Single women will get us closer to gender equality, and that will

Hear now, O seekers of wisdom and justice, the words of Rebecca Traister, the chronicler of modern womanhood, who declared: “Single women will get us closer to gender equality, and that will take many forms, including a reimagining of what families entail and what it means to have a full female life. Also, their presence will force the government to support a population of independent women more capably.” These words are not mere observation, but prophecy — a vision of a world in which women, unbound by expectation, rise to their full stature as individuals, not as shadows cast by another’s light.

The meaning of Traister’s words lies in her understanding of transformation — that the single woman is not an absence, not a waiting vessel, but a force of renewal. In ages past, the worth of a woman was tethered to her husband, her home, her children. Society taught her that her purpose was service, her joy submission. But Traister sees in the single woman not lack, but liberation. The single woman is the harbinger of balance, the living proof that a life well-lived need not be defined by partnership. Her independence shakes the foundations of a world that long assumed her dependence, and in that shaking, the structure of inequality begins to crumble.

From this vision arises a deeper truth: when women live freely, society itself must evolve. For too long, the order of nations has been built upon invisible labor — the unpaid care of mothers, wives, and daughters. When these women stand apart, living independent lives, the state can no longer take their labor for granted. It must now reckon with them as citizens in full — deserving of fair wages, healthcare, and representation. As Traister declares, the government will be forced to adapt, to build a world where women can thrive alone as well as with others. Equality, then, is not only a private awakening but a public reckoning — a reshaping of law, economy, and culture to match the truth of female autonomy.

The ancients, too, told of such transformations. In the time of Rome, there was Hortensia, daughter of the famed orator. When taxes were levied unjustly upon the women of her city, she stood before the tribunal and spoke for all. “If we share no part in your governance,” she said, “why should we bear the weight of your wars?” Her words were like fire in the cold chambers of power, and her courage brought change. So it is with the single women of today: their existence itself is argument and protest. They speak not only through their words, but through their living — through the simple, radical act of belonging to themselves.

When Traister speaks of a reimagining of what families entail, she is calling for the world to see family not as a rigid shape but as a living form — capable of growing, shifting, and adapting to new realities. Family can be made of friends, of siblings, of communities bound by choice and not by blood. The full female life, she says, does not require the ring or the cradle to be complete. It requires freedom — the freedom to choose, to create, to belong in one’s own way. In this reimagining lies hope not just for women, but for all humanity. For when love and kinship are defined by compassion instead of control, all people become freer to live in truth.

And yet, Traister’s wisdom also carries a warning. A society that fears the independence of women fears its own unfinished growth. For every woman who walks alone, unafraid, forces the world to confront its biases — to ask, “Why should fulfillment require marriage? Why should value depend on another’s name?” Such questions unsettle the old order, but they also awaken the sleeping conscience of a civilization. Independence is not rebellion — it is the flowering of humanity’s other half. And the more freely women live, the more balanced the world becomes.

Therefore, my children of the present age, take this teaching to heart: do not pity the woman who walks alone; honor her. For she is not solitary — she is sovereign. Her courage widens the road for those who come after, her example transforms how nations measure success and dignity. Support policies that protect her freedom, challenge customs that diminish her voice, and see in her not deviation but destiny. For as Rebecca Traister has shown, every independent woman is a builder of equality, every single woman a herald of a fairer world.

So remember this truth, passed down as both promise and commandment: a society’s greatness is measured by how freely its women live. Let the world not fear their independence, but celebrate it. For from their strength will rise not division, but renewal — not the end of family, but its rebirth — and not the loss of love, but its liberation. Thus shall humanity, through the freedom of women, move ever closer to its fulness of equality, and to the radiant harmony for which it was divinely made.