unstable Single Woman.

• 44:17Kate Lister?

  Fabulous. Thank you so much. You've been brilliant.

• 44:20Speaker 04

  Thank you. Thanks. Great to talk to you.

• 44:26Kate Lister?

  Thank you for listening and thank you so much to Caroline for joining me. And if you like what you heard, don't forget to like, review and follow along, wherever it is that you get your podcasts. Coming up, we are going to be continuing our deep dive into sex work throughout history from the brothel ships to the Wild West. And if you'd like us to explore a subject or if you just wanted to say hello, then you can email us at [email protected]. This podcast was edited and produced by Sophie G. The senior producer was Charlotte Long. Join me again, betwixt the sheets, the history of sex scandal and society, a podcast by History Hit. This podcast contains music from Epidemic Sound.

• 45:06Speaker 01

  In Our Time is a world-class seminar every week. Why was Jeremy a lonely snail? What were lines doing in York in the third century? I'm Misha Glennie and every week I'm joined by expert guests to explore the ideas that shape our world.

• 45:21Speaker 02

  It's one of the first times really that you consistently see someone painting teeth. I know that sounds bonkers. If I was going to define mathematics, I would say it's the study of structure.

• 45:30Speaker 01

  In Our Time, listen on BBC dot com or wherever you get your podcasts. Tea or coffee? Love a cup of tea.