Millenial women, I have concerns. It’s not a usual complaint—too many of us living with our parents or forgetting how to use our vocal cords, because of the Facebook—but something more insidious. I am worried about all the marmalade.

Have you preserved something lately? The internet says you have. Sure, maybe you just made some kumquat jam or harvested some green beans from your garden for later use. What’s the big deal, Grace? Everybody’s doing it. It’s not like I’ve set up a canning shed in the backyard yet. It’s not the jelly that truly worries me. If you want homemade apple butter, that’s your (delicious) right. If you want to spend all weekend stewing beets, stew away, my little ableskiver! What worries me is the canning movement.

Everywhere I look, our generation is celebrating domesticity. We’re making jam and knitting sweaters. We’re not only sewing our own clothes, but weaving the fabric from backyard cotton crops and creating chevron prints with handmade vegetable dyes. Flocks of children are being cooed over and homeschooled and raised on homemade organic vegan baby food. And that’s great! The domestic arts are important, under-appreciated crafts. For far too long, “women’s work” was reviled and treated as an expectation, not a honed skill. Knowing how to make things yourself is not only important, but freeing for both genders. De-stigmatizing the feminine is always a good idea, in my book.

Only…I’m less convinced that’s what we’re doing. Could this “new domesticity” not be busting gender roles at all, but reinforcing them? Look at your Facebook feed. Are any of your guy friends posting about the fruitcake they just baked or the new quilt they made for their son’s room? I’m betting not. Young women, however, are baking and sewing and quilting in droves. We’re sharing photos of our creations and blogging about them. Such hobbies are becoming the social norm for women.

Even the look of our generation—the much reviled, but still copied hipster—falls into a gender dichotomy. The Millennial guy, the one who will be parodied at fraternity parties in twenty years, is hyper-masculine. He has facial hair and flannel shirts. He’s really into video games and philosophy and locally sourced bourbon. Meanwhile, our dear Millennial woman has long flowing hair, which she artfully arranges into a braided sock bun, and wears twee, collared dresses she’s made with her own hands. She bakes towering, photogenic cakes and uses homemade cleaning solutions to scrub the kitchen mess away.

That’s not radical, friends. That’s traditional.

If we’d reinvented domesticity, surely it would be split more equitably along gender lines? If our argument is that we’re de-stigmitazing women’s work, then these hobbies shouldn’t be confined to women. Just as many guys should be teaching sewing classes and making scones for their families on the weekend. And—I say this as a person who enjoys both of those things—they’re not. The revival of these arts is a vastly female endeavor. The people who are reading the blogs and pinning the recipes? Women.

We haven’t reinvented homemaking at all, we’ve returned to it. It’s not an inherently bad thing, because the traditionally feminine isn’t inherently bad, but it is a cause for concern. All too many women I know are getting involved with these pursuits out of a sense of expectation. All of their friends suddenly care about canning strawberry jam, so they must as well. The moment that pressure happens, we have a problem. Hobbies are all well and good. Choosing to stay home and raise your children is also all well and good, but we must keep it that, precisely: a choice.

We fought for our right to make pecan pie and kick ass in the working world. Little by little, women have bashed in the social constructs that kept us in the kitchen. The death of these societal expectations is what allows this “new domesticity” to exist, that allows a choice to be made. I’m worried that we’re getting complacent about keeping that choice. The same friends who learn to knit out of a sense of peer pressure, insist that feminism is no longer necessary. That is my marmalade nightmare, friends. Are we going to, slowly and beautifully, place ourselves right back on that pretty, homemade pedestal?

There is still a war to be fought. The wage gap continues to exist; the gender roles continue to negatively affect both sexes. This is not the time to blithely saunter back toward tradition. Let’s bake our pies and care for our children, but keep up the good fight while we do so. Maybe our guy friends would like to make a perfect meringue or our sons would like to weed the garden? The feminine ideal shouldn’t be charming and pretty and accomplished. The feminine ideal shouldn’t be.

Canning fruit doesn’t make you a good woman. Sewing your husband a shirt doesn’t make you a good wife. You are good, whether you burn water or achieve perfectly fluffy souffles. The new domesticity is lovely, but it should never be an expectation. If you want to wear pearls and vacuum, then vacuum your little heart out. Just remember that you don’t have to.

Make your marmalade. Make intellectual war, while you’re at it.

- Grace

Friends, are your fingers nimble? Do you feel capable of coordinated, rhythmic snapping? Let’s hope so, because a rumble looms. You must be prepared.

All the best rumbles involve jazz hands!

Yesterday, it was called to my attention that our blog title might be the tiniest bit dreary. What particular word drags us down to the blues and grays? Spinster. According to western society, there is nothing so depressing as an unmarried woman. The word conjures images of a sad, gray-haired maiden aunt obsessively knitting sweaters for her twelve cats. (Captain Whiskerby gets so cold! He needs a Fair Isle!) Why would we name our blog for such a pitiful creature? Twenty-something women should be out in the dating world, trying to land men before their ovaries shrivel up. Blogging about phallic cakes is best left to those who’ve found victims husbands.

Y’all, I’m so sorry! I didn’t realize that we were inflicting emotional damage onto our readers by declaring ourselves spinsters. You see, we think it’s a positive term. Shocking, I know. How could we not realize the frightful connotations of such a moniker? Well, probably because they make zero fucking sense. When you hear the term bachelor, spinster’s male counterpart, do you cringe in horror? No, you don’t. Otherwise, ABC wouldn’t have its rose-festooned cash cow. When Americans hear bachelor, they think George Clooney. When they hear spinster, they think Jennifer Aniston. One is lauded for his firm stance against marriage, while the other is bombarded with tabloid stories about her supposed longings for a husband.

This is ridiculous. This is why we named our blog for spinsters. It’s not because we’re unmarried, it’s because we want to take back the word. Spinster wasn’t always a four-letter word. Its original definition, dating to the mid-1300s, meant a woman who spun thread for a living. Spinning thread was one of the earliest professions a respectable, unmarried woman was allowed. Spinning, religious devotion, widowhood, or prostitution – for centuries those were some of the only paths to female independence. Later, of course, we could gain employment in shops or service, but spinning came to be so associated with unmarried women that the word took on that meaning. Now, according to Merriam-Webster we have three modern definitions:

1. A woman whose occupation is to spin.
2. An unmarried woman and especially one past the common age for marrying.
3. A woman who seems unlikely to marry.

Nowhere does it say: A woman who pines away for a husband, slowly becoming bitter and sad as she ages, lonely and unloved, until she finally gives in and purchases the first of many feline companions. The negative connotations placed on unmarried women? That’s all society’s doing. Unmarried is, in and of itself, not a bad thing.

If we take the original definition to its logical conclusion, we actually find something positive. We discover women who were independent, able to support themselves without the aid of either husband or father. Destiny’s Child would be so proud! Anyone, man or woman, who blazes their own path through the world is to be applauded. (Well, unless that path includes actual blazes. Pyromaniacs need not apply to our membership ranks.) The word spinster shouldn’t be reviled or pitied.

If you’ve read our blog these past few months, you’ve realized we’re anything but desperate for marriage. I’m desperate for a six-figure book deal, desperate for a truly great piece of chocolate cake, but not for marriage. It’s not that we’re anti-men. If anything, we love men! Most of the guys in our lives are totally awesome. But…our lives aren’t defined by whether we’ve caught one or not. Marriage doesn’t make one automatically happier or more fulfilled, just like singlehood doesn’t automatically make one reach for a pint of mint chocolate chip. Optimistically, I think the world is accepting this. After all, hasn’t bachelorette begun to replace the more archaic term of spinster? Sure, we mostly apply it to almost-married women, but it still exists. Just having a word that means single woman, without negative connotations, can be seen as a victory.

Still, we chose A Confederacy of Spinsters. “A Coterie of Bachelorettes” doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. Plus – quite frankly – we like spinster. We like its history of independence. We like the tongue-in-cheek nature of three happy young women taking its societal baggage on. We embrace spinster, with its cats and all, because there’s nothing wrong with the word. Calling ourselves spinsters does not hurt our self-esteem or our chances with men. In fact, one of your dear spinsters (*cough* Mae *cough*) will soon be joining the ranks of the happily married. She’ll keep the label, however. After all this angsting over taking it back, we’ve grown rather fond of it. If anyone takes issue with that, we’ll meet you outside. Prepare your snaps!

- Grace