wives or mothers

I realized this morning that I had not subscribed to Marktd on Bloglines, despite having added it to my blog roll, which means I have not been reading it. I just remedied that situation and came across this from Learned on Women. Andrea Learned writes about a recent Boston Globe article about the increasing number of people who are single and happy about that fact. According to the Globe article, the percentage of people between the ages of 30 and 34 who have never been married grew from about 8 percent to about 28 percent between 1970 and 2003.

Because Learned is someone who specializes in marketing to women, she also points out a recent survey of women who have never been married which comes to the conclusion that women are now more likely to say that their singledom is not due to the fact that no one ever wanted them. Instead, their justification is that they have never found the person that they want to be with.

(This is where my grandmother would say something about lowering standards.)

Learned's point is that marketers need to get their heads out of their asses and move past the antiquated notion that all women are wives or mothers (or even girlfriends) or will be in their lifetime. And that maybe supporting them (us!) in that decision will gain marketers the trust and loyalty that they are looking for from their customers.