All the Single Ladies

"Men are Unnecessary" could have been a headline for yesterday's New York Times, what with the lead Style section piece on womyn's land in Georgia and a companion piece in the magazine, 2 Kids+0 Husband=Family, about a tight group of 40-something co-parenting single moms, none of whom are dating and all of whom have daughters adopted from China. Both these articles followed a Home & Garden piece, Living Together, but Apart, about 2 older, single female artists creating a new shared live-work paradigm out of a pair of lofts. Did the editors just assume that no guys would be reading the paper on Superbowl Sunday? Or were they giving a little nudge to the beleaguered women in the kitchen stuck mashing the guacamole as their spouses slumped slack-jawed on the couch, beer in hand? "Pssst!" the NYT seemed to be saying. "There's another world out there, ladies. A place in the woods where you'll never have to shave your legs or watch car commercials ever again."

The womyn's land piece was pretty good, even if it did have Dr. Leakey-ish online headlines about "Lost Tribes of Lesbians." Personally, I don't think these women are lost; I think they know exactly where and why they're there. But it was great to see pictures of fabulously wrinkled and white-haired old lezzies (having, natch, a potluck) in place of the usual whiny fluff about Botox and bridesmaids. And just to see even a little lesbian-separatist herstory in something as mainstream as the NYT is really, really cool.

The co-parenting piece was intriguing, as was the Thursday piece about the artist pals who created separate, but still joined, live-work spaces for themselves in a Tribeca loft. (What was especially intriguing was that although the loft was bought outright by the more affluent friend, both women supposedly had equal say in how their spaces were redesigned, including a poshly outfitted kitchen for the non-owner (the owner herself had be talked into having even a minimal kitchen; a microwave and a coffee maker are all she uses.) The financial breakdown--who paid for that fancy stove?--wasn't detailed, except to say that the women had talked everything through but had little in writing. Presumably, the non-owning friend pays rent, but how do you make renovation demands/requests when you're not footing the bill?) Still, it's encouraging to think of the different options out there beyond the usual Noah's Ark couplings.

(Well, I could dig into this much deeper, but alas, deadlines loom, and I have a cold and much need for tea and really spicy Thai chicken soup. More to come!)