I had thought a lot about unmarried life during my years as an unmarried woman - which was all during my 20s and into my 30s. I was someone who didn't have a ton of relationships as a single person - and so I had a sharp identification with singlehood.
From Rebecca Traister
In some ways, privileged women who are closer to power wind up being able to exert their influence in ways that change public policy in ways that women with less power don't have access to.
Being able to control your reproduction is essential to women's ability to flourish in the United States.
In 2009, the proportion of American women who were married dropped below 50 percent.
Throughout America's history, the start of adult life for women - whatever else it might have been destined to include - had been typically marked by marriage.
Since the late 19th century, the median age of first marriage for women had fluctuated between 20 and 22. This had been the shape, pattern and definition of female life.
Single female life is not prescription, but its opposite: liberation.
The vast majority of women who marry still take their husband's name. And I'm not vilifying that behavior! But that's a pattern where women are truly still taking on their husbands' identities.
Marriage has been a way of attempting to ensure the replication of power and wealth from one generation of another, passing it down from men to men.
Blogs with feminist content, from 'Feministing' and 'Jezebel' to 'Racialicious' and 'Shakesville' and 'Feministe,' have opened up and changed the scope of the feminist universe for women who might never have encountered contemporary feminism.
9 perspectives
7 perspectives
5 perspectives
4 perspectives
2 perspectives
1 perspectives