All the Single Ladies

In 2009, award-winning journalist Rebecca Traister started All the Single Ladies 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 per¢ 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. Today, only twenty percent of Americans are married by age twenty-nine, compared to nearly sixty percent in 1960. All the Single Ladies is a remarkable portrait of contemporary American life, through the lens of the unmarried American woman. Covering class, race, sexual orientation and filled with vivid anecdotes from fascinating contemporary and historical figures.