Ted Audio Collective.

Audio Collective.

This is Design Matters with Debbie Milman from Design Observer.com.

For 11 years now, Debbie Milman has been talking with designers and other creative types

about what they do, how they got to be who they are and what they're

thinking about.

On this podcast, Debbie Milman talks with writer Kate Bullock about society's historically

skeptical view of a single woman.

I think that's what it is.

It's a threat to the social order

to have a woman by herself.

Here's Debbie Milman.

Spencer.

It's an old-fashioned word that still packs a negative punch. It evokes the image of a woman getting on in

years whom life has passed by. But words have a way of going out of fashion or of evolving into new meanings and associations.

With a new book titled Spinster Making a Life of One's Own, Kate Bolig is bringing the word back and redefining it for our times.

The book is about experiences of women on their own and examines her own life as well as the

lives of five extraordinary women.

Kate Bolick is a contributing editor to the Atlantic and her writing has appeared in the New York Times and many other magazines.

Kate, welcome to Design Matters.

Hello.

You grew up in a small town in Massachusetts.

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