Shoshi Says is a titillating column about women’s issues.
Just when businesses and advertisers think they have women all
figured out enters a new category with serious buying power: the
single woman. It is projected that in 2005 single women will
spend $400 million dollars which has the business world standing
up and taking notice.
There use to be a time when single women were treated like
outcasts and looked on with pity. Unmarried women were secretly
called “spinsters” by friends and family if they were not wed by
the time they hit 30. The tide is beginning to turn as single
women send out the message that they can do for themselves.
Businesses as well as politicians are now checking in to see
what makes single women tick. The census data shows that 40% of
women between the ages of 25 to 29 are not married. While 23% of
women in the 30 to 34 age rage are not married. One can only
guess that the percent of single women over 30 will grow due to
the fact that more women are stating that marriage is not of
interest to them. The messages coming from single women are
diverse from choosing the single life as the preferred
lifestyle, choosing career over marriage first, to one person
homeownership.
Single women are beginning to take the country by storm, even
on the top hit show “Desperate Housewives” half of the
characters are single. Advertising companies are beginning to
get it when it comes appealing to the single woman. One
commercial has two women who are sitting down after a wedding
doing a high five for having “not” caught the bridal bouquet.
This message says that businesses are seeing that single women
are a viable market. That is girl power that is about to be in
full effect.