'No single woman is immune to the bashing of society,' says Celeste Ntuli

Comedian Celeste Ntuli has opened up about being bashed because she's single but she's not about to get into a relationship just because of the pressure. 

Celeste told Drum magazine that women who are in their late 30s going on 40 have it hard because society thinks they are "cursed."

"No single woman is immune to the bashing of society. I am a 39-year-old woman who is unmarried and has no children. Like many women I've been in and out of relationships and they just don't work."

Earlier this week Claire Mawisa echoed the same sentiments on Twitter, saying that she was amazed by the number of people who felt obliged to immediately offer "prayers" and motivational speeches when a woman in her late 30 is single and/or doesn't have kids.

Celeste said the problem was that society had been conditioned to think less of women who aren't married. That there was widespread perception that these women are "broken" - something she doesn't agree with at all.

"Society has been conditioned to think that a woman who hasn't had a man for most of her life, like me, is a broken women. That there's something wrong with her. But that is so wrong it's a distorted view of life."

Celeste bagged her first lead role in a movie called Looking for Love and in an interview with TshisaLIVE last year she spoke about the similarities she shared with her character. 

"I play a young woman called Buyi Dube she's in her late 30s and single. A typical workaholic. She's Zulu, moved to Joburg for work and is under a lot of pressure to find love. People will find it easy to relate to her. People around her are getting married and everyone keeps asking when she will do the same. She goes through crazy things to find the kind of love others describe," she said. 

The comedian said she doesn't mind being alone as it allows her to explore more of her capabilities and also allows her to nourish her self love but she isn't anti love at all.

"As a society, if we stop putting all this undue strain on women, we can have a better understanding of each other in relationships," she told Bona magazine last year when asked if she would be hitting the dating scene.