Rebecca Traister

"Today, only twenty percent of Americans are wed by age twenty-nine, compared to nearly sixty percent in 1960. The Population Reference Bureau calls it a 'dramatic reversal.' [This book presents a] portrait of contemporary American life and how we got here, through the lens of the single American woman, covering class, race, [and] sexual orientation, and filled with ... anecdotes from ... contemporary and historical figures"--

Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation

All the Single Ladies

Gigi V

It's comforting to have books like these written. I may not be American but it speaks to me as well.

A nuanced investigation into the sexual, economic, and emotional lives of women in America, this “singularly triumphant work” (Los Angeles Times) by Rebecca Traister “the most brilliant voice on feminism in the country” (Anne Lamott) is “sure to be vigorously discussed” (Booklist, starred review). In 2009, the award-winning journalist Rebecca Traister started All the Single Ladies—a book she thought would be a work of contemporary journalism—about the twenty-first century phenomenon of the American single woman. It was the year the proportion of American women who were married dropped below fifty percent; and the median age of first marriages, which had remained between twenty and twenty-two years old for nearly a century (1890–1980), had risen dramatically to twenty-seven. But over the course of her vast research and more than a hundred interviews with academics and social scientists and prominent single women, Traister discovered a startling truth: the phenomenon of the single woman in America is not a new one. And historically, when women were given options beyond early heterosexual marriage, the results were massive social change—temperance, abolition, secondary education, and more. Today, only twenty percent of Americans are wed by age twenty-nine, compared to nearly sixty percent in 1960. The Population Reference Bureau calls it a “dramatic reversal.” All the Single Ladies is a remarkable portrait of contemporary American life and how we got here, through the lens of the single American woman. Covering class, race, sexual orientation, and filled with vivid anecdotes from fascinating contemporary and historical figures, All the Single Ladies is destined to be a classic work of social history and journalism. Exhaustively researched, brilliantly balanced, and told with Traister’s signature wit and insight, this book should be shelved alongside Gail Collins’s When Everything Changed.

Rachel

All the Single Ladies takes a look at the lives, the reasons and the impact of the rise of unmarried women. I enjoyed the book, being from the south in my mid-twenties I hear how I ought to be getting married soon and having kids, when I don't see my life going that way. This book doesn't shame married women, or women who marry young and have kids young, the book is much more about women having more options nowadays and we can choose when to do these things on our own time table and not societies expectations for us. I enjoyed how life for women is looked at from diverse angles like race, income, geographically, and sexual orientation. My only issue is this is nothing groundbreaking or new, it compiles a variety of known information together. I feel like the people who would most benefit from this book will never have any desire to read it and the people who do read it will already know most of this information. I enjoyed the book and agreed with much of it, but it was nothing new. 3.5/5 stars.

All the Single Ladies Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation

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