Arguably, feminism is the most influential social and political driver of singlehood. The global rise of singlehood is eroding the structure at the heart of patriarchy—the heteronormative family. This presentation reveals the interplay between feminism and singlehood, contemplating how these social phenomena influence, advance, and obstruct each other.

Singlehood revolution is directly related to the unique braiding of the feminist second wave, the gay rights movement, and the sexual revolution in the 1960s and 1970s. If not for universal suffrage, women’s rights to education, work, and divorce, and the continuing fight for women’s reproductive rights and equal wages, women would still be without the choice to leave or escape unsuitable unions, refuse unacceptable offers, or remain single from personal desire. Further, the sexual revolution and gay rights movement opened the way for the broad acceptance of sexual diversity and single parenthood. Introducing the title, Ms. as an alternative to Miss, or Mrs, emancipated women from being identified through their partner. Introducing the word, single, to indicate relationship status, attempted to eradicate the stigma of spinsterhood.

Without feminism, singlehood would not be the phenomenon we are compelled to reflect on because the freedom achieved for women to choose singlehood, for whatever reason, is now a freedom widely available to everyone. However, being single carries a stigma which Bella DePaulo(2004) named, singlism, and feminism continues to conflate womanhood with motherhood and wifedom. Reflecting on the work of Professors Rachel F. Moran (2004), Kinneret Lahad (Lahad, 2017), and Sasha Roseneil et al (2020), and drawing on the Australian experience of feminism and singlehood, this FSW lecture will reveal the factors that undermine feminist action and advocacy for the equality of single women without children who, due to the intersection of their gender, relationship status, and parental status continue to be socially and economically marginalized and disadvantaged.

Donna Ward is the CEO of Singlehood Australia, affiliated with the University of Antwerp, and has past lives in social welfare management, research and policy development, and psychotherapy. Once a publisher, her prose appears in national and international literary journals, her memoir, She I Dare Not Name: A Spinster’s Meditations on Life, was released in 2020. In 2024, Shouting Out the Rat: on Singlehood and Feminism, was presented at the Third International Singles Studies Conference in Boston. Her review, Lodestar: Singular Selves: An Introduction to Singles Studies, Chowkhani and Wynne (eds.) is forthcoming in Tijdschrift voor Genderstudies.

​More info​

Date, place, time: the lecture will be a lunch seminar on Tuesday, September 9th, 2025 (12 AM - 2 PM)

Location: Stadscampus, de Meerminne, room s.M.101 (St-Jacobsstraat 2, 2000 Antwerp)

Participation is free, but online registration is mandatory.

The lecture received support from A*, the Antwerp Gender and Sexuality Studies Network .