As a liberal feminist, I was first elated, then saddened to read the article, “8.11 lakh women live by themselves in T.N.” (Tamil Nadu editions, June 29) which described single women as “spinsters”. The Oxford Dictionary of English states that “the development of the word ‘spinster’ is a good example of the way in which a word acquires strong connotations to the extent that it can no longer be used in a neutral sense. From the 17th century, the word was appended to names as the official legal description of an unmarried woman. This type of use survives today in some legal and religious contexts. In modern, everyday English, however, ‘spinster’ cannot be used to mean simply an “unmarried woman; it is now always a derogatory term, referring or alluding to a stereotype of an older woman who is unmarried, childless, prissy, and repressed.”
We, single Indian women living alone — my grandmothers, mother and I — are privileged to be in cities like Bengaluru and Chennai where it is not only possible but also common. The report does aim to laud progress in Tamil Nadu, but has instead brought out the deeply entrenched misogyny that we women still have to endure everyday.
Lakshmi Ravi Narayan,
Bengaluru
