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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Therapy for Black Girls podcast, a weekly

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Speaker 1: conversation about mental health, personal development, and all the small

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Speaker 1: decisions we can make to become the best possible versions

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Speaker 1: of ourselves. I'm your host, Dr Joy hard and Bradford,

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Speaker 1: a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia. For more information or

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Speaker 1: to find a therapist in your area, visit our website

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Speaker 1: at Therapy for Black Girls dot com. While I hope

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Speaker 1: you love listening to and learning from the podcast, it

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Speaker 1: is not meant to be a substitute for relationship with

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Speaker 1: a licensed mental health professional. Hey, y'all, thanks so much

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Speaker 1: for joining me for session one thirty two of the

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Speaker 1: Therapy for Black Girls podcasts. Today we'll be digging into

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Speaker 1: what it might look like to reimagine our image of

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Speaker 1: the single black woman, and for this conversation, we're lucky

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Speaker 1: enough to be joined by Dr Jessica D. Mormon. Dr

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Speaker 1: Mormon received her PhD in Communication studies from the University

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Speaker 1: of Michigan and her Masters of Health Science from the

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Speaker 1: Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Her research explores

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Speaker 1: the roles of media and interpersonal relationships in shaping black

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Speaker 1: women's experiences of single life. Dr Mormon and I discuss

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Speaker 1: the messages we get about dating and relationships from the media,

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Speaker 1: how we can challenge and recreate some of these narratives

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Speaker 1: for ourselves, what it looks like to embrace the freedom

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Speaker 1: and potential that comes with being a single woman, and

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Speaker 1: how you can begin to develop your single woman action plan.

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Speaker 1: If you hear something while listening that really resonates with you,

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Speaker 1: please be sure to share it with us on social

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Speaker 1: media using the hashtag tbg in session. Here's our conversation.

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Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining us today, Dr Mormon. Oh,

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Speaker 1: thank you for having me. Yes, I'm very excited. So

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Speaker 1: I love when I get a chance to talks and

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Speaker 1: researchers because it always brings such a I think, different

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Speaker 1: level of insight to the topics that we're talking about

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Speaker 1: here on the podcast. And so your research is all

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Speaker 1: about exploring the roles of media and interpersonal relationships and

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Speaker 1: how those shape Black women's experiences of single life. So

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Speaker 1: it sounds incredibly exciting. So tell me about the research exactly.

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Speaker 1: You've summarized it correctly there, Dr Joyce. So, as you said,

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Speaker 1: my work focuses on basically Black women's experiences of being

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Speaker 1: single I'm a trained media researcher, so I tend to

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Speaker 1: the questions of dating advice representations of single Black women

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Speaker 1: in the media, think about advice interpersonally, so the messages

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Speaker 1: we get from friends, from family, and how all of

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Speaker 1: these kind of different messages, different inputs, different sources for

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Speaker 1: ideas about single life, shape how we see ourselves, how

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Speaker 1: we approach being single as Black women, and how basically

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Speaker 1: Black women try and strategize life as a single woman.

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Speaker 1: And so I think again, as a media researcher, I

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Speaker 1: focus really kind of tend very closely to questions of

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Speaker 1: dating advice. In particular, I think two thousand and nine

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Speaker 1: was a big year for many of us because that

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Speaker 1: was the year that Steve Harvey's Act Like a Lady

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Speaker 1: Like a Man came out. I was wondering if that's

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Speaker 1: what you were gonna say, yes and oh yeah, in

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Speaker 1: your professional opinion. Was that kind of like the turning

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Speaker 1: point for Black women getting dating advice? I think in

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Speaker 1: terms of this modern kind of ear and modern way

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Speaker 1: of dating advice, for sure, because I'm sure we can

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Speaker 1: point to any number of representations or dating advice books

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Speaker 1: from earlier eras. So for example, Waiting to Exhale is

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Speaker 1: a perfect example of a representation that tends to the

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Speaker 1: lives of single black women. And in that representation there

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Speaker 1: was any number of pieces of advice shared back and

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Speaker 1: forth between the characters. But two thousand and nine became

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Speaker 1: a very important year, again marked by Steve Harvey's act

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Speaker 1: like a lady, think like a man, and that we

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Speaker 1: have men kind of positioning themselves as dating advice experts

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Speaker 1: and offering advice to women about how they should behave

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Speaker 1: in the context of dating relationships in particular. And so

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Speaker 1: that book gave rise to any number of other kind

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Speaker 1: of properties, first and foremost for Steve Harvey himself, right,

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Speaker 1: So he was had a sequel to that book, two

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Speaker 1: movies from that book, and we all know his you

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Speaker 1: know Strawberry letter segment on his radio program that you

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Speaker 1: know eventually get spun out into a talk show that is,

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Speaker 1: my understanding, is no longer on the air. Tyrese released

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Speaker 1: a dating advice book for women with his co author

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Speaker 1: Rev Run entitled Mannalogy. You see Devon Franklin and his

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Speaker 1: wife Megan Good releasing a dating advice book. And so

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Speaker 1: there's any number of examples of married celebrities, married male celebrities,

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Speaker 1: in particular directing advice to black women of out their experiences,

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Speaker 1: and what are your thoughts about that, Doctor Mormon, as

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Speaker 1: a researcher, because I have my personal thoughts about what that,

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Speaker 1: what that feels like, but I'm curious to hear as

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Speaker 1: a researcher, what are your thoughts about, like how that

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Speaker 1: has now been impacted black women who are single. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so we can't say I can't make a kind of

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Speaker 1: categorical statement that all of this is vice is wrong, right,

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Speaker 1: because even a broken clock is right twice a day, absolutely,

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Speaker 1: And also advice is very personal, right for some of us,

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Speaker 1: some pieces of advice are more salient than other pieces

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Speaker 1: of advice, right, So it might be more important for

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Speaker 1: you to understand, for example, your approach to dating and

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Speaker 1: want to hear a man's perspective about what he's looking

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Speaker 1: for in a potential partner. But there are many pitfalls

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Speaker 1: when we talk about thinking about men advising women, but

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Speaker 1: also married people advising single people. First and foremost, what

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Speaker 1: I found in my research and what I found in

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Speaker 1: you know, reviewing the literature on this question, is that

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Speaker 1: these media properties tend to contain misogynistic pieces of advice,

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Speaker 1: So they construct women in a particular way, they construct

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Speaker 1: men in a particular way, and they construct black relationships

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Speaker 1: in a particular way. So, for example, we can think

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Speaker 1: about black women as needing to look a certain way

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Speaker 1: to be appealing to the male gaze and as a

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Speaker 1: primary means to attract a mate. Typically we think about

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Speaker 1: this in the context of popular culture, as you know,

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Speaker 1: lighter skin, because colorism comes into some of these media

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Speaker 1: properties as having more Anglo features, because again the kind

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Speaker 1: of physical appearance part of it is there. And so

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Speaker 1: what you see is that this advice kind of advises

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Speaker 1: a way to look. We can think about this kind

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Speaker 1: of misogynistic element as showing up into terms of behavior,

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Speaker 1: So thinking about women not being advised to make the

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Speaker 1: first move with the potential male partner, or having a

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Speaker 1: set of expectations of men in their lives, for example,

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Speaker 1: that all men are to pursue women. And so these

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Speaker 1: kind of ideas about relationships have a tendency to be

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Speaker 1: out of sync with our actual experiences and the world,

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Speaker 1: and they reinforce a particular set of ideas about how

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Speaker 1: men and women should interact with one another in the

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Speaker 1: context of relationships. The second kind of element that I've

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Speaker 1: noticed in my research is that dating advice is just

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Speaker 1: that it's advice about dating, it's not advice about being single.

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Speaker 1: And so in my work, I'm a qualitative researcher. I'm

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Speaker 1: currently working on a project that's focused on interviewing single

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Speaker 1: Black women about their experiences of being single, what their

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Speaker 1: priorities of single life are, how they approach being single.

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Speaker 1: And what I found is that the kind of things

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Speaker 1: on single black women's minds day to day are not

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Speaker 1: being tended to in this advice. So, for example, in

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Speaker 1: my project, I found that single Black women were using

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Speaker 1: their kind of experiences of being single to advance their careers,

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Speaker 1: to focus on education, to establish financial security, to travel

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Speaker 1: the world, to focus on spiritual and religious growth, to

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Speaker 1: focus on community participation, and any other kind of number

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Speaker 1: of elements that comprise a full and whole life. Typically

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Speaker 1: you don't see that addressed in dating advice or advice

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Speaker 1: directed to single women. It's typically focused around how to

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Speaker 1: get a mate, how to construct yourself in a particular way,

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Speaker 1: how to behave in a particular way, as opposed to,

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Speaker 1: you know, here's how you should go about the business

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Speaker 1: of establishing an I rara for example, or here's what

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Speaker 1: you should be doing if you want to start your

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Speaker 1: own small business. And so I find that the messages

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Speaker 1: tend to be a bit limited. They tend to rely

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Speaker 1: on these kind of more ideological constructions of relationships, and

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Speaker 1: they just kind of tend to misconstrue and misunderstand single

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Speaker 1: black women's lives, right, because I think that there is

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Speaker 1: this common perception that you're only single and so you

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Speaker 1: find a partner, right and leaving out this whole spectrum

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Speaker 1: of people who maybe don't want that or who will

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Speaker 1: not be partnered exactly. You're raising a great point, which

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Speaker 1: is how we're defining single. So in my work, I

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Speaker 1: think of single as being unmarried, so in line with

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Speaker 1: the sensitive definition of being single, and we know that

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Speaker 1: kind of marriage is an important threshold in terms of

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Speaker 1: accessing tax benefits, for example, how you are perceived in

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Speaker 1: loan documents for example, And so that's the threshold at

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Speaker 1: which I kind of tend to the question of being single.

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Speaker 1: But then there's also this kind of other conception of

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Speaker 1: being single as not being in relationship. And as you've highlighted,

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Speaker 1: there's a big gap between being unmarried and not dating someone. So,

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Speaker 1: for example, in my research, I've had any number of

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Speaker 1: participants who have had multiple dating partners that they're not

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Speaker 1: living with, they might be seeing casually, and we might

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Speaker 1: think of those women as being single. We might not,

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Speaker 1: depending on what our expectations of single life are. But again,

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Speaker 1: there's a lot built into the idea of being unmarried,

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Speaker 1: so to speak, and you know, being unpartnered if you will,

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Speaker 1: m hm, So, Dr Mormon. Are there other like media

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Speaker 1: entities that you feel like you've seen doing a good

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Speaker 1: job of actually speaking to the experiences of single black women. Yes, Actually,

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Speaker 1: I'm sure that you and your listeners have you know,

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Speaker 1: flipped on Oprah's network periodically? Yes, And so there's one

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Speaker 1: show on there that I love. It's called Mahitia, Mind

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Speaker 1: Your Business, and I have only seen one season of it,

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Speaker 1: but it's with and I forget the company that she's

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Speaker 1: in charge of, but it's this natural hair care line

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Speaker 1: that she developed, and Mahitia would be the And again

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Speaker 1: I don't remember her last name off the top of

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Speaker 1: my head GIFs Dillinger, isn't it? Yes, yes, exactly. And

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Speaker 1: she had a reality television program where she basically worked

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Speaker 1: with black women business owners to get their businesses on track,

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Speaker 1: and so the program was focused on how to establish

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Speaker 1: an LLC, how to put together a business plan, how

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Speaker 1: to pitch a product to a potential buyer. Again, many

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Speaker 1: of the women in that program were single, but the

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Speaker 1: advice there was geared towards entrepreneurship, which tended to be

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Speaker 1: a priority of UM. You know, I found among my participants,

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Speaker 1: you know, thinking about small business, thinking about kind of

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Speaker 1: growth and um, developing one's brand, if you will. And

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Speaker 1: so that's one program that I absolutely love. I would

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Speaker 1: also highly recommend your program, of course, and actually did

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Speaker 1: so in my dissertation and highlighted yours as one of

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Speaker 1: kind of site for conversations and discussions about unpartnered life

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Speaker 1: that extend beyond simply how to get a man and

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Speaker 1: thinking about the kind of pitfalls and you know, privileges

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Speaker 1: of living life on partnered But then I would also

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Speaker 1: just think about, in addition to the media, just thinking

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Speaker 1: about the types of messages we're taking in from our

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Speaker 1: friends and family, one site for this being social media.

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Speaker 1: And I think we've had any number of conversations as

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Speaker 1: a culture of about how we need to curate our

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Speaker 1: social media profiles and curate our social media feeds to

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Speaker 1: kind of invite in and avoid certain types of messaging.

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Speaker 1: So that's another site that I would be kind of

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Speaker 1: mindful of. Is our folks following kind of more relationship

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Speaker 1: oriented content? Are they following I personally love a young

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Speaker 1: Levan's aunt. I know that she can be controversial as

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Speaker 1: a you know, a therapeutic figure, but as an entertainer,

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Speaker 1: I think she's quite on the nose. She puts out

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Speaker 1: a lot of kind of interesting content about being single

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Speaker 1: and how to think about single life in a more

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Speaker 1: holistic way. And so those would be some of the

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Speaker 1: places that I would start to think about and some

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Speaker 1: of the you know, things to put in your listener's

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Speaker 1: ear about what to consider when they're thinking about who

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Speaker 1: to follow or thinking about the content that they're consuming.

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Speaker 1: Do these messages actually relate to my life? Am I

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Speaker 1: getting something out of this content? Does it make me

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Speaker 1: feel bad? Is this content actually speaking to some portion

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Speaker 1: of my experience or is it you know, a set

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Speaker 1: of messages that are actually motivating or pushing me towards,

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Speaker 1: you know, experiences that I actually don't want to have.

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Speaker 1: So I'm curious if there are other really interesting things

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Speaker 1: that have come from new work. I'm sure there are tons,

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Speaker 1: but there are other particular thieves that have come from

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Speaker 1: talking to these women that you think it would be

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Speaker 1: important to highlight. Sure, And so one of the things

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Speaker 1: I want to highlight is just sort of thinking about

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Speaker 1: being single as um the kind of motivations for being single.

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Speaker 1: So I believe a couple of weeks ago you had

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Speaker 1: a discussion about freedom and relationships, which I really truly loved,

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Speaker 1: and in that discussion, your guests talked about how being

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Speaker 1: you know, free or having perceiving one's freedom as being

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Speaker 1: a reason why women avoid relationships. I co signed that

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Speaker 1: and reinforced that, and have found that in my work

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Speaker 1: is that maintaining one's freedom is an important dimension about

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Speaker 1: why women choose to be single, because again, I think

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Speaker 1: we like to think about being single as a circumstance

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Speaker 1: or something that has some negative thing that has happened

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Speaker 1: to us, but we overlook typically the agency of black

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Speaker 1: women in that content. X. Right, I'm choosing to be

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Speaker 1: in relationship or I'm choosing to avoid relationship Along those

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Speaker 1: same lines, in addition to preserving one's freedom, I found

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Speaker 1: that women actively choose to remain single to avoid experiences

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Speaker 1: of violence or irresponsibility. And I think we can think

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Speaker 1: about that at the level of an individual partner, like,

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Speaker 1: for example, I'm going to leave David because he has

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Speaker 1: been violent with me. But my work has found that

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Speaker 1: not only is it, am I going to leave specific

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Speaker 1: person over here because their behavior was bad, but I'm

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Speaker 1: then going to avoid other relationships going forward because I'm

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Speaker 1: not even interested in having to deal with the stress

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Speaker 1: of negotiating a violent or irresponsible partner again, in addition

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Speaker 1: to violence, thinking about irresponsibility, not being emotionally supportive, all

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Speaker 1: of these potential concerns about partnership. Another aspect of being

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Speaker 1: single that I found in my work is that women

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Speaker 1: preserve their single status as rejecting monogamy. And so I

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Speaker 1: found one or two of my participants discussed that they

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Speaker 1: found monogamy restrictive. They found the expectations of marriage and

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Speaker 1: the expectations of a monogamous marriage to be overwhelming. And

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Speaker 1: you know, one participant I'm thinking about in particular, she

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Speaker 1: had been married for almost twenty years. Her relationship was abusive,

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Speaker 1: her husband expected her to dress a certain way. She

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Speaker 1: described it as dress and looked like a mom, and

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Speaker 1: she just didn't want to have to live up to

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Speaker 1: his ideals and expectations of what a partner would be.

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Speaker 1: She was more interested in exploring kind of sexually things

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Speaker 1: that he wasn't interested in. When he ended their marriage,

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Speaker 1: she ended up having five boyfriends. You know, she wanted

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Speaker 1: to date this one, this one can take me to

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Speaker 1: the mall, this one can go with me to lunch,

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Speaker 1: this one can take me to breakfast, etcetera, etcetera. And

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Speaker 1: she lived independently. She raised her kids, but she maintained

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Speaker 1: a series of dating relationships. And so we can think

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Speaker 1: of nonmonogamy as being another kind of reason why women

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Speaker 1: choose to be single. Another import an element that I

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Speaker 1: think all of us at some point in our lives

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Speaker 1: have experienced but might not have words for, is the

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Speaker 1: ways that single status is stigmatizing, both in broader society

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Speaker 1: but also in our kind of smaller social networks. And

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Speaker 1: so one kind of big theme or big idea that

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Speaker 1: emerged from this project was the ways that single status

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Speaker 1: was weaponized against black women in the context of their families.

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Speaker 1: So say more about it. So one of the things

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Speaker 1: that we can so again backing up as a researcher,

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Speaker 1: I think more about kind of the meanings of institutions

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Speaker 1: like marriage, or the kind of significance that we grant

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Speaker 1: to being single or being married, and we can trace

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Speaker 1: that back to popular conceptualizations of what marriages and thinking

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Speaker 1: about kind of let's put our eighteen hundreds hats on

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Speaker 1: and think about kind of the roles of women in

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Speaker 1: general and society. Because this contract of the cult of

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Speaker 1: pure womanhood which I'm trying to speak about now defines

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Speaker 1: marriage in many ways for women. So thinking about kind

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Speaker 1: of white middle class women's roles in society being very limited,

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Speaker 1: marriage became an outlet for or one way to access

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Speaker 1: a middle class life. If you were married, you had value.

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Speaker 1: If you were married, you could be seen as a

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Speaker 1: pillar of society. If you were married, you were fulfilling

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Speaker 1: your roles to God and to your country in many respects. Well,

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Speaker 1: we know that, you know, the eight hundreds weren't the

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Speaker 1: friendliest time for black women, so typically black women were

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Speaker 1: excluded from this kind of ideal. But the importance of

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Speaker 1: thinking about the cult of pure womanhood is that it

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Speaker 1: defines marriage in many ways. It helps us to shape

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Speaker 1: our ideas about marriage as an important institution for validating

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Speaker 1: women's roles in society. As a woman, because I am married,

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Speaker 1: I now have value. My sexuality is legitimate, my child

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Speaker 1: bearing is legitimate, My kind of public facing persona is

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Speaker 1: legitimized because of how marriage defines me. We can also

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Speaker 1: think about the important role of how black women see

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Speaker 1: each other. And I'm sure you've tended to the question

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Speaker 1: of respectability politics on your show before, but as a reminder,

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Speaker 1: respectability politics grows out of this kind of early nineteenth

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Speaker 1: century Baptist club movement that helps, you know, migrants from

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Speaker 1: the South, black people leaving the South entering the North

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Speaker 1: and integrate into society. And so we get the idea

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Speaker 1: of respectability politics, you know, with good intentions to help

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Speaker 1: black people and black women integrate into new kind of

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Speaker 1: northern spaces. And so this concept and idea has evolved, right,

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Speaker 1: And I think we can all think a colloquially or

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Speaker 1: in pop culture where respectability politics rears its ugly head.

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Speaker 1: But we think about respectability politics as being kind of

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Speaker 1: a set of norms for behavior, expectations for women's behavior,

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Speaker 1: expectations for appearance, expectations for decorum, for chast behavior. And

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Speaker 1: so these ideas about how black women should behave in

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Speaker 1: society and chast kind of more decorus ways that reflect

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Speaker 1: their position as lauded members of black communities, and these

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Speaker 1: ideas about marriage as a legitimizing institution for women's roles

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Speaker 1: in society. These constructs come into play in terms of

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Speaker 1: stigmatizing single black women. And so what does that mean

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Speaker 1: in the context of families, and so that can be

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Speaker 1: slights around you know, once fertility outside of marriage, So

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Speaker 1: judgments about having kids before you were married, or judgments

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Speaker 1: about having kids unpartnered, that can be manifest as ideas

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Speaker 1: that you're not capable of caring for children or caring

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Speaker 1: for the members of your community, because again you're not

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Speaker 1: valid dated through marriage as being experts in those arenas.

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Speaker 1: And so I'm thinking about one participant in particular who

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Speaker 1: shared a really interesting quote about her experiences of being single.

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Speaker 1: Would you mind if I shared this quote with you

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Speaker 1: and your listeners, Dr Joy, Please do, please do. This

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Speaker 1: participant is a thirty three year old marketing executive. She

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Speaker 1: worked for a Fortune five hundred company, and she had

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Speaker 1: no kids, and she was in the context of our

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Speaker 1: interview describing some of the criticisms and judgments that she

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Speaker 1: encountered from her friends and her relatives, and so she

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Speaker 1: goes on by saying, I have relatives who are like,

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Speaker 1: are you gay, as if I'm single because I'm gay.

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Speaker 1: I have younger cousins who now have babies, even if

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Speaker 1: they're not married, they have a baby, and so there's like,

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Speaker 1: I know that this person wasn't single at some point

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Speaker 1: because they have a child. So I think that's always

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Speaker 1: like the issue of the question of family, like how

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Speaker 1: they perceived your singleness. I had a bunch of aunts.

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Speaker 1: My dad has four sisters, and they were all together

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Speaker 1: and I was holding a baby. Somebody was like, let

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Speaker 1: me get a picture of this, because we don't know

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Speaker 1: if we'll ever see Do you know how to hold

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Speaker 1: a baby? And I'm like, excuse me, I'm single, but

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Speaker 1: I know how to hold a baby. I've dated a

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Speaker 1: lot of guys who are like, so, why are you single?

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Speaker 1: Like a what's wrong with you kind of thing. You're

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Speaker 1: damaged goods if you're single. Well, mother, you're single too,

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Speaker 1: so what's your damage. I think it's just like nobody

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Speaker 1: questions men in their singleness. I have an older cousin

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Speaker 1: he has a different girl at every family function, so

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Speaker 1: there's a rotation there, but nothing serious. My brother doesn't

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Speaker 1: bring his girlfriends around necessarily, but there's no question of

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Speaker 1: his singleness. Nobody is like, is male cousin gay? Is

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Speaker 1: brother gay? Because they don't come with girlfriends. But you know,

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Speaker 1: I'm the one end quote, and so she highlights a

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Speaker 1: lot of really important ideas in that quotation. Again, judgment

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Speaker 1: from family. I'm sure all of us, you know, single

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Speaker 1: folks out there have encountered judgments from men that we

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Speaker 1: were dating in the moment, Interrogations about sort of why

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Speaker 1: are you single, what's wrong with you for being single?

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Speaker 1: This assumption that there's automatically some damage going on with

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Speaker 1: you because you're single, And then this expectation or idea

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Speaker 1: that because we are not partnered to a man, we

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Speaker 1: then are vulnerable to critiques about our sexuality. Regardless of

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Speaker 1: our sexuality. Do you want someone inquiring about your bedroom

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Speaker 1: behavior who you find attractive it's really not necessarily appropriate.

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Speaker 1: Or judgments about one's capacity in the context of families.

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Speaker 1: You know, Auntie's in many ways are pulling. We're helping

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Speaker 1: out everybody, right, because we're keeping kids, we're ushering parents

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Speaker 1: to appointments where supporting members of our family who might

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Speaker 1: otherwise not be available, but instead that childlessness or that

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Speaker 1: unpartneredness is used to basically Marcus as insufficient or Marcus

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Speaker 1: as deviant, Marcus as out of our role. And so

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Speaker 1: one of the things that I tend to my work

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Speaker 1: is thinking about the costs and implications of that, right,

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Speaker 1: the anxiety that comes with, for example, joining maybe family

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Speaker 1: occasions because you know how you're gonna be on the

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Speaker 1: butt of many jokes or the butt of many judgments

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Speaker 1: for the fact that you're not bringing a partner, or

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Speaker 1: thinking about maybe taking the lead or asserting yourself in

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Speaker 1: in domains that maybe you have been seen as not

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Speaker 1: invited into, so for example, like starting childcare business, or

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Speaker 1: taking on more of a lead in terms of keeping

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Speaker 1: nieces and nephews or friends kids. And so those are

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Speaker 1: some of the implications that I'm trying to tend to

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Speaker 1: in my work. We also know that this stigma has

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Speaker 1: social implications too. We know that there are implications for

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Speaker 1: black women encountering stereotypes about single black women in the

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Speaker 1: context of hiring. So one common stereotype that invoked against

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Speaker 1: black women in employment context. Is this concept of the

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Speaker 1: quote welfare mean end quote this this supposedly hyper reproductive

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Speaker 1: quote unquote lazy black woman who's just looking for an

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Speaker 1: easy dollar or you know, to partner herself to someone

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Speaker 1: that's going to give her money, or conversely, these other

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Speaker 1: kind of ideas about a single mothers where they're going

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Speaker 1: to just be the hardest workers and will settle for

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Speaker 1: anything I give you because you're desperate for this work.

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Speaker 1: And so these have implications for for example, when black

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Speaker 1: women go up for promotion, how they're evaluated when in

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Speaker 1: the context of interviews, how black women are evaluated in

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Speaker 1: the context of healthcare settings as well, how we're evaluated

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Speaker 1: in terms of our reproductive health and our reproductive choices.

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Speaker 1: And so this idea of single stigma has broader implications

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Speaker 1: than simply just you know, our interactions with our cousins

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Speaker 1: and our our aunts, but also how we're perceived and

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Speaker 1: broader society. So Dr Mormon, does your research kind of

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Speaker 1: get to the intervention space, like, Hey, the women talked

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Speaker 1: about what kinds of things have been helpful for them

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Speaker 1: or institutions that they found helpful in kind of reducing

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Speaker 1: some of the stigma at this stage of my research,

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Speaker 1: I haven't done any work tending to the question of intervention,

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00:25:12,160 --> 00:25:14,040
Speaker 1: but I can talk about some of the ways that

433
00:25:14,119 --> 00:25:18,560
Speaker 1: my participants have pushed back against these ideas and these notions.

434
00:25:18,600 --> 00:25:21,879
Speaker 1: One of the ways is basically just sort of reframing

435
00:25:21,880 --> 00:25:26,240
Speaker 1: their own experience and hearing. For example, am I incompetent

436
00:25:26,240 --> 00:25:29,840
Speaker 1: with children simply because I'm single? No, I'm actually a

437
00:25:29,880 --> 00:25:32,640
Speaker 1: great aunt. I'm a great mother, And so maybe kind

438
00:25:32,640 --> 00:25:36,760
Speaker 1: of speaking back to those ideas internally evaluating oneself based

439
00:25:36,760 --> 00:25:40,640
Speaker 1: on one's own skills. A lot of this also is

440
00:25:40,640 --> 00:25:44,399
Speaker 1: is thinking about pushing back against the media representation. We

441
00:25:44,560 --> 00:25:47,720
Speaker 1: get one kind of consistent although I have to say

442
00:25:47,920 --> 00:25:50,560
Speaker 1: Insecure is doing a really good job representing kind of

443
00:25:50,600 --> 00:25:54,199
Speaker 1: the myriad of experiences of single Black women. Queen Sugar

444
00:25:54,359 --> 00:25:57,760
Speaker 1: is doing a great job looking at the experiences of

445
00:25:58,359 --> 00:26:01,199
Speaker 1: unmarried and unpartnered Black women, and so there are numerous

446
00:26:01,280 --> 00:26:05,240
Speaker 1: representations out there that offer more nuance and more depths

447
00:26:05,240 --> 00:26:09,520
Speaker 1: into the kind of experiences of black women. But I'm

448
00:26:09,560 --> 00:26:12,880
Speaker 1: thinking about media literacy as being another domain for this

449
00:26:13,160 --> 00:26:16,159
Speaker 1: kind of pushback against some of this these kind of

450
00:26:16,200 --> 00:26:20,840
Speaker 1: stigmatized notions and messaging and really understanding that because we're

451
00:26:20,840 --> 00:26:23,800
Speaker 1: seeing it in popular culture, because we're seeing it on television,

452
00:26:23,840 --> 00:26:26,240
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that it is that there's any kind of

453
00:26:26,280 --> 00:26:29,000
Speaker 1: truth to it, right. But that's the problem with media

454
00:26:29,080 --> 00:26:31,399
Speaker 1: is that it kind of creates its own reality and

455
00:26:31,400 --> 00:26:34,199
Speaker 1: creates its own narratives. And so the more that we

456
00:26:34,240 --> 00:26:38,400
Speaker 1: are consuming these messages about maybe single women as toxic,

457
00:26:38,600 --> 00:26:43,800
Speaker 1: single women, as desperate, single women, as antagonistic or combative,

458
00:26:44,359 --> 00:26:46,879
Speaker 1: the more that that shapes our ideas about the world

459
00:26:46,880 --> 00:26:50,240
Speaker 1: as well. And so again I'm a big proponent media.

460
00:26:50,480 --> 00:26:52,600
Speaker 1: There are any number of things in our environment that

461
00:26:52,680 --> 00:26:55,919
Speaker 1: we can't control. One thing that we can absolutely control

462
00:26:56,080 --> 00:26:59,080
Speaker 1: is the imagery and the content that we consume. And

463
00:26:59,160 --> 00:27:01,679
Speaker 1: so another kind of site for intervention would be just

464
00:27:01,720 --> 00:27:05,119
Speaker 1: sort of being very intentional about what you're actually consuming,

465
00:27:05,119 --> 00:27:08,600
Speaker 1: what messages you're tending to, what content you're taking in.

466
00:27:08,960 --> 00:27:11,120
Speaker 1: I think that's going back to her earlier comment about

467
00:27:11,160 --> 00:27:13,280
Speaker 1: social media. I think that that's one of the things

468
00:27:13,280 --> 00:27:16,240
Speaker 1: that has been really encouraging, right, is that people have

469
00:27:16,400 --> 00:27:19,360
Speaker 1: been you know, like independent creators are able to kind

470
00:27:19,359 --> 00:27:23,320
Speaker 1: of share their like short films or different web series

471
00:27:23,400 --> 00:27:25,960
Speaker 1: or those kinds of things with a wider audience that

472
00:27:26,080 --> 00:27:30,320
Speaker 1: might not have been able to access that before. Absolutely, absolutely,

473
00:27:30,359 --> 00:27:33,239
Speaker 1: and so YouTube can be I mean, well, YouTube has

474
00:27:33,240 --> 00:27:36,760
Speaker 1: its problems as well, there's right like without its its critique,

475
00:27:36,800 --> 00:27:40,040
Speaker 1: but um, you can find and access a wider range

476
00:27:40,040 --> 00:27:43,360
Speaker 1: of imagery and a wider range of messages and representations

477
00:27:43,359 --> 00:27:45,480
Speaker 1: for sure. And I want to also go back to

478
00:27:45,480 --> 00:27:47,560
Speaker 1: your earlier point, Dr Woman, because I don't know that

479
00:27:47,600 --> 00:27:50,880
Speaker 1: I had thought about all of the different kinds of

480
00:27:50,920 --> 00:27:55,359
Speaker 1: things that like single women would be more interested in

481
00:27:55,600 --> 00:27:58,600
Speaker 1: than like just dating advice. I want to hear more

482
00:27:58,720 --> 00:28:02,760
Speaker 1: about the idea of like people being interested in opening

483
00:28:02,800 --> 00:28:05,479
Speaker 1: businesses and like how do you open an I ra A?

484
00:28:05,840 --> 00:28:07,600
Speaker 1: Like are there other things that have come up in

485
00:28:07,640 --> 00:28:11,240
Speaker 1: your research around other things that these women are interested in?

486
00:28:11,240 --> 00:28:13,480
Speaker 1: In terms of thinking about kind of how we are

487
00:28:13,560 --> 00:28:17,439
Speaker 1: popularly representing or popularly thinking about being single, we have

488
00:28:17,640 --> 00:28:20,600
Speaker 1: any number and I've been highlighting about stereotypes, but any

489
00:28:20,680 --> 00:28:23,000
Speaker 1: number of common messages. I almost want to leave space

490
00:28:23,040 --> 00:28:25,399
Speaker 1: for your listeners to chime in and the radio it's like,

491
00:28:26,200 --> 00:28:34,200
Speaker 1: what do you think being desperate? Right? Um? And so

492
00:28:35,240 --> 00:28:40,640
Speaker 1: again stepping back and thinking of a life holistically, not

493
00:28:40,760 --> 00:28:42,720
Speaker 1: everybody's trying to find a man. First of all, not

494
00:28:42,800 --> 00:28:46,280
Speaker 1: everybody wants to be married. Some people are very happy

495
00:28:46,400 --> 00:28:48,959
Speaker 1: being single, and that was one of the features of

496
00:28:49,000 --> 00:28:51,080
Speaker 1: the interviews that came out. And so what does that

497
00:28:51,160 --> 00:28:53,640
Speaker 1: mean If you're not focused on finding a partner and

498
00:28:53,680 --> 00:28:57,000
Speaker 1: you're content being single, You're gonna want to invest your

499
00:28:57,080 --> 00:29:00,840
Speaker 1: energy into yourself and invest your energy into kind of

500
00:29:00,880 --> 00:29:03,720
Speaker 1: being the person and becoming the person that you want

501
00:29:03,720 --> 00:29:06,640
Speaker 1: to be. And so I think one of the things

502
00:29:06,720 --> 00:29:09,680
Speaker 1: that really speaks to this is the ways that we

503
00:29:09,720 --> 00:29:13,360
Speaker 1: advise one another. And so there's a gat and black

504
00:29:13,360 --> 00:29:16,160
Speaker 1: women advising one another, and so any any number of

505
00:29:16,200 --> 00:29:18,719
Speaker 1: us can point to advice we've been given from friends,

506
00:29:18,760 --> 00:29:21,360
Speaker 1: family about how to get a man. But I think

507
00:29:21,720 --> 00:29:24,000
Speaker 1: we can also point to advice from friends and family

508
00:29:24,040 --> 00:29:26,800
Speaker 1: about how we should grow in ourselves and how we

509
00:29:26,840 --> 00:29:31,600
Speaker 1: should focus on developing ourselves as women and establishing security

510
00:29:31,640 --> 00:29:35,480
Speaker 1: for ourselves as women before we pursue romantic relationships, right,

511
00:29:35,880 --> 00:29:39,800
Speaker 1: And so thinking about going to college or getting a degree,

512
00:29:40,040 --> 00:29:45,360
Speaker 1: getting a professional certification, experiencing the world, you know, working

513
00:29:45,360 --> 00:29:48,719
Speaker 1: in different kind of contexts, all of these were priorities

514
00:29:48,760 --> 00:29:52,440
Speaker 1: for my participants, so much so that there was almost

515
00:29:52,520 --> 00:29:55,000
Speaker 1: kind of a drumbeat or a kind of common refrain

516
00:29:55,120 --> 00:29:58,360
Speaker 1: going on among participants about you know, leave them boys

517
00:29:58,360 --> 00:30:03,200
Speaker 1: alone and just focus on your education, or you know,

518
00:30:03,800 --> 00:30:06,880
Speaker 1: you need to work on getting your degree, work on

519
00:30:06,920 --> 00:30:10,760
Speaker 1: getting your job, work on seeing the world, work on

520
00:30:10,800 --> 00:30:14,280
Speaker 1: getting your property, work on getting your savings together, and

521
00:30:14,320 --> 00:30:16,680
Speaker 1: then at that point you can start thinking about dating

522
00:30:16,680 --> 00:30:21,920
Speaker 1: and relationships. And so that narrative, I think really speaks

523
00:30:21,920 --> 00:30:25,400
Speaker 1: to the alternative ways that women conceptualize being single for

524
00:30:25,440 --> 00:30:31,640
Speaker 1: themselves as a growth oriented, purpose driven values kind of

525
00:30:31,720 --> 00:30:36,120
Speaker 1: guided phase of life where you know, I'm very much

526
00:30:36,120 --> 00:30:39,600
Speaker 1: a person that subscribes to the idea of purpose and

527
00:30:39,680 --> 00:30:43,400
Speaker 1: living in one's purpose, and my participants really spoke to

528
00:30:43,480 --> 00:30:46,120
Speaker 1: that idea of I need to be living in my

529
00:30:46,200 --> 00:30:51,320
Speaker 1: purpose and being single, being unpartnered or dating provides me

530
00:30:51,400 --> 00:30:54,640
Speaker 1: the opportunity to really focus in on my goals, to

531
00:30:54,720 --> 00:30:58,320
Speaker 1: really focus in on my priorities, and to hone and

532
00:30:58,360 --> 00:31:01,240
Speaker 1: grow and develop those areas is of life. And what

533
00:31:01,320 --> 00:31:03,920
Speaker 1: I would say, again, I'm not a mental health professional,

534
00:31:03,960 --> 00:31:06,440
Speaker 1: so I don't want to confuse participants by saying our

535
00:31:06,520 --> 00:31:10,760
Speaker 1: participants goodness, by saying, you know that this is kind

536
00:31:10,760 --> 00:31:13,560
Speaker 1: of a piece of advice. Ay that they should take,

537
00:31:13,560 --> 00:31:15,640
Speaker 1: but be that they should consider is coming from a

538
00:31:15,640 --> 00:31:19,080
Speaker 1: mental health perspective or sort of grounded in the work.

539
00:31:20,080 --> 00:31:23,280
Speaker 1: Think about goals that you have for yourself and missions

540
00:31:23,320 --> 00:31:26,040
Speaker 1: that you want to achieve for yourself. Have you been

541
00:31:26,320 --> 00:31:30,880
Speaker 1: developing an idea for a small business or are you

542
00:31:30,880 --> 00:31:32,920
Speaker 1: trying to turn a hobby into something that's a stream

543
00:31:32,960 --> 00:31:35,840
Speaker 1: of income. Being single is a perfect time to do that.

544
00:31:36,440 --> 00:31:39,479
Speaker 1: You can focus more on your goals. You don't have

545
00:31:39,560 --> 00:31:43,040
Speaker 1: to worry about the responsibilities of relationships, because I think

546
00:31:43,080 --> 00:31:46,200
Speaker 1: that's another dimension of this, is that my participants weren't

547
00:31:46,200 --> 00:31:49,920
Speaker 1: really interested in being tied up with the responsibilities of relationships.

548
00:31:50,720 --> 00:31:53,240
Speaker 1: Having a man and kids is hard, and that is

549
00:31:53,280 --> 00:31:58,840
Speaker 1: time consuming, and it is resource consuming, and it requires

550
00:31:58,840 --> 00:32:01,320
Speaker 1: a lot of energy. You know, whether you have kids

551
00:32:01,400 --> 00:32:04,840
Speaker 1: or not, relationships require work. And so many of my

552
00:32:04,880 --> 00:32:07,479
Speaker 1: participants thought, and we see this in kind of broader

553
00:32:07,520 --> 00:32:09,920
Speaker 1: research as well, it's like I can invest that work

554
00:32:10,120 --> 00:32:12,400
Speaker 1: in that time and that energy and those resources into

555
00:32:12,440 --> 00:32:15,600
Speaker 1: another person, or I can think about as that as

556
00:32:15,640 --> 00:32:19,160
Speaker 1: a space and time to invest in myself. And so

557
00:32:19,960 --> 00:32:21,960
Speaker 1: that's another kind of thing I would lag for your

558
00:32:22,000 --> 00:32:24,600
Speaker 1: listeners is that single life can be an opportunity for

559
00:32:24,720 --> 00:32:28,480
Speaker 1: growth personal development, and it really just takes a bit

560
00:32:28,480 --> 00:32:31,400
Speaker 1: of strategizing and a little bit of thinking about kind

561
00:32:31,400 --> 00:32:34,880
Speaker 1: of how you want to tackle those next steps, you know,

562
00:32:35,080 --> 00:32:37,560
Speaker 1: of curating a single life for yourself, because the other

563
00:32:37,640 --> 00:32:39,800
Speaker 1: thing we have to really address is the fact that

564
00:32:39,840 --> 00:32:43,040
Speaker 1: some of us just aren't going to be partnered. And

565
00:32:43,200 --> 00:32:45,640
Speaker 1: I think that, you know, going back to this narrative

566
00:32:45,720 --> 00:32:48,160
Speaker 1: of first you go to school, then you get a job,

567
00:32:48,200 --> 00:32:52,239
Speaker 1: then you travel, etcetera, etcetera. Built into that idea is

568
00:32:52,320 --> 00:32:54,520
Speaker 1: the expectation that at the end of that, you know,

569
00:32:54,640 --> 00:32:58,480
Speaker 1: kind of paved golden road, is a man, is a family,

570
00:32:59,360 --> 00:33:04,320
Speaker 1: is all of these kind of markers of success around marriage.

571
00:33:04,720 --> 00:33:08,160
Speaker 1: And we just know that doesn't happen for some Black women, right,

572
00:33:08,280 --> 00:33:10,520
Speaker 1: Black women. And this is no judgment on us, it's

573
00:33:10,520 --> 00:33:13,479
Speaker 1: not it's that critique of our character, but we have

574
00:33:13,600 --> 00:33:16,160
Speaker 1: the highest rates of being single of any kind of

575
00:33:16,520 --> 00:33:21,320
Speaker 1: group of women in the country. Currently, sixty of Black

576
00:33:21,360 --> 00:33:24,600
Speaker 1: women over the age of fifteen are not married. That

577
00:33:24,640 --> 00:33:27,760
Speaker 1: doesn't determine anyone's life course, certainly because we know that

578
00:33:28,680 --> 00:33:30,960
Speaker 1: percent of black women get married at some point in

579
00:33:31,000 --> 00:33:33,800
Speaker 1: their life, right, so the majority of us do kind

580
00:33:33,800 --> 00:33:37,040
Speaker 1: of get married, but that's not guaranteed for all of us.

581
00:33:37,120 --> 00:33:39,320
Speaker 1: And so I would just say and and kind of

582
00:33:39,400 --> 00:33:42,800
Speaker 1: encourage your your listeners to think about, well, you know,

583
00:33:43,080 --> 00:33:45,680
Speaker 1: not not to to speak anything into existence, but if

584
00:33:45,720 --> 00:33:48,600
Speaker 1: this was my life, if being unpartnered was my life,

585
00:33:49,120 --> 00:33:51,000
Speaker 1: how would I want to live that life in a

586
00:33:51,040 --> 00:33:54,160
Speaker 1: way that a reflected my purpose but be kind of

587
00:33:54,240 --> 00:33:57,480
Speaker 1: challenged me to grow and push beyond my comfort zone,

588
00:33:57,800 --> 00:34:01,200
Speaker 1: to accomplish things that maybe I had dreamed about accomplishing

589
00:34:01,600 --> 00:34:04,800
Speaker 1: but really never saw myself doing. Because it is a

590
00:34:04,880 --> 00:34:07,640
Speaker 1: space where you have more freedom than nest than you

591
00:34:07,680 --> 00:34:10,439
Speaker 1: would if you were in a kind of partnership. Yeah,

592
00:34:10,440 --> 00:34:12,840
Speaker 1: and I do think, you know, it's also encouraging to

593
00:34:12,920 --> 00:34:15,399
Speaker 1: think about Dr Mormon that there is space for these

594
00:34:15,440 --> 00:34:19,279
Speaker 1: conversations now, right, because I think maybe twenty years ago,

595
00:34:19,520 --> 00:34:21,920
Speaker 1: we would not be having this kind of a conversation, right,

596
00:34:21,920 --> 00:34:24,160
Speaker 1: We would be talking about all of the things that

597
00:34:24,200 --> 00:34:27,200
Speaker 1: you laid out in terms of respectability and like this

598
00:34:27,280 --> 00:34:29,440
Speaker 1: is the natural life course of what a black woman's

599
00:34:29,480 --> 00:34:32,240
Speaker 1: life should look like. And so I think just having

600
00:34:32,239 --> 00:34:36,280
Speaker 1: these conversations allows more people to kind of define their

601
00:34:36,320 --> 00:34:41,080
Speaker 1: lives in ways that don't necessarily include partners or children. Absolutely,

602
00:34:41,239 --> 00:34:43,680
Speaker 1: you set the word defined there, and I think that

603
00:34:43,680 --> 00:34:46,399
Speaker 1: that is the word. How are we defining unmarried life

604
00:34:46,400 --> 00:34:50,359
Speaker 1: for ourselves? How are we defining single life for ourselves?

605
00:34:50,840 --> 00:34:54,279
Speaker 1: We could frame our experiences in the context of what

606
00:34:54,360 --> 00:34:58,200
Speaker 1: we don't have lack I don't have a partner, I

607
00:34:58,239 --> 00:35:01,160
Speaker 1: don't have kids in marriage, I don't have the family

608
00:35:01,239 --> 00:35:04,000
Speaker 1: I have envisioned. Or we could think and frame our

609
00:35:04,040 --> 00:35:07,160
Speaker 1: lives in the framework of abundance. I have time to

610
00:35:07,239 --> 00:35:12,520
Speaker 1: pursue the experiences and the kind of accomplishments that I

611
00:35:12,560 --> 00:35:15,759
Speaker 1: want to take on. I have space to reinvent and

612
00:35:15,800 --> 00:35:20,400
Speaker 1: reimagine myself again and again and again. I have flexibility

613
00:35:20,440 --> 00:35:23,800
Speaker 1: and availability with my time to be in service of

614
00:35:24,040 --> 00:35:27,200
Speaker 1: my family, you know, my friends and loved ones who

615
00:35:27,239 --> 00:35:30,200
Speaker 1: I found in in this world, or you know, to

616
00:35:30,280 --> 00:35:32,719
Speaker 1: take on the role of a mentor in my community.

617
00:35:33,120 --> 00:35:35,279
Speaker 1: And so that's one other kind of key thing, is

618
00:35:35,320 --> 00:35:38,600
Speaker 1: just thinking about how we're framing these ideas for ourselves.

619
00:35:39,080 --> 00:35:41,400
Speaker 1: Single life is what you make of it, it really is.

620
00:35:41,880 --> 00:35:43,960
Speaker 1: Single life is how you think of it. And so

621
00:35:44,200 --> 00:35:48,040
Speaker 1: again encouraging folks to maybe step back and take account

622
00:35:48,080 --> 00:35:50,000
Speaker 1: of some of the ways and ideas that they have

623
00:35:50,080 --> 00:35:52,840
Speaker 1: been talking to themselves about being single, some of the

624
00:35:52,880 --> 00:35:55,959
Speaker 1: beliefs that they have about being single, and mapping those

625
00:35:55,960 --> 00:35:59,040
Speaker 1: back to their own experience, Like do I really believe

626
00:35:59,080 --> 00:36:01,520
Speaker 1: that I'm desperate simply because I don't have a man,

627
00:36:01,960 --> 00:36:04,440
Speaker 1: Or is that the belief out of sync with my

628
00:36:04,520 --> 00:36:08,080
Speaker 1: experience and out of sync with how I see myself? Yeah,

629
00:36:08,360 --> 00:36:12,200
Speaker 1: So what's next for your research active women? So one

630
00:36:12,239 --> 00:36:14,960
Speaker 1: of the things that I'm tending to is thinking about

631
00:36:15,000 --> 00:36:18,360
Speaker 1: the question of age and retirement in the context of

632
00:36:18,400 --> 00:36:22,480
Speaker 1: single life for Black women. Before I took on this project,

633
00:36:23,000 --> 00:36:25,319
Speaker 1: I never thought of, for example, my granny as being

634
00:36:25,360 --> 00:36:28,080
Speaker 1: a single black woman or being a single woman. She

635
00:36:28,239 --> 00:36:31,239
Speaker 1: was just granny. But I realized it's like well, as

636
00:36:31,280 --> 00:36:36,319
Speaker 1: an unmarried woman. There are particular challenges around saving for retirement,

637
00:36:37,040 --> 00:36:43,080
Speaker 1: around maintaining the home, around preserving one's health, around managing

638
00:36:43,320 --> 00:36:45,840
Speaker 1: kind of just day to day aspects that can become

639
00:36:45,840 --> 00:36:48,719
Speaker 1: more laborious as you age. And I think that that

640
00:36:48,880 --> 00:36:50,680
Speaker 1: is gonna I know for me, that's going to be

641
00:36:50,760 --> 00:36:54,520
Speaker 1: the next kind of area of exploration. And so in

642
00:36:54,600 --> 00:36:58,759
Speaker 1: this first project, I looked at women toty six. In

643
00:36:58,840 --> 00:37:02,239
Speaker 1: this next round of studies because I plan on ultimately

644
00:37:02,280 --> 00:37:05,640
Speaker 1: turning all of these interviews into a book. This next

645
00:37:05,760 --> 00:37:07,920
Speaker 1: round of data collection that I'm looking to do will

646
00:37:07,960 --> 00:37:10,839
Speaker 1: be done with women between the ages of fifty and eighty,

647
00:37:10,920 --> 00:37:15,240
Speaker 1: and so thinking about how retirement planning goes for someone

648
00:37:15,360 --> 00:37:18,880
Speaker 1: who doesn't have the benefit of a dual income. How

649
00:37:19,200 --> 00:37:22,239
Speaker 1: does kind of support and social support in the home?

650
00:37:22,360 --> 00:37:24,719
Speaker 1: What does that look like for somebody who's I'm partnered.

651
00:37:25,040 --> 00:37:28,120
Speaker 1: We have to think about alternative living arrangements, you know,

652
00:37:28,160 --> 00:37:30,800
Speaker 1: perhaps living with a sister, living with a best friend.

653
00:37:31,360 --> 00:37:34,560
Speaker 1: Do we need to think about alternative ways of wealth

654
00:37:34,600 --> 00:37:39,680
Speaker 1: building buying property with a collective of women. My research

655
00:37:39,719 --> 00:37:41,800
Speaker 1: takes place in the city of Detroit. I'm a Detroit

656
00:37:41,880 --> 00:37:44,960
Speaker 1: or shout out to Detroit, and that's a space where

657
00:37:45,760 --> 00:37:47,719
Speaker 1: you know, real estate is a is a big kind

658
00:37:47,719 --> 00:37:51,160
Speaker 1: of question, and ownership of property and you can kind

659
00:37:51,200 --> 00:37:53,040
Speaker 1: of have you could buy have a block if you

660
00:37:53,080 --> 00:37:56,280
Speaker 1: wanted to, very very literally in Detroit. And so thinking

661
00:37:56,320 --> 00:38:01,000
Speaker 1: about how the process of buying operator or the process

662
00:38:01,000 --> 00:38:04,480
Speaker 1: of community building, um, how that has to look intentional

663
00:38:04,560 --> 00:38:07,919
Speaker 1: for women who are older, just because I mean, we're

664
00:38:07,960 --> 00:38:11,279
Speaker 1: human creatures. We can't do everything on our own. Especially

665
00:38:11,360 --> 00:38:14,760
Speaker 1: you know, as our bodies just naturally change and age,

666
00:38:15,160 --> 00:38:17,360
Speaker 1: and so that's one of the kind of bigger questions,

667
00:38:17,360 --> 00:38:19,759
Speaker 1: and I think one of the biggest questions we're gonna

668
00:38:19,800 --> 00:38:23,080
Speaker 1: have to face as a society truthfully, is how are

669
00:38:23,160 --> 00:38:28,040
Speaker 1: single women managing their experiences of of retirement, of aging,

670
00:38:28,320 --> 00:38:31,640
Speaker 1: of maintaining their health and older years. Well, that definitely

671
00:38:31,640 --> 00:38:34,919
Speaker 1: sounds very exciting. Dr Mormons that we will definitely stay

672
00:38:34,960 --> 00:38:36,880
Speaker 1: in touch and want you to stay in touch and

673
00:38:36,960 --> 00:38:38,720
Speaker 1: with the community to let us know when the book

674
00:38:38,760 --> 00:38:41,880
Speaker 1: is happening and when this next round of research is released.

675
00:38:42,160 --> 00:38:45,799
Speaker 1: Absolutely so, where can people find you online? Do you

676
00:38:45,840 --> 00:38:48,360
Speaker 1: have a website or any social media handles you'd like

677
00:38:48,440 --> 00:38:51,280
Speaker 1: to share? Sure? But can I share one final thought

678
00:38:51,360 --> 00:38:55,040
Speaker 1: with you all before we sign off? Yeah? Absolutely so.

679
00:38:55,320 --> 00:38:57,759
Speaker 1: One of the things that I would again advice take

680
00:38:57,800 --> 00:39:00,600
Speaker 1: it with a grain of salt. People. The things that

681
00:39:00,680 --> 00:39:04,239
Speaker 1: I would kind of encourage your listeners to do is

682
00:39:04,280 --> 00:39:09,600
Speaker 1: to be very again intentional about planning their single life. Right,

683
00:39:09,719 --> 00:39:11,760
Speaker 1: there's a lot of things we just kind of can't

684
00:39:11,800 --> 00:39:16,520
Speaker 1: take for chance because we don't have marital partners. So,

685
00:39:16,600 --> 00:39:19,799
Speaker 1: for example, talking about the role of a dual income household,

686
00:39:20,440 --> 00:39:23,200
Speaker 1: single black women are just making less money than they're

687
00:39:23,239 --> 00:39:27,000
Speaker 1: married peers, which has implications for how you can save

688
00:39:27,080 --> 00:39:30,640
Speaker 1: and spend money. And so I would encourage your listeners

689
00:39:31,080 --> 00:39:34,800
Speaker 1: to be very intentional about planning their single lives, thinking

690
00:39:34,800 --> 00:39:38,719
Speaker 1: about who, for example, they can turn to when they

691
00:39:38,760 --> 00:39:41,759
Speaker 1: are in need of help or assistance, and creating a

692
00:39:41,880 --> 00:39:44,880
Speaker 1: very kind of clear and intentional system of support with

693
00:39:45,000 --> 00:39:49,000
Speaker 1: maybe friends, family, or neighbors. Knowing your neighbors is going

694
00:39:49,040 --> 00:39:51,120
Speaker 1: to be very important because you don't want to be

695
00:39:51,200 --> 00:39:53,839
Speaker 1: in a situation where, for example, your power goes out

696
00:39:54,680 --> 00:39:57,680
Speaker 1: and you don't know who's around you, right, And so

697
00:39:57,880 --> 00:40:00,400
Speaker 1: I would encourage your listeners to be a very intentional about,

698
00:40:00,800 --> 00:40:04,320
Speaker 1: you know, how they're planning their finances, how they're building

699
00:40:04,480 --> 00:40:08,040
Speaker 1: community and social support, what they intend to do with

700
00:40:08,120 --> 00:40:12,239
Speaker 1: their time, and shifting away from this idea that you know,

701
00:40:12,400 --> 00:40:14,719
Speaker 1: being single is something you know, I have to get

702
00:40:14,719 --> 00:40:17,719
Speaker 1: a man, for example, and thinking about it more intentionally

703
00:40:17,760 --> 00:40:20,239
Speaker 1: about what do I want my life to look like?

704
00:40:20,560 --> 00:40:22,400
Speaker 1: And so I would just encourage your listeners who are

705
00:40:22,440 --> 00:40:25,279
Speaker 1: single to put together your single woman action plan. Who

706
00:40:25,360 --> 00:40:27,560
Speaker 1: is going to be my major health contact, What does

707
00:40:27,600 --> 00:40:30,640
Speaker 1: my retirement program look like? Who can I turn to

708
00:40:30,760 --> 00:40:34,280
Speaker 1: in times of crisis. I would also say one final

709
00:40:34,360 --> 00:40:37,840
Speaker 1: thing is about advice is take all advice with a

710
00:40:37,880 --> 00:40:43,320
Speaker 1: grain of salt, right, so a particularly in popular cultural contexts.

711
00:40:43,360 --> 00:40:46,880
Speaker 1: So thinking about you know, maybe Steve Harvey works for you.

712
00:40:47,120 --> 00:40:49,759
Speaker 1: I'm not here to judge anyone, but be critical of

713
00:40:49,800 --> 00:40:52,680
Speaker 1: the messages that you encounter about single women. And if

714
00:40:52,719 --> 00:40:55,560
Speaker 1: something doesn't feel right, you don't have to subscribe to it,

715
00:40:55,640 --> 00:40:59,960
Speaker 1: you can reject it. All advice is there for a reason,

716
00:41:00,040 --> 00:41:02,720
Speaker 1: and take what works for you and leave the rest.

717
00:41:03,280 --> 00:41:04,719
Speaker 1: So I think that would be my final thought for

718
00:41:04,760 --> 00:41:08,279
Speaker 1: your listeners today. Perfect. We appreciate that. So where can

719
00:41:08,360 --> 00:41:11,400
Speaker 1: people find you online? You can find me acting a

720
00:41:11,440 --> 00:41:16,880
Speaker 1: full on Twitter at j D Mormon m O O

721
00:41:17,320 --> 00:41:19,320
Speaker 1: R M A N so it's at j D. Mormon

722
00:41:19,480 --> 00:41:22,400
Speaker 1: all one word, and then you can find me acting

723
00:41:22,480 --> 00:41:26,360
Speaker 1: less of fool on Instagram at professor Underscore j D. M.

724
00:41:26,640 --> 00:41:28,560
Speaker 1: I don't have a website, but if you're interested in

725
00:41:28,560 --> 00:41:31,120
Speaker 1: knowing more about my work, and one of my website

726
00:41:31,120 --> 00:41:33,000
Speaker 1: will be going live, those would be two of the

727
00:41:33,000 --> 00:41:35,720
Speaker 1: places you can find me Perfect, but we will include

728
00:41:35,760 --> 00:41:38,280
Speaker 1: all of those in the show notes. I really appreciate

729
00:41:38,320 --> 00:41:40,880
Speaker 1: you sharing with us today, Dr Mormon, Oh, no problem.

730
00:41:40,960 --> 00:41:46,640
Speaker 1: Thank you for inviting me this one. Absolutely. I'm still

731
00:41:46,640 --> 00:41:49,319
Speaker 1: glad Dr Mormon was able to share her expertise with

732
00:41:49,400 --> 00:41:52,640
Speaker 1: us today. To find out more information about her, be

733
00:41:52,760 --> 00:41:55,000
Speaker 1: sure to check out the show notes at Therapy for

734
00:41:55,040 --> 00:41:59,000
Speaker 1: Black Girls dot Com slash Session one thirty two, and

735
00:41:59,120 --> 00:42:01,399
Speaker 1: don't forget to show are this episode with two people

736
00:42:01,440 --> 00:42:04,120
Speaker 1: in your circle, And don't forget to share your takeaways

737
00:42:04,160 --> 00:42:06,440
Speaker 1: with us either on Twitter or in your I G

738
00:42:06,640 --> 00:42:10,600
Speaker 1: stories using the hashtag TPG in session. If you're searching

739
00:42:10,600 --> 00:42:13,080
Speaker 1: for a therapist in your area, be sure to check

740
00:42:13,120 --> 00:42:16,120
Speaker 1: out our therapist directory at Therapy for Black Girls dot

741
00:42:16,160 --> 00:42:19,840
Speaker 1: com slash directory. And if you want to continue digging

742
00:42:19,880 --> 00:42:22,760
Speaker 1: into this topic and meet some other sisters in your area,

743
00:42:23,080 --> 00:42:25,600
Speaker 1: come on over and join us in the Yellow Couch Collective,

744
00:42:25,760 --> 00:42:27,960
Speaker 1: where we take a deeper dive into those topics from

745
00:42:27,960 --> 00:42:31,359
Speaker 1: the podcast and just about everything else. You can join

746
00:42:31,440 --> 00:42:34,279
Speaker 1: us at Therapy for Black Girls dot com slash y

747
00:42:34,360 --> 00:42:37,200
Speaker 1: c C. Thank y'all so much for joining me again

748
00:42:37,200 --> 00:42:39,960
Speaker 1: this week. I look forward to continue in this conversation

749
00:42:40,000 --> 00:42:42,399
Speaker 1: with you all real soon. Take a care