How The Single Girl Has Evolved
By Jeanene James Jun 9, 2010
The single girl lifestyle has always been an interesting conversational topic.
Whereas single life for women was once viewed simply as life without a man in the same cut and dry way that the non-color black is described as the absence of light, things have since changed. Now the single life is not viewed as a simple existence, in absence of the male element. Now, the single lady is a celebrated entity, symbolizing freedom, independence and overall fabulousness. While mega stars like Beyonce have helped to glamorize the title (all my single ladies!), a new book by Sam Wasson argues that the dawning of the single girl began with a Givenchy dress, a danish and a single lady by the name of Holly Golightly gazing into the iconic Tiffany window.
Taking the single girl out of the context of promiscuity and making her lifestyle desirable was the task that the movie successfuly took on. In the book entitled, “Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M.: Audrey Hepburn, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and the Dawn of the Modern Woman,” Wasson states:
With the release of Breakfast at Tiffany’s in 1961, being a single woman with an active sex life was suddenly a condition to aspire to. (Helen Gurley Brown’s Sex and the Single Girl wasn’t released until 1962.) “Before Hepburn, there was the prude and the slut, and the reality of in-between had no cinematic correlation,” says Wasson. “If Monroe had played her, she would have just been a hooker. That was when I got the power of the movie, and the genius of casting Audrey Hepburn.”
Today we continue to celebrate this lifestyle as one of choice, and not one of disadvantage. What Golightly created, figures like Carrie Bradshaw have perfected.
Read more of what Wasson has to say about this iconic figure here!
Check out a few of the girls that helped to solidify the single life as a fabulously appropriate lifestyle choice for women today:
