Single people are not a college-aged monolith.
Unfortunately, within the church, they’re often treated as such. According to the U.S. Census Bureau in 2017, the average age of marriage is twenty-eight. This skews a little younger for women, and a little older for men. In my lifetime, the average age of marriage has increased by six years. I want to start by acknowledging that I know this demographic of “older singles” is a new demographic for The (big c) Church. Continue reading
There are approximately 1,350 words beyond this point. This blog will take the average adult reader about four and a half minutes to read.
Raise your hand if you have ever been told a variation of, “You’ll understand [some aspect of Christian life] when you [reach a certain life milestone].”
Consider this blog a part two to Christian. Woman. Single. Continue reading
There are about 1,160 words beyond this point. This blog will take the average adult about four minutes to read.
“You’d be a really pretty girl if you just lost a few pounds.”
I’ve heard this countless times in my life. It happened most when I was a cashier at a grocery store. It happens from time to time when I’m just being overweight in public view. It still happens—and I’ve lost more than a few pounds, but am still certainly overweight. I wrote about this in more detail in The way we talk about overweightness needs to change. Continue reading
This blog will take the average adult reader five minutes to read.
I am thirty-one.
For the entirety of my thirty-one years I have been woman. For the entirety of my thirty-one years, I have been going to Christian churches. For the entirety of my thirty-one years, I have been single.
This specific blog post is geared toward single Christian women—whether you fit those descriptors or not, you’re welcome here—but I’m going to be writing under the auspice that my primary audience is women who are single and are Christian. Please forgive my Christianese, at times—and if you choose to keep reading, and want any explanations/translations, please let me know.
This blog will take the average adult reader about four minutes to read.
The premise of this blog is this: I am not a dude.
I’ve been treated dudely since I was a kid. (Yes, I just turned “dude” into an adverb. Deal with it.) My mother will recount the story of how I came home from school from the first day of kindergarten—after she bought me all dresses (and I apparently loved them)—and demanded pants as my primary butt coverer. My favorite toy in elementary school was my roller blades. I wanted to be a speed skater. I wanted to run the Iditarod. I joined my first sports teams in the second grade. From then until the time I graduated from high school, I played basketball, volleyball—and twelve years of softball. I wanted to be the first female to pitch for the Mariners. (I’ve since let go of that dream.)
(This blog will take the average adult approximately six minutes to read.)
I don’t think I’ve managed to keep it a secret how I feel about women’s ministry. Like. Ever. I’ve probably erred on the side of being a total arsehole when it comes to my opinions of women’s ministry.
And I want to be clear, before I go any further, that I fully acknowledge that women’s ministry is a huge blessing for many women—for some women, the various forms that women’s ministry is extremely helpful and edifying. I get that. But I also want to be emphatic that much like pants—yoga or otherwise—women’s ministry is not, and I don’t think can be, a one-size-fits-all ministry. I’ve seen it treated largely as such.
A Blog for Shitty Women 