“Single Ladies” is the name of a song by Beyoncé from her 2008 album, celebrating the ‘single’ status of women. Over a decade later, India has more than 72 million single women, including those who are widowed, divorced, separated and the ones who never married (according to the 2011 census data). The Indian statistics is remarkable not only because of the unprecedented size of the demography but also because the stigma against single women is formidable. Age-old patriarchal structures and a regressive value system continue to perpetuate a culture of violence against and disdain for them.
There has been a rise of about 39% in single women, from 51.2 million in 2001 to 71.4 million in 2011. The prevailing, dominant narrative is that single women are pushing back against the trappings of a ‘bad marriage’ and embracing the alternative of being single. The celebratory discourse on singlehood is laudable. But it often slips into glorifying consumerism as an alternative to mask the isolation and violence this constituency experiences in their everyday lives.
According to a report by ILOSTAT (2020), the percentage of the female labour force who are single stands at 33%. Single women have a higher workforce participation rate than the average rate of women workforce participation in South Asia. The critical question is this: is the growing category of economically empowered single women in India an emerging potential market for capitalism? Are these women falling into just another trap of capitalistic consumerism in their bid to resist patriarchy?
After all, women have always been the target of capitalistic enterprises selling consumer goods because of the prevailing cultural assumption that women are prone to compulsive shopping and consumption. Earlier, ‘rich housewives’ used to specifically constitute a target group of this kind of enterprise. This category seems to be now expanding to include ‘single women’ — a doubly vulnerable constituency on the margins of heteronormative patriarchy — with purchasing power.
Substantial economic empowerment of at least a segment of Indian women has meant that the latter are in a position — finally — to exercise their agency to seek material pleasures that patriarchy denied them for centuries. The joy and the sense of personal liberty that accompany economic empowerment are new experiences for them. It is only natural for them to be swayed by these. But let’s pause for a moment to ask ourselves this question: can the freedom of choice offered by the market guarantee real emancipation for women? Should self-indulgence in consumeristic pleasure be the only substitute for missing out on the provisions, rights and pleasures of an egalitarian social order? Can ‘pleasure’ be redefined beyond the limits set by capitalistic consumerism?
Through her life-long work revolving around the idea of ‘capitalism/patriarchy’, the Italian-American feminist scholar and activist, Silvia Federici, highlighted the deep nexus between the two systems of exploitation and how they work hand-in-hand. Her political position is a shout-out to all women — smash patriarchy and resist capitalism. Echoing Federici, it can thus be argued that seeking freedom within the limits of a capitalistic market does not emancipate women. It merely signals the transposing of women from one realm of entrapment to another. Feminism that ‘resists’ patriarchy within the limits of capitalism is no feminism at all.
Shaoni Shabnam is Assistant Professor, St. Xavier's College (Autonomous)
