More and more women are finding success in the workplace today. By the end of this year, studies show more than half of the American workforce will be female.
But for many African-American women, with success comes something else. A recent Yale study found successful, educated black women born after 1950 were twice as likely to be single – compared to white women of the same age.
But single doesn’t mean unhappy, as writer Nika Beamon explores in her book, “I Didn’t Work this Hard Just to Get Married.”
“I heard a lot of people stressing about getting married,” Beamon said. “I heard a lot of people feeling pressure by their family to get married. But I hadn’t heard a lot of people saying, ‘You know what, I’m happy with my single life.’ And so I wanted to give voice to those people who are happily single.”
TheGrio sat down with a group of single women to get their take on relationships. No two answers were the same.
“Single is not a death sentence like people think it is,” Althema Goodson said. “Not to say that having a partner isn’t fun. But being single is you know, great.”
“I don’t want to be single anymore,” single mom Simone-Monet Wahls said. “Chivalry makes me shiver. So please. Just shiver me.”
“Singleness doesn’t mean that you are lonely,” Brandi Bradshaw said. “Alone doesn’t mean that you’re lonely. It’s just a different experience.”
“It’s not that these women don’t have fears of growing old alone, it’s not that these women didn’t picture their lives turning out differently,” Beamon said. “It’s accepting the lives they have and carving out a happy life. They’re now looking for a man to complement their life rather than to complete their life.”
It’s a viewpoint that isn’t seen in the typical chick flick.
“We still look at almost every movie and every book that you read, every long song still ends with the woman being rescued,” Beamon said. “What do you do when your life says I don’t need to be rescued.”
But for many American-African women raised by single mothers, being single and successful is a familiar model.
“They’ve grown up seeing their mothers, grandmothers doing everything by themselves without a man in the household,” Beamon said. “So the idea that they aren’t married isn’t all that strange it isn’t all that threatening to them.”
“Because I had a mother who was single, my grandmother was single, and in that environment, I never wanted for much,” Wahls said. “And I felt nurtured and because that was all I knew, I thought that was something I could do as well, I could be a single parent.”
Today, women account for more than 70 percent of all African-American graduate school students. The Yale study found that at least a third of black women with graduate degrees will not have children.
Still, many women are finding that a husband, children and the white picket fence aren’t the only formula for happiness. And they’re willing to wait for their own perfect combination.
“For me, relationships and commitment are extremely important and marriage if it comes with that fine, if it doesn’t come with that, that’s fine,” Barbara Horne said. “It’s just very important to me to make commitments I can keep and also have quality relationships.”
“So at the end of the day I think, every woman wants that protector, wants that life partner,” Andrea Dey said. “I think as long as you are happy where you are right now that’s all that matters.
Read more about ‘A Woman’s Nation’ with Guest Editor Maria Shriver on msnbc.com.