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What's a spinster, really?
• Bekka Palmer

What's a spinster, really?

We were curious about this tweet making the rounds on IG that reads, "Just learnt that "spinster" was originally the word for a woman so good at weaving that she was financially independent. HOW INTERESTING."

IMAGE OF TWEET: Just learnt that "spinster" was originally the word for a woman so good at weaving that she was financially independent. HOW INTERESTING.
We took a deep dive into the word and it's history. Currently the word generally has a negative connotation and refers to a woman who is unmarried late in life.

The current dictionary definition of SPINSTER is an unmarried woman and especially one past the common age for marrying.

Originally Spinster Meant a woman who spun wool for fabric
Before the 1900s the word referred to single women who worked as wool spinners prepping the fiber for use in fabric. They were independent and had their own source of income, therefore not reliant on marriage for a livelihood.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, labor-intensive jobs were reserved for unmarried women. These jobs were not well paid because the workplace expected women to move on and marry.

Spinsters lived lives of independence and fulfilled an incredibly important role in passing on wool-spinning traditions. They were considered high-minded, upstanding pillars of the community. They were cultural icons

Greater society obviously could not stand for this and vilified these women and the word spinster gained its negative connotation.

In the early 1900s, studies of sexuality and social hygiene were prevalent. Society spun a narrative of spinsters as sexually suppressed or lesbians who refused to step into their traditional gender roles and become wives/mothers. They were vilified, and thus the current definition of SPINSTER came to be.

The More You Know graphic

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