Many women have repeatedly voiced deep frustration over the intense and often intrusive pressure they face from families, friends, colleagues, and sometimes even strangers on social media who feel entitled to ask why a woman is still single at a certain age. These questions are rarely neutral. They often come wrapped in pity, disapproval, emotional manipulation, or performative concern that violates privacy and ignores emotional maturity. For many women, this becomes one of the quiet but exhausting battles of adulthood: carrying the stigma of singleness in a society that treats it less as a life phase and more as a personal failure. Although both sexes experience this pressure, it is disproportionately heavier on women and, in many cases, has little or nothing to do with their choices, character, or intentions.
In trying to explain why women are placed at a greater disadvantage in finding love compared to men, a reality that is rarely acknowledged honestly, I have often argued that cultural values and social norms play a decisive role. In many societies, women are socialised to wait, to be chosen, to be approached, while men are encouraged to pursue, initiate, and act with confidence. Men are allowed to take their destiny into their own hands; women are expected to sit still and hope destiny remembers them. A woman who dares to make the first move risks being mocked, misunderstood, or even abused for “cheaping out,” while the same act earns a man praise for boldness and clarity of purpose.
Another layer of disadvantage lies in the double standard embedded in everyday socialisation. Women are often idealised as home-oriented, expected to remain close to their mothers, protected, unseen, and unavailable, while men are encouraged to be constantly outside, visible, mobile, and socially exposed. Yet, paradoxically, the same society that restricts women’s movement and visibility pressures them to “present a husband.” Women are blamed for not being seen, while being actively prevented from being seen. I have also raised concerns about the popular label of women as “gold diggers” or excessively materialistic, even as society simultaneously restricts the kinds of jobs women can do, stigmatizes their hustle, and discourages them from economic risk-taking. At the same time, women are expected to maintain lifestyles that often require financial support, in a labour market and educational system that consistently privileges men.
In the past, I strongly rejected the faulty orientation that denies women the freedom to work, build careers, and pursue personal ambition, while glorifying marriage as their ultimate purpose. This mindset produces women who become economically dependent and vulnerable, only to be abandoned, divorced, or widowed later in life, suddenly recast as burdens rather than victims of a system that disarmed them from the beginning.
I have also expressed deep reservations about the hypocrisy with which some men glorify polygamy when it benefits them but condemn women who resist it. Ironically, these same men often react with outrage when their own daughters face the possibility of becoming second or third wives. What is celebrated as culture in one breath becomes cruelty in another, once it affects those they claim to love.
There is further contempt directed at women who attempt to take up certain professions such as policing, civil defence, fire service, customs, correctional services, DSS, the navy, air force, or the army. These women are often told they will “hardly find husbands.” Yet women who avoid such careers out of fear of stigma are also despised as liabilities who bring nothing to the table. In both cases, women lose. The rules are designed so that compliance and resistance are equally punished.
Equally troubling is the plight of single mothers, often reduced to the dismissive label of “baby mama.” They suffer not only abandonment by men who refuse to take responsibility for pregnancies they willingly participated in, but also a society that normalizes “side chicks” and “side fowls” without ever naming or shaming “baby papas.” The imbalance is glaring: motherhood becomes a permanent stain, while fatherhood remains optional.
I once wrote an article asking whether men benefit more from marriage, inspired by the lament of a woman who found little joy in marital life despite doing everything expected of her. She contributed financially, carried pregnancies for nine months, endured months of breastfeeding, handled domestic chores, and provided emotional labour, while her husband retained the freedom to “catch cruise” and pursue other women without consequence. Her question was not born of bitterness but exhaustion.
I have also pointed out the quiet contradiction in how widows and divorced women are treated. Society often pressures these women, even at very young ages, to consider polygamy as their most realistic option, while the same men who benefit from this arrangement openly prioritize virgins and much younger women. Loss, grief, and survival become disadvantages rather than realities deserving compassion.
My present reflection was inspired by a woman who dared to ask a question society prefers to whisper about, because it does not fit neatly into political outrage, even though relationship discussions often attract the deepest engagement. She asked why single fathers, even those with multiple children, remarry with ease, while single mothers struggle to find love again. Her words sparked intense debate, exposing how deeply normalised this imbalance has become.
Her frustration resonated because it revealed a painful truth. A single father with five children is often praised as strong, capable, and responsible, while a single mother with one child is treated as damaged goods. Some respondents framed men’s desirability around money and “capacity,” while others resorted to dehumanising metaphors that compared women to overused objects. These reactions did not merely reflect personal opinions; they mirrored a cultural logic that measures men by provision and women by purity.
One reason women with children receive fewer serious advances is fear of responsibility. Society teaches men that marrying a woman with a child means inheriting an extra burden. A woman cannot abandon her child, even if the child lives elsewhere, and this implies divided attention, emotional labour, and potential financial responsibility. Suspicion also plays a role. There is a widespread belief that a woman with a child will always remain emotionally tied to the child’s father if he is alive. Yet this suspicion ignores the reality that marriage itself creates deep bonds that do not magically disappear after divorce, regardless of gender.
It is also misleading to assume that only women with children are despised. In truth, many men devalue almost any woman who has previously been married, whether she is divorced or widowed, even without children. This obsession with virginity and purity persists despite the fact that many men making these demands do not hold themselves to the same standard. Unmarried women are romanticized as untapped treasures, while married or formerly married women are treated as expired, even when experience, maturity, and emotional intelligence should count as assets.
In another article, I examined how men dominate statistics in domestic violence, drug abuse, banditry, kidnapping, terrorism, and corruption, often dragging women into the consequences of their actions while society blames women for moral decay. Male infidelity is normalized, even celebrated, while prostitution is labelled a woman’s crime, ignoring the men whose demand sustains it. Side chicks are trendy; abandoned children are invisible. Responsibility stops at pleasure.
The woman’s question ultimately exposes a deep-rooted double standard. Single fathers are framed as heroes managing responsibility, while single mothers are framed as problems to be managed. This disparity is sustained by history, economics, culture, and storytelling that consistently elevate men’s contributions while diminishing women’s resilience. As sociologist Arlie Hochschild reminds us, care work remains one of the most undervalued forms of labour, even though societies collapse without it.
It is for this reason I have often argued that men who defy social expectations to love divorced women, widows, and single mothers, who offer second chances and recognize emotional depth rather than social labels, are the true definition of responsible men. Society should celebrate them, not merely tolerate them. While polygamy has its many demerits, it has also functioned as a survival pathway for some women, particularly widows, in societies that refuse to fully accept them otherwise.
We cannot, on one hand, tell women to leave toxic and violent relationships for their own safety, and on the other hand condemn them to lifelong rejection once they do. This contradiction is one of the silent reasons many women endure abuse, and many rape victims remain trapped in shame. Until society learns to value women beyond marital status, sexual history, or motherhood, these battles will continue, quietly fought, deeply personal, and painfully unequal.
Bagudu can be reached at bagudumohammed15197@gmail.com or on 0703 494 3575.
