Private: Simplify Singlehood: Feminist Writer Rebecca Traister On The Power of Being Single

Rebecca Traister is an author and writer-at-large for New York Magazine and The Cut. Traister writes about women, culture, and politics, and her most recent book is All The Single Ladies.

On this episode of Simplify, she and Caitlin discuss the larger cultural meaning of singlehood, creating new rituals of adulthood that don’t involve marriage, and what’s really the biggest single-lady magnet.

Stay tuned, too, for how the economically affluent or self-sustaining woman gave rise to a new labor force in the cities—or how, in a way, there will always be a “wife.”

“You can be married and be lonelier than any single person.”

— Rebecca Traister

Single life can be liberating—you are free to make your own choices without having to report to anyone—but often it walks hand in hand with loneliness. In the absence of a romantic relationship, single women seek other kinds of connection, forming profound and lasting bonds with girlfriends and rich relationships with their cities.

Drawn from deep historical research and her own personal experience, Rebecca Traister reveals what opportunities and challenges single life can bring and encourages all the single ladies to forget about their marital status on the way to pursuing their dreams.

Subscribe Now!

Who’s Rebecca Traister?

Rebecca Traister is writer-at-large for New York magazine and a contributing editor at Elle. A National Magazine Award finalist, she has written about women in politics, media, and entertainment from a feminist perspective for The New Republic and Salon and has also contributed to The Nation, The New York Observer, The New York Times and The Washington Post. Traister’s first book, Big Girls Don’t Cry, about women and the 2008 election, was a New York Times Notable Book of 2010 and the winner of the Ernesta Drinker Ballard Book prize. She lives in New York with her family.

What’s Simplify?

Simplify is a podcast for anybody who’s taken a close look at their habits, their happiness, their relationships, or their health and thought “There’s got to be a better way to do this.” We talk to bestselling writers, productivity wizards, sex geniuses, and happiness experts to find it for you.

Simplify is made with love by Blinkist. Click here to try Blinkist free for 14 days with the voucher code: singleladies.

Subscribe Now!

Talk to us!

This season, we are collecting your voices, dear listeners (not as creepy as it sounds)!

Specifically, we’d love to hear how you would answer one of the questions we always ask our guests: “What have you discovered was much easier than you initially thought it was?”

You can just record your answer with a voice memo app of your choice and then email it to us at [email protected]. We are looking forward to listening to your responses, and stay tuned—you just might hear yourself on a future episode of Simplify!

If you want to say hi to Ben and Caitlin in the meantime, you can find them on Twitter: @bsto and @CaitlinSchiller.

Who Made This?

Your hosts are Caitlin Schiller and Ben Schuman-Stoler.

Stellar research and production assistance by the outstanding Natallia Darozhkina.

Thanks to Nico Guiang for our awesome intro and outro music. Listen more on Soundcloud or check him out on Facebook.

Sound and editing by Ben Jackson, and Ody Constantinou, who once opened a co-working space where there was no wifi, no tables, and no talking… it closed down after 4 months.

Got Links?

Rebecca Traister’s Website Rebecca Traister’s Twitter account

Extra Credit Reading

If you enjoyed this episode and would like to go deeper into the topics we mentioned, check out this book list.

Read the transcript here!