Reply To: I Feel Disenfranchised

First of all, I never said I wanted to speak. I said I wanted to hear from single women.

And anybody who doesn’t think singles are treated differently just isn’t paying attention. I used to get really annoyed when I was referred to as a “single girl” and someone five years (or ten years) younger would be called a “married woman.” Obviously she was thought of as an adult, while I was still thought of as a child. (I finally adjusted to being called a girl when a friend who is my age became a bubbie. At that point being a “girl” didn’t seem so bad.)

How often do you hear a child call a married woman by her first name? She’s almost always Mrs. so-and-so. The first time I spent a Shabbos with a frum family I was shocked when they had their children calling me by my first name. I was an adult and I didn’t consider myself in the same peer group with a 2-year-old. Those children, now some of whom are married with children of their own, still call me by my first name. However, the mother of these children gets offended when her friends’ teenage children call her by her first name.

In short, I have frequently been treated as a child, not an adult.