This week’s Single Icon is the badass Wong Liu Tsong also known by her self-chosen stage name Anna May Wong. A third-generation American, she blazed a trail as she battled to be recognized first as a talented actress. While she did take lovers, she never married, refusing to submit to the expectations of wives in Chinese culture. Watch the video to get her story in her own words.

It has been two years since this video was published but the issue still alive. The argument is that cis het men are giving up on cis het women because cis het women expect too much. Are cis het women once again ruining everything for humanity? Join the conversation. Watch the video then add your comments below.

Live an elevated life on a single income. Explore strategies for beating the system.

I love problems because of the thrill I get from solving them. I don’t want to just complain about the system. I want to beat it. The best way to beat a system? Ignore it. Yeah. I said that.

Women in the United States (and around the world) are systematically paid less than men. Indications are that the gender wage gap is actually increasing.

For women without access to a man’s income, the gender wage gap’s negative consequences are amplified. This is especially true for women who are actually boot-strapping their way to financial stability (we see you, Kylie).

The pay gap has been blamed on many things but the most popular argument has been that women simply don’t ask for raises. Except, a recent study featured in our first issue has found that women do ask - and actually now ask more than men do. Yet the pay gap persists. What is a Wallflower to do?

There are a number of ways to approach this problem and I do believe in a diversity of tactics.

Some will feel called to dig in to the trenches and fight the power from within.

On the other hand, systems are nasty beasts that will chew you up and spit you out if you attack them from the front. I believe in going through the window when the door is locked.

In my case, that involves exploiting the magic of compound interest and its partner, the Federal Tax Code.

Everyone in personal finance says that financial freedom comes from owning revenue-producing assets rather than relying on W-2 paycheck money and a savings account.

Between being paid less and having fewer tax breaks, single women relying on paychecks experience a double penalty that makes taking the strategic steps necessary for establishing financial stability, if not independence, more difficult.

However, where there’s a will, there is a way.

By no means am I a personal finance expert. But, I am on an intense money mastery journey and I invite you along with me.

Currently, my approach focuses on three strategies:

I am doing this while working a full-time W-2 job. My goal is to use these strategies to create multiple revenue streams to invest. I’m making phantom husband.

These strategies are fantastic because they defeat the gender wage gap. The stock market doesn’t know what gender you are.

To begin, check out this video from Rachel Rogers that lays out, step-by-step, how you can turn your current skills into extra income.

In this section we grab some popcorn, get lost in a true-life story, then get together and yak about it.

Each month we post a documentary that is available on YouTube. On the final Sunday of the month we meet for a gab fest where we spill the tea and run our mouths to our hearts’ content about what we saw.

Check out our first issue for November’s movie. Then mark your calendar for Sunday November 30th at 3pm EST. That’s when the Gab Fest goes down!

The movie is posted for everyone but the gab fest is especially for paid subscribers. Join our paid community to participate.

We’d been married for nine years when I asked my now ex-husband for a break. I genuinely had no plans to divorce him. I was simply exhausted. Blending trad-wife expectations with modern woman career ambitions while battling aggressive endometriosis and recovering from a failed in-vitro cycle had me afraid that I wouldn’t make it to 40. I was 35.

One month was all I asked to nurture myself, enjoy some free time, and sleep through the night without being startled awake by the repo man (long story - subscribe!). Unconsciously, perhaps, I also wanted to dip my toe into the scary waters of going single. Not single and dating. Just. Single.

All my life I had been warned that unmarried women died bitter, regretful, and unfulfilled. I was already bitter, regretful, and unfulfilled. How could it get worse? And what did it say about our relationship that I felt compelled to ask permission to take a break?

In her op-ed piece, “Marriage getting you down? Can I interest you in a year-long break?” the author, Polly Hudson proposes that couples in long-term marriages gone stale take a year off to recalibrate and decide whether to recommit.

Hudson borrows from the Amish tradition of “rumspringa”, when older teenagers are granted one year to explore the “secular” world and then chose from a truly informed place whether to commit to their Amish community and ways of life.

She suggests that taking time to explore life from the other side of the marital fence could actually save marriages by reminding couples of what they would be missing if they split up.

Hudson’s proposal offers another, more profound opportunity: an intermediate step for you who want to go solo (but are afraid to leap) to try it out first.

Of course, you’d have to get your husband to agree. Mine refused. I obeyed.

Would you give yourself permission to take a year-long break from your marriage? Let us know in the comments below.

What inspires you to live un-partnered? We’d love to hear from you. Comment “What had happened was” below to get instructions for how to share your story.

There’s a day just for us and it is HUGE in China; bigger than Black Friday in the United States. Founded in 1993 as Bachelor’s Day, 11/11 (November 11th) has become a day for singles to joyfully embrace being single and to pamper themselves. We can agree that the celebration has become over commercialized (word is, spending on Singles’ Day has dropped over the past few years) but that is no reason to throw out the whole thing.

Here’s my list of ways I will pamper myself for 11/11.

🎇 Zohran Mamdani sails to victory becoming New York City’s first Muslim and Democratic Socialist mayor. Mamdani’s win is one of a number of Democratic wins around the country that have handed the Trump administration a decisive rebuke.

🏆 Japan beats USA and elects first woman prime minister. Described as a “hawkish” and “nationalistic” ultra-conservative who admires Margaret Thatcher, her win comes after stunning defeats for her Liberal Democratic party in recent elections. A firm anti-feminist, she is also against rights for LGBTQ+ people. The coalition that facilitated her win is described as shaky and vulnerable. Her tenure could be brief.

🤴 A prince is not forever? Born a prince, always a prince, is what I thought. Not so much, said King Charles III as he stripped Andrew, his younger brother, of the one title I felt sure was safe. That whole “divine right of kings” thing is no joke.

⛹🏽‍♀️ New women’s professional basketball league offers higher salaries plus equity as WNBA contract talks drag on. WNBA MVP Nneka Ogwumike has signed with Project B, the haplessly-named new professional women’s basketball league slated to play in Europe and Asia. Plan B anyone? Nevertheless, this league outshines the rest with higher salaries and equity stakes for its players.

🌍 Louvre theft raises thorny questions about colonial theft. While the brazen theft of France’s crown jewels (apparently the video surveillance system’s passcode was - wait for it - Louvre) continues to baffle and stun the nation, it also raises questions about France’s actual rights to the precious jewels that adorned the jewelry. Many “Western” museums and European royal families are resisting demands from formerly colonized peoples to return precious objects taken during colonial occupation. Just because it was legal doesn’t make it right. Y’all.

From theMITmonk come five core principles from MIT that fueled his success.

Watch the video then swipe our free digital tool that will help you put the principles into practice. Find the link below.

Conventional wisdom says if a woman is un-partnered and not looking for a man she must either be a lesbian or sad, bitter, and pitiful. A Wallflower. Wallflower Life says, wrong! Maybe she just loves her freedom. That’s what Wallflower Life is all about.