I can’t inform you the precise second each different girl on my TikTok feed determined they have been “decentering males,” however I’ve by no means heard the phrase uttered greater than this previous 12 months.
The time period was initially coined in 2019 by content material creator and creator Charlie Taylor in her e-book Decentering Males: Decenter Males, nevertheless it appears to have caught on in 2025.
The time period has impressed quite a lot of content material on TikTok — ladies posting movies encouraging their feminine followers to deprioritize discovering a mate or giving suggestions on how they will thrive exterior of romantic relationships. For some time now, the phrase “divorce him” has additionally turn into the go-to recommendation for married ladies discussing even the smallest relationship points on-line.
So, it wasn’t a shock when a Vogue column titled “Is Having a Boyfriend Embarrassing Now?” immediately blew up on TikTok in October. Chanté Joseph’s piece highlighted a number of influencers who have been hesitant about posting their companions on social media, as having a boyfriend has been thought of regressive, even “Republican” to some — typically, leading to offended feedback. We’re in a second during which singlehood has by no means been extra celebrated and heterosexual relationships have been deemed uncool — based on the web, a minimum of.
Elsewhere in popular culture, a number of well-known ladies, like actresses Julia Fox and Charlize Theron, have been open about their experiences embracing singlehood. Ross, 53, has performed a job in reversing reductive notions across the “spinster,” documenting her jetsetting life-style on the favored Roku collection Solo Touring With Tracee Ellis Ross and going viral for her considerate nuggets about single dwelling. “Not having lengthy relationships, not having kids has allowed me to discover issues of my very own humanity,” Ellis stated in one episode.
A radical (or affordable) response to our present gender warfare
The “decentering males” development has traces of South Korea’s 4B motion, which gained extra publicity in the USA following Donald Trump’s reelection — and perhaps, not a coincidence that the phrase has gained traction on-line this 12 months. The Lysistrata-esque boycott requires that contributors abstain from 4 social actions with males — marriage, relationship, intercourse, and childbearing — to fight South Korea’s patriarchal social construction and oppressive magnificence requirements.
The area of interest however famend protest was developed by feminist Twitter customers in 2017 and 2018, across the time of South Korea’s #Me Too Motion. It’s notably extra strict in its directives than something the mainstream feminist actions within the US round that point urged. One of many critiques of the US’s Me Too motion was that it didn’t have concrete political goals or agreed-upon strategies to achieve them. The truth that Google searches for “4B” spiked after the election reveals a curiosity for a extra radical and plain strategy to attaining gender equality.
However “decentering males” additionally faucets into different current veins of criticism of so-called male-centered ladies and “choose me’s” — phrases used to explain ladies whose whole existence is about attracting males.
It’s arduous to view these anti-men sentiments as something however a pure response to a troublesome relationship panorama and a world more and more influenced by misogynistic, far-right politicians and influencers. However, is it a foul factor to look at so many ladies descend into heterofatalism? No matter one’s reasoning for “decentering males” could be, it’s hanging that being a single grownup girl is not a demise sentence however an more and more normalized life-style alternative.
For instance, a 2023 Pew Analysis Middle examine discovered that solely 34 % of single ladies within the US are actively looking for romantic relationships, in comparison with 54 % of single males. The notion of “decentering males” has turn into a helpful solution to focus on this extra pessimistic strategy to relationship.
However, based on the time period’s creator, it isn’t as radical or anti-relationship as it could look on paper. In a weblog publish titled “Decentering Males: Why You Want To Let Go of Males,” Taylor encourages to let go of the “concept of males” as the final word prize however says this doesn’t imply “forgo[ing] romantic relationships, pleasure, or contact as a result of these issues are important for the human expertise.” Whereas the phrase has seemingly given ladies permission to stay a life free from males, it actually simply means not making males the middle of your universe.
As trendy relationship has turn into extra hellish, single dwelling has gotten a makeover
Nonetheless, the thought of decentering males has supplied some younger ladies an exit ramp out of the relationship world, which has confirmed to be notably dire for Gen Z.
TikTok has primarily turn into a documentary concerning the horrors of heterosexual relationship for younger individuals. On any given scroll, you will discover ladies recounting their terrible relationship experiences or sharing screenshots of their bizarre interactions on Hinge. It’s additionally turn into regular for customers to show individuals who they’ve caught dishonest on the platform or expose males for speaking to a number of ladies on the similar time. There are additionally loads of sentiments about Gen Z women and men sabotaging their very own relationship lives, with security apps like Tea which can be principally used for gossip and arbitrary calls for and purple flags for potential companions.
The “decentering males” motion coincides with some research that present some members of Gen Z merely have much less romantic expertise or need to significantly date than earlier generations.
Girls are additionally opting in opposition to a relationship throughout a politically fraught time. For instance, an NBC Information ballot in April discovered the partisan divide between women and men ages 18 to 29 to be wider than that of some other age vary, with 53 % of Gen Z ladies figuring out as Democrats, in comparison with simply 35 % of Gen Z males. Along with younger males figuring out as extra conservative, they’re interacting with a digital panorama that’s pushing misogynistic content material and has seen the mainstream rise of the “manosphere.”
As younger ladies on TikTok proudly announce their voluntary singlehood, there doesn’t appear to be as a lot of a concern of being labeled an “previous maid” or the “loopy cat girl” for not settling down with a person.
It’s a far cry from the times when People “feared for single ladies’s security and psychological well being after they selected to delay marriage or reject it altogether,” based on Albright Faculty professor Katherine J. Lehman, who wrote the e-book These Women: Single Girls in Sixties and Seventies Pop Tradition.
“No less than in post-World Battle II America, we have now been taught to see the nuclear household as the first social unit, and have inspired ladies to prioritize marriage and motherhood for each their very own well-being and societal stability,” Lehman says.
Whereas a few of this stigma has lessened over time, Lehman provides that “single ladies who pursue independence” are “nonetheless warned about shedding their femininity or dealing with loneliness.”
For lots of Gen Z, although, it looks like ladies have a collective understanding of discovering a accomplice as a troublesome and doubtlessly humiliating pursuit.
Total, this has allowed many younger ladies to find the extra sensible advantages of being a single particular person, together with monetary freedom and an absence of family obligations that may include being partnered, says social scientist Bella DePaulo, creator of the e-book Single at Coronary heart. Most of all, there’s the limitless prospects of 1’s time solely belonging to themselves.
“Opposite to stereotypes, single life, fairly than being a smaller or lesser life, could be a extra expansive and psychologically wealthy life,” she stated. “Somewhat than placing a romantic accomplice on the middle of your life and demoting everybody else, single individuals can spend as a lot time as they need with as many alternative individuals they need, with out worrying {that a} romantic accomplice thinks that point belongs to them.”
