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I see it as a tradeoff. Marriage is good for society, so I'm fine with there being benefits associated with it. I just don't want to be one of those married people. I've got a very happy single life, and I don't answer to anyone but myself. It's kind of awesome.
Sure, I worry about having enough for retirement, but other than that, I am fine. And now that same-sex marriage is legal, I have the option of marrying a female friend when I'm older and having a nonsexual marriage in which we combine resources for our mutual benefit, so that's actually less of a concern now.
I was single for 45 years and did not feel that society or the government discriminated against me. However, I do think that opposite-sex domestic partners should have the same benefits that married couples do.
I am really happy that same sex marriage is now legal but now I think we need to tackle discrimination of singles. Do you feel singles are discriminated against? Singles pay more for insurance, vacations and many more areas. Singles do not get the social security benefits of married people. FMLA is geared toward married people. Its so ingrained in society that we don't notice it. When we get old, we won't have help like married people.
YES!
Single people have been discriminated against for as far back as I can remember - and none (except me) says a peep!
Forget the "social outcast" things from the 1950's. in more recent times, it's gotten outright vicious!
I was openly, to my face, discriminated against in three job interviews - outright denied the positions, simply because I was male, over 30, with no wedding band, and no little lady under my arm. When asked what grades my children were in I said I didn't have any. Asked what my wife did for a living I said I didn't have one {later adding.."not yet."]
The typical response: Oh, this is a family - oriented community, I don't think you'd like it here... (one of these "communities" was a city of 300,000 people). The others came up with equally obnoxious idiotic, completely irrelevant remarks.
I was highly qualified, known for being an excellent co-worker, had all the good credentials, white, etc., but it was the mid 80's and any single male I guess, no matter how straight looking and acting he was, was assumed to be gay and have AIDS.
I estimate that in the process, I lost over $500,000 in income. (This was a lucrative, rocket science field). I had to take hind tit jobs for 3 years, get further qualified, and was finally offered a position strictly because they needed to hire someone to "function as a buffer zone" in a department staffed by heterosexually married people who were behaving badly (at great legal risk to the institution), trying to slash each others throats! I accepted the position, predictably, became "Mr Popularity" and put every penny I could away to scram from that place asap. Which I did...because, it never ended - and of course, they habitually came to me to do their spouting off - never to each other. Thank goodness for retirement.
Ironically, the only other person in that department that knew how to behave at work - single female.
Then there's all those surcharges like insurance, etc., I won't get into that here. That's a whole nuther page.
And, a little OT, but btw, I am so sick of the gay-married guys in this neighborhood (where I must confine myself because I'm a single male) dropping by, pestering me for sex.
Last edited by TwinbrookNine; 06-29-2015 at 05:32 PM..
Unmarried people aren't the victims of overt institutional discrimination, as are/were LBGT people, racial/ethnic minorities and the like. But what I think does happen is that adults beyond a certain age are expected to couple-up (though not necessarily marry). Singles are viewed with a kind of soft-bigotry of suspicion and condescension. If so-and-so is 40 or 50 and doesn't have a partner (which again I add need not be a husband or wife; boyfriend/girlfriend will do), and especially if that person doesn't have a child, then said person becomes an outsider in so many social interactions. The lone-wolf persona is something of a threat to "families", whether those families are the traditional nuclear-family, an extended-family, single-parents, couples without children and so forth. In our 20s and possibly 30s, it's cute and avant-garde and so forth to be single. Later in life it becomes a liability.
But there is one specific legal aspect of marriage which I wish did extend to singles and to cohabiting couples, and this is the sometimes tawdry and contentious subject of mail-order brides. If I'd like to extend, ahem, the benefits of American citizenship to a foreign lady, I can only do so by marrying her, and thus incurring the financial risks concomitant with the marriage contract. The US State Department views dimly the idea of my legally bringing over to the US a live-in girlfriend.
Questions about your marital status, family, children, etc. should not be asked in a job interview. If they are you can avoid answering, since family status has nothing to do with your ability to do the job.
I'm single, and I don't see it as discrimination ... just disadvantages.
Every "disadvantage" I suffer for being single is outweighed immensely by the fact that I can go where I want, when I want, with whomever I want (and is willing to tag along), and don't have to put up with someone else's BS or drama.
I may pay more for a vacation, but at least I get to go on vacation in the first place. The attached people I know are all too broke to go on vacation because of the expenses that come from raising a family.
If I decide I don't like my job, I can quit my job and take one that I do like, even if it is for lesser pay, because I don't have to take the needs of someone else into consideration.
It sure sucks being single, all right. It seems like the only things I can do are whatever the heck I want.
Single people have been discriminated against for as far back as I can remember - and none (except me) says a peep!
Forget the "social outcast" things from the 1950's. in more recent times, it's gotten outright vicious!
I was openly, to my face, discriminated against in three job interviews - outright denied the positions, simply because I was male, over 30, with no wedding band, and no little lady under my arm. When asked what grades my children were in I said I didn't have any. Asked what my wife did for a living I said I didn't have one {later adding.."not yet."]
The typical response: Oh, this is a family - oriented community, I don't think you'd like it here... (one of these "communities" was a city of 300,000 people). The others came up with equally obnoxious idiotic, completely irrelevant remarks.
I was highly qualified, known for being an excellent co-worker, had all the good credentials, white, etc., but it was the mid 80's and any single male I guess, no matter how straight looking and acting he was, was assumed to be gay and have AIDS.
I estimate that in the process, I lost over $500,000 in income. (This was a lucrative, rocket science field). I had to take hind tit jobs for 3 years, get further qualified, and was finally offered a position strictly because they needed to hire someone to "function as a buffer zone" in a department staffed by heterosexually married people who were behaving badly (at great legal risk to the institution), trying to slash each others throats! I accepted the position, predictably, became "Mr Popularity" and put every penny I could away to scram from that place asap. Which I did...because, it never ended - and of course, they habitually came to me to do their spouting off - never to each other. Thank goodness for retirement.
Ironically, the only other person in that department that knew how to behave at work - single female.
Then there's all those surcharges like insurance, etc., I won't get into that here. That's a whole nuther page.
And, a little OT, but btw, I am so sick of the gay-married guys in this neighborhood (where I must confine myself because I'm single) dropping by to pester me for sex.
Geez. Where did you live?? Isn't it illegal to ask people's marital or parental status in interviews?
Questions about your marital status, family, children, etc. should not be asked in a job interview. If they are you can avoid answering, since family status has nothing to do with your ability to do the job.
There are laws covering formal situations, and protections against discrimination. The problem isn't being overlooked for a position because of one's marital status. Such discrimination would be too overt and too inviting of a lawsuit. Instead what happens is that singles will find themselves ill-matched in a workplace consisting mostly of married people. I don't think that being held back for promotion or assigned the more unsavory tasks are necessarily strong threats. Again, this would be too overt. But one does feel an iciness, a sense of other-ness, sitting in a meeting with 30 people around the table, where 29 are wearing a wedding-ring, but one is not.
I was single for 45 years and did not feel that society or the government discriminated against me. However, I do think that opposite-sex domestic partners should have the same benefits that married couples do.
You're a chick. Rose Marie normalized you in the early sixties. Not so for men.
Singles have the absolutely lowest amount of recognition in our society. Now that LGBTs are zooming ahead os us, I'm happy to see that someone stepped in to voice what many of us have already been experiencing for years.
I don't know about insurance but vacations are definitely more expensive. Singles are forced to join group tours if they do not want to do something alone and group tours are very expensive. Group tours always add on a surcharge for a single room as well, called the "single supplement". Usually in the amount of $400 but it could be higher. Married couples don't necessarily bother with group tours. If they are experienced travellers, they can go to Italy on their own. A couple is much safer out and about at night in Rome than a single. Although an experienced single traveller could go alone to places, it isn't necessarily fun or safe, so sometimes the group tour is the only way to go.
Also singles have to cover the entire cost of the car, hotel, and other fees on their own, whereas a married couple has 2 salaries and can split the costs. It might come out of one pot but it's still only 1/2 the cost for each person. Plus one spouse may get little perks from the other spouse. For instance, the spouse might have access to a family vacation home in the mountains or might have siblings with vacation homes in various parts of the country or might have frequent flyer miles to use up. A single person doesn't have access to these "extra" perks that one gets through marriage.
Just about everyone that I work with has access to a vacation home or timeshare through their spouse, so that saves significantly on their vacation expenses.
FMLA being geared towards married people- I think the OP means that FMLA is unpaid so how would a single person take FMLA if it's unpaid? Whereas a married person still has their spouse's income to rely on. Sure, if they relied on 2 incomes, they might miss one income but it would be temporary. They would still have ONE income to rely on. Better than nothing. the single person would have NO income at all.
They have to pay school tax too. Like, why?
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