Over the weekend, two high-profile divorced women spoke about life after separation. First, a clip from Tia Mowry’s new show, My Next Act, started making the rounds on social media, inspiring a lot of thoughtful conversation about why she and her ex-husband Cory Hardrict split, and how other women out there, like her long-time friend and fellow actress Essence Atkins, are navigating their divorces.
While none of us have real, concrete answers about why Tia and Cory went their separate ways, people seem to have more clarity after Tia’s revelations, questions and concerns.
Tia asks her friend, Essence Atkins on how she managed to get through her divorce. #TiaMowry #MyNextAct
— jay (@JaysRealityBlog) October 5, 2024
Source: @WEtv pic.twitter.com/5XiW89Q8wJ
In the clip, Tia opened up about being a late bloomer, the fact that she wasn’t allowed to date until she was 18, and that she waited until she was 25 to lose her virginity to Cory. Recounting her story left people with the impression that he was a “good guy” for waiting that long, and that it’s likely they just grew apart, which, really, is what she’s been saying all along.
Then, Reese Witherspoon spoke at the second annual Shine Away event for her media company, Hello Sunshine, and was asked whether there was an “aha” moment in her life where she found her voice, and she reflected on finding her voice after becoming a single mom in her late 20s and feeling pushed to start making decisions, both as a businessperson and as a mother.
"There's a moment in all of our lives when you realize, no wait, no one's coming to help, no one's coming to make that decision. For me, I have to make that decision…Being a single mom when I was in my late 20s, I had to make a lot of decisions for my two kids and a lot of financial decisions, too,” she said.
One of my favourite topics to write, read, talk and even think about is the resilience of women. And particularly, how that resilience seems to multiply after a separation or a divorce, and how things like matrescence can come into the fold if there are children involved, which in both Tia and Reese’s case, there are. But in hearing these two very different, yet overarchingly similar stories about resilience, I’m reminded that not every woman’s journey is going to look the same – particularly when for most of us, we lack the resources to finance the cost of “bouncing back”, mentally, physically, emotionally or professionally, seemingly a non-issue for these women.
By most measures, divorce has become really common over the last few decades, and especially in the last few years, partially in thanks to celebrities like Emily Ratajkowski saying she finds it “chic” to be divorced by the age of 30, and people like Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin rebranding divorce and sparking the trend to “consciously uncouple”. But underneath divorce being celebrated and reframed by celebrities, there is a lengthy political history that helped boost how normal it is to part ways.
In 1969, when California became the first state to legalize no-fault divorce, where couples could agree to divorce without having to pin fault on their partner and ultimately prove their spouse’s wrongdoings in court, it sparked what is often referred to as the “divorce revolution”. But according to statistics, that revolution was already about a decade underway, reflecting a long-held desire, mostly by women, to break free from their marital chains.
According to National Affairs, the 20-year period between 1960 and 1980 saw the divorce rate in the U.S. more than double. America went from 9.2 divorces per 1,000 married women to 22.6 divorces per 1,000 married women.
So why was it political? Well, according to conservatives, many of whom still hold this belief, no-fault divorce is viewed as a danger to the “sanctity of marriage” and the concept of the “American family”. But for feminists and human rights advocates, it’s both a game-changer and a life-saver.
A 2004 National Bureau of Economic Research paper authored by economists Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers found an 8 to 16% decrease in female suicides in the wake of states passing no-fault divorce laws. A roughly 30% decrease in intimate partner violence among both women and men was also discovered, along with a 10% drop in women murdered by their partners. Yet despite the inherent benefits that have come from no-fault divorce laws being enacted, the policy is constantly facing renewed threats from Republicans, including vice-presidential candidate J.D. Vance, who remarked that no-fault divorce makes it “easier for people to shift spouses like they change their underwear.”
Obviously he was being dramatic, but he is right about the ease of access that no-fault divorce affords people, and the life-saving impact it can have for women (not that he would ever mention such a thing).
All of this brings to light a deeper issue that exists in studying celebrity divorces in isolation, rather than viewing them as a small piece of the puzzle about what life after divorce can and should look and feel like. And the problem is that celebrities are selling us an image, a brand of divorce that is not so easy to come by if you do not have the resources that they do.
When it comes to the benefits that come with divorce, which range from the more serious ones, like the decreases in suicide and murder among women, to the more cavalier chicness being sold to us by famous people, we’re being reminded that the ease of getting a divorce does not at all represent the ease of being divorced. The idea that divorces being easier to get now than they ever have been mean that being divorced, especially newly, will be filled with the same ease is just categorically incorrect. And it’s a really important thing to remember.
When everyday divorced women find themselves comparing their post-divorced lives to the lives of women like EmRata, who celebrated by getting a divorce ring, or Kristin Cavallari, who started a podcast and had an enviable, short-lived but steamy romance with a hot, young stud captivated a lot of us, and like Tia and Reese, they may be wondering why we’re filled with so much more confusion, pain and even poverty. And though it was so comforting to see Tia having some questions and needing some guidance, even that was a reminder of the community that for a lot of women, not all of us have.
While I thoroughly enjoy hearing about the successes, big and small, from women who, since divorcing, have gone back to school, started businesses, become better parents, become better people, started dating again, lost weight, gained weight, and everything in between, we have to remember that there are a lot of losses, too. And that looking only to celebrities can magnify that feeling.