The freemale phenomenon

Freemale- I came across this word first in the t2-the supplement distributed with The Telegraph (ABP group). A few weeks later, the group’s Bengali paper, Anandabazar Patrika talked about it again. After reading these two articles, a few things cropped up in my mind.

I wondered how the scenario has evolved. First came the age of couples who were classified as SINKs (Single Income no kids). It was soon followed by DINKs (Double income no kids). However, society has rapidly undergone changes and now is the era of the SPUDs (Single Person Urban Dwelling). Many believe that the "freemale" belongs to this last category.

Coming to the definition of "freemale", it refers to those women who have chosen to be single. In other words, these women are not single by circumstances (like family burden to take care of ailing parents or siblings, unable to find a suitable match etc). Rather, it’s a choice to be single that these women have made. The characteristics of the fremales, if newspapers are to believed, are:

· They have well paid jobs.

· They love to spend on themselves, be it shopping, going to the salon for self-pampering or taking a vacation.

· They have a close knit network of friends.

In other words, it is not an exaggeration when some people say that the freemale phenomenon is where “Bridget Jones meets Sex and the City”.

I, for one, however don’t understand why the word “freemale”? These women don’t hate men and may even have some good male friends to whom they can turn to in their hour of need. Just because they have chosen not to tie the knot or co-habit with a man doesn’t give reason enough to tag them as a freemale. For me, we females are better without any tags whatsoever and should be allowed to live life as we want to, meaningless tags and societal pressures be damned.