Overview

* NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOKS OF 2016 SELECTION * BEST BOOKS OF 2016 SELECTION BY THE BOSTON GLOBE * ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY * NPR * CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY * The New York Times bestselling investigation into the sexual, economic, and emotional lives of women is “an informative and thought-provoking book for anyone—not just the single ladies—who want to gain a greater understanding of this pivotal moment in the history of the United States” (The New York Times Book Review). 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 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 married by age twenty-nine, compared to nearly sixty percent in 1960. “An informative and thought-provoking book for anyone—not just single ladies” (The New York Times Book Review), All the Single Ladies is a remarkable portrait of contemporary American life and how we got here, through the lens of the unmarried American woman. Covering class, race, sexual orientation, and filled with vivid anecdotes from fascinating contemporary and historical figures, “we’re better off reading Rebecca Traister on women, politics, and America than pretty much anyone else” (The Boston Globe).

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9781476716572

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Reviews

PRAISE FOR ALL THE SINGLE LADIES A singularly triumphant work of women presented in beautiful formation. -- The Los Angeles Times Traister brings a welcome balance of critique and personal reflection to a conversation that is often characterize more by moral policing than honest discussion . . . Perhaps one of the most important aspects of [her] narrative is her acknowledgement that the experiences of single women are far from identical . . . An informative and thought-provoking book for anyone--not just the single ladies--who want to gain a greater understanding of this pivotal moment in the history of the United States. -- New York Times Book Review We're better off reading Rebecca Traister on women, politics, and America than pretty much anyone else. -- The Boston Globe Traister is a triple threat--essayist, journalist, and polemicist--bringing a seismic shift to light, hunting down its implications, and showing how it changes politics, and how policy needs to change to reflect it. Her book demands not just reading but discussion and debate. -- Boris Kachka, Vulture The enormous accomplishment of Traister's book is to show that the ranks of women electing for nontraditional lives...have also improved the lots of women who make traditional choices, blowing open the institutions of marriage and parenthood... This rich portrait of our most quietly explosive social force makes it clear that the ladies still have plenty of work to do. -- Slate A monumental study of the political, economic, social, and sexual consequences of the rise of unmarried women. -- NewRepublic.com Traister wants single women to recognize themselves as political force and to celebrate unmarried life for what it can be: an excellent choice. -- People Magazine, People's Picks Wonderfully inclusive, examining single women from all walks of life--working-, middle-, and upper-class women; women of color and white women; queer and straight ones...[Traister] brings her trademark intelligence and wit to bear. -- Elle No husband, NP...In All the Single Ladies, an exhaustive examination of independent women and how they shaped the world we life (and date) in today, Rebecca Traister explodes the centuries-old notion that marriage is compulsory to living a happy, fulfilled life and reveals the inestimable power of being blissfully unattached. -- Cosmo Traister s comprehensive volume, sure to be vigorously discussed, is truly impressive in scope and depth while always managing to be eminently readable and thoughtful. -- Booklist, starred review This fast-paced, fascinating book will draw in fans of feminism, social sciences, and U.S. history. -- Library Journal, starred review All The Single Ladies is a nuanced investigation into the sexual, economic, and emotional lives of women in America. -- Publishers Weekly I can t begin to count the number of conversations I ve had in my adult life about my lack of enthusiasm to marry Thankfully, with the publication of Rebecca Traister s All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation, I can stop explaining and buy her book for all the busy bodies in my happily unmarried life. Traister blends history, reportage and personal memoir to propose that the notion of marriage in American life has been and will be written by unmarried women. -- Guardian (US) A wide-ranging, insistently optimistic analysis of the role of single women in American society. -- Chicago Tribune Part social and cultural history, part anthropological and journalistic investigation, part memoir, and total investigation into the phenomenon and political power of single womanhood. -- Flavorwire

Author Information

Rebecca Traister is writer at large for New York magazine and a contributing editor at Elle. A National Magazine Award finalist, she has written about women in politics, media, and entertainment from a feminist perspective for The New Republic and Salon and has also contributed to The Nation, The New York Observer, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Vogue, Glamour and Marie Claire. She is the author of All the Single Ladies and the award-winning Big Girls Don’t Cry. She lives in New York with her family. 

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