Book No. 16 of 2020 ⭐️
Outstanding book. I kept stopping to highlight and take photos of passages. Even though the book focuses on the history and increasing social and political power of single women, this is a really fascinating, smart read even for the happily coupled. Traister puts the evolving institution of marriage, with all its flaws and whiffs of oppression, under an analytical lens, and deftly claps back at those doomsday sayers who are all too quick to blame changing gender and relationship norms for society’s ills.
As I said in another post, I also appreciated, deeply, Traister’s awareness that a lot of analysis and attention, through history and even now, is disproportionately focused on the behaviors of white, middle-class women, and that women outside of that rather narrow slice of humanity have always been part of the story, and have been doing their part to shape marriage and society since America’s inception. She takes a lot of stereotypes—about single mothers, career women, marginalized women, and women in general—to task with insight and grace.
Similar Reads
For another super-insightful book on the role of heterosexual marriage in America, and how norms have changed, I recommend From Front Porch to Back Seat: Courtship in Twentieth-Century America by Beth L. Bailey
For fiction that delves into the complexity of women’s experiences in work, life, and family, see: pretty much every damn book I read.