Etymology lesson:
The term “spinster” today means an old, childless, unmarried woman. It’s a contraction of the phrase “old spinster”.
That “old” in there is important.
A few centuries back, a spinster was a job. It was simple indoor work that didn’t require physical strength, so the village maidens did this work.
The moment they married, they stopped. That’s because being a wife and a mother is more valuable, rewarding and significant than weaving some fibres around.
To call a woman an old spinster is to call her a failure. She never had a family, so she had to settle for the relatively meagre contributions of a childlike occupation.
A modern analogy:
It’s normal – Good, even – for 16-year-olds to work serving customers at McDonalds. The assumption is they’d outgrow that occupation. If they’re still doing that same job at 55, something has gone wrong.
No shame to anyone forced into that position. There are plenty of cases where that’s the only job a grown person can get or can do.
But if you can progress beyond that and don’t, you’re a failure.
I hear many calls to retire spinster as an insult. Who cares if a woman never had children? There’s more to life than having a family!
Yeah, there’s more to life than that.
But none of it is better.
Women in the workplace aren’t spinning threads these days. They’re working across industries – except those where you need to get your hands dirty. Those, for some reason, remain male-dominated.
Many of those working women are doing great stuff. They’re intelligent, dedicated and insightful. They’re leading or founding companies, they’re filling critical gaps in the workforce and they’re innovating.
Even then, most of those women would contribute more by focusing on their families first and careers second.
“Misogynist!” It’s not misogyny to give women what they want, especially when it comes with huge sacrifices from the man.
There’s a reason women are more miserable and depressed these days.
As a man, that might not seem like your problem – but it is. Of course it is. I could point out how the flourishing of women leads to the flourishing of you, but I shouldn’t have to. Any decent man is chivalrous enough to want to keep the innocent from suffering too much.
That, of course, relies on you being strong and wise.
For a weak and foolish man can’t protect anything. In fact, he’s easily a pawn for evil.
That’s why, as a matter of priority, you need to level up your game.
You need to read this:
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