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

Written by Rebecca Traister

Narrated by Candace Thaxton

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).

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
• Release date: Mar 1, 2016
• ISBN: 9781508215073

Rebecca Traister

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 Good and Mad, All the Single Ladies and the award-winning Big Girls Don’t Cry. She lives in New York with her family. 

Reviews for All the Single Ladies

[mrsdanaalbasha · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This is my third book by Jane Costello; I loved "Girl on the Run" (2011), "The Nearly-Weds" (2009) was okay, hope this one is even better and funnier. It was released in the same year as "Girl on the Run". I reached chapter 5, I like that the chapters aren't long and I like that her stories are easy to get into.

I'm very disappointed with this book. I laughed from time to time, that's true, but I didn't like it, let alone love it, I didn't like the characters nor did I like Sam with her unending misery with a hopeless guy. I'm sad I didn't love it.

[kay · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Amazing ? the effort and research put into this book is appreciated

[wagner5sarah35 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book about single women was published nearly eight years ago and it feels just as relevant, if not more so, today. Filled with historical and contemporary examples, Rebecca Traister highlights the many roles of unmarried women - as political, economic, and social forces. An important read and perspective for better understanding the world we currently live in.

[sanyamakadi · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book did some things right, and some things not right, but overall I would recommend it. The biggest thing the author did right was centering the book around the intersectionalities of gender, race, and class, and clearly exploring how those things combined to determine women's choices around their partnership status, as well as society's views of them and it. The biggest things the author did wrong were (1) assuming the reader came from the same place she did when she started reseaching the book, which is thinking her generation (1990's college grads) invented the normalization of single life (ummm) and (2) asserting that self-identification as gay or lesbian is a 20th century construct (double ummm). Nevertheless, it draws on diverse sources--thankfully, most of whom are women--and presents some thought provoking viewpoints, and is in general an easy read.

[sammusher · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Women, single or formerly single: you need this book in your life. It reinforced all the comforting, realistic things my friends said to me in my worst "my life is not following the Official Path" moments -- with historical context and data! Traister is a real journalist who understands that you can't just tell your story and those of your (also white and well-educated) friends and pretend that it's a book about women in general. She acknowledges that there's a slant towards people who look like her, but is scrupulous about including a diversity of stories. Multiple people are getting this one from me for Winter Gift Season.

[justagirlwithabook · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

 As a single girl, this book really spoke to what it's like to be living independently as a woman in the 21st century. Reading it, I felt like someone finally 'got it' and knew what it really felt and understood how rigged the patriarchal system is.

[wellreadcatlady · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

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.

[calavari · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

All the Single Ladies A compelling book about the herstory and current state of being a single woman in the US. Some new information for me, but also referenced some books I've read before!
It's exciting for me that she references books I've read. It means that I might just be catching up on the state feminism and a reasonable amount of it's herstory and therefore taking that information out of "cold storage" and into active use.
I have not been "single" but because of both my and my husband's jobs, I've spent time alone and totally understand some of the reasons listed for not wanting to get involved with a partner, let alone married. I have always missed my husband when I or he was on travel for work, and my son since his birth as well, but I understand how great it can be to not have to worry about what they want to do today or how long it will take them to get ready or how long we can stay somewhere. One or the other of us has been gone for months and we've used the time to do pretty much what these single women do but without even having to worry about dating. We've also had our share of bad times enough to know that it takes a lot to have a good marriage and both have to be in it all the way. In other words, it's not something to enter into lightly and I appreciate that these women are taking their time to be sure about tying their lives to someone else's.
Because of this, I cannot properly express my appreciation of Traister's inclusion of the facts on marriage, specifically bad marriage. It is far from a guarantee on almost everything that people tell you to get married for. In fact, if someone is telling you that you should marry, you probably shouldn't. In my opinion, it's a sign you aren't ready yet. I love her sentiment that marriage is increasingly being reserved as special. It is special. It is something that you should want more than anything when you do it, much like having children. But it's also not something that everyone should do and not something that everyone needs to want (also like kids). I don't understand the craze over the declining birth rates but I have noticed that we've stopped talking about overpopulation, which was a major problem that needed solving when I was a kid. Now we're back to encouraging women to get married and pop out babies.
Well, affluent white women. Yeah, it was also great that Traister includes the differences in the messages to women of color and poor women. Marriage is not the answer to financial stability. It can help and for some it is an answer, but financial stability is not a good reason to hitch your life and well-being to someone else. They may not deliver. You may grow to hate them. They may grow to hate you. They might leave or die. There are no guarantees in life and Traister reminds the reader of that.
Marriage is great, when it's great. Some of us are in it good enough to even work through what we consider hard times. Others of us have to deal with various forms of abuse. It is not an answer to how to make life great because it can be awful. It can be the worst thing for you. So waiting to marry until you really want to, I have always thought was a good idea.
More than all this, painting the picture of a single woman as one who is happy with her life is an incredible and beautiful thing. Yes, being in love is great, but so is being you. We shouldn't be painted as needing a partner to be whole or fulfilled or happy. We should be able to be happy with ourselves. I have known plenty of women who are happy on their own and with what their lives are giving them and don't feel a family would increase this feeling. Mine does for me, but I know these same two people could make others very not happy. Between the book and personal experience, I am compelled to believe that surrounding ourselves with people who we can be ourselves and happy around is the best way to live, it just doesn't always include legal styles of partnering like marriage.
I love the idea of celebrations of singledom. I don't have many single friends (it just happens when you're married or single that we migrate to separate circles) but I would happily buy one a present for some other milestone. I also find that the way we lavish expense on weddings to be extreme and unnecessary and demanding friends to partake in expensive gifts is not cool. I've had a big wedding and a small one and I can tell you that they require so much compromise and cause so much stress that the lavishness wasn't worth it for me. The small wedding was better, more hectic in the preparations but relaxed during the ceremony and party and I could actually enjoy myself instead of worrying about all the tables I needed to stop by and other disasters, including that I've just put myself and my family in extra debt for just a day. Though, I guess it can seem okay when we expect to reciprocate eventually, but when most women get married around the same age, it can be drain on everyone around us. And then, yeah, baby showers are completely necessary still and those don't preclude single women, though they can be drain on the wallet too. Personally, I'd rather save it for the baby shower because babies require a lot of set up costs.
Still, we should be able to celebrate singledom. We should be able to be happy for each other when someone is doing something we wouldn't necessarily do. I don't know what those celebrations should be, but I'm all for it. Maybe a 'moving out on your own' party, or something. I don't know. Single people, let us know!
I really enjoyed this book. It did get a low at times, explaining the realities of both singledom and marriage in many of their forms both good and bad, but overall, it was an enjoyable read. It gave me hope for the future and the direction that women are going in this country. It was inclusive of many ways of being single and/or married and the evolution of some problems for both. It's an important book to read and I'd pair it with The Feminine Mystique if you haven't read it. Not only is it mentioned, but they work well together to further illuminate the evolution of women in this country in a way that neither does well on it's own. Obviously, The Feminine Mystique is technically about 55 years behind the times, but you'll cringe to see how similar the times can really be while appreciating those changes that have been made.
Progress is slow but real. It seems like a crawl and like we take two steps back for every step forward, but reading some of the older texts definitely helps me realize the changes, though subtle, that have taken place in our impressions of our own society.

[askelmore · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a good book, but it is dense. I started it in early August and just finished it late last night because I didn’t want to carry around such a hefty hardback book, and also because I kind of just wanted to read puffy junk like “Nerve.” But I’m really glad I made it all the way through, because I think it’s an interesting and important work.

Ms. Traister breaks her book down into ten chapters that explore different facets of being an unmarried woman in the U.S., including politics and power, independence, activism, and the reality that it can be very challenging. She doesn’t spend all of her time focusing on well-off white women (as I sort of feared); instead she looks at the different ways being unmarried and a woman intersects with class and race. And these aren’t just young unmarried women – some are older women, some are young mothers, some are older mothers, and some eventually do decide to get married.

The parts that definitely resonated most with me were the sections that covered being in one’s 20s and 30s and single in a large urban area. I spent most of my 20s single, and I lived in NYC. It was mostly fantastic, although I wasn’t actively eschewing dating or staking out a claim as a singleton. I’d go through phases of dating and not dating, enjoying the solitude of being able to wander through Central Park all day on a Saturday and not have to adjust to anyone else’s schedule. And I appreciate that my family never put any pressure on me to meet a man and settle down (it probably helped that they knew I wasn’t having kids). The parts that I didn’t directly relate to – such as discussions of being a single mother, or wanting to go through fertility treatment without a partner – were still very engaging to read.

If you’re interested in some history and some current analysis of how the US treats single women, this is definitely a good choice. Just be prepared for it to take a while to get through.

[mariacfox · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Loved loved loved this book!!!

[juva_3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A direct book about the changes in the way American couples get married. While the focus is on when and for what reasons women marry, the information has massive impact for everyone. The author brings a lot of much need logic and calm to an issue typically charged with hysteria. Pressured intensely by society, family, politicians, and advertising to consider themselves incomplete without marriage many women are still choosing to tie the knot later and later if at all.

What is motivating this move away from traditional patterns? This book answers countless other questions while putting to rest many fears, anxieties and superstitions about fertility, desirability and happiness of women. Very informative and super easy to read. Loved it.

[tonifgmamtc · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book is stocked full of important information about society, government, economics, medicine, history, etc. All women should read it. Men probably won't be as interested in the subject matter, but I highly recommend it to them also.

[citizenjoyce · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It's fascinating to find what a threat to society single women have been throughout the ages and how society has and continues to encourage and or force them from that state. Lots of good information about employment, sexual expression, reproduction and life choices.

[etxgardener · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

For 100 years since statistics on the subject were kept, the age that American women first married remained steady between 20 & 22 years of age. Then in the 1990's that age began to rise until today it is 17 years of age. Similarly, in 1960 60% of all women in their twenties were married, but today,that statistic has dropped below 50% Author Rebecca Traister endeavors in this book to explain why that is.

Traister interviewed hundreds of women, from the famous to the ordinary in researching this book and gives us a vivid picture of how society has changed - especially since World War II - and how women have taken advantaged of new economic opportunities to start living lives independent from attachments to men.

This is not to say that women are turning their backs on marriage altogether. instead they are taking time in their twenties (and sometimes early thirties) to establish themselves in careers and developing their own network of friends and professional colleagues. Marriage and motherhood is now typically entered into a a later and more mature age.

Traister points out that these trends have also led to problems. Single life (and sometimes single motherhood) is one thing for the educated professional classes and it is quite another for those who are working at low paying jobs without an adequate support network. She does a good job of portraying both sides of this story.

But at the end of the day, Traister comes down on the side of the independent woman who is happy to be single - the woman who is a threat to male dominated patriarchal societies everywhere. With cheerleaders like Rebecca Traister, I feel optimistic for the victory of the single ladies.

[weeta-3 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

a puzzling mix of fascinating historical correlations between percentage of traditional marriage and amount of social progress, mixed with numerous jabs against ALL partnerships based on statistics about the patriarchy, a handful of soured relationships, and jaded assumptions about partnerships. this is an important narrative, though noticeably slanted.

[bodagirl · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Absolutely wonderful and validating of my current lifestyle. The book begins on a positive note about the rising power of single women as a demographic in economic, political, and social shperes. The following chapters retain a lot of that favorable outlook but each chapter takes on a different aspect of remaining single and represents it fairly, exploring both the positive and negative aspects. Regardless of the slightly upbeat title, Traister does not completely shy away from some of the major issues that single (especially minority) women face: economic inequality, racism, and sexism. It's a well balanced book that is highly readable.

[neddludd · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is going to be an important book. It documents a trend toward postponing marriage from the very young to later in life. It also blesses the increasing number of single women who despise marriage--as a male patriarchal institution--and have no desire for children. This is a polemic voicing the thoughts and values of all these sisters, with periodic historical jumps to quote the founders of feminist thought. While what these women are doing in the millions is certainly rational, there also appears to be an element of neuroses and narcissism at work. One woman justifies buying absurdly overpriced shoes--as worn on Sex in the City--because historically women have denied themselves in favor of their husbands and children. Another, who on some level still yearns to be married, does get hitched--and then quickly leaves her new husband because she cannot cope with the relationship's "lack of truth." It seems obvious that this is a woman who would be labeled neurotic and narcissistic, given that "truth" is relative and that marriage is a state in which two individuals need to compromise sometimes deeply held beliefs: which she was not willing or capable of doing. The author occasionally lapses into a pedagogical voice which is not enjoyable; also, she demonstrates her naivte at the end by calling for the societal support of her sisters via a set of changes in American lifestyle that are more comprehensive and expensive than Bernie's. If some proportion of this laundry list every passes, it will take another 50-100 years. Given the narrow feminist focus of the work we need a companion study assessing all the male singles out there.