Bibliographies
Please see the SSWN
bibliography with historical and contemporary
sources on single women.
http://www.medusanet.ca/singlewomen/resources/bib_main.htm
Bella
de Paulo's
excellent annotated bibliography
of contemporary-era singles references:
http://issc.berkeley.edu/singlesstudies/bibliography.html
The Rutgers
Centre for Historical Analysis (Rutgers University,
USA ) has put together a searchable on-line bibliographic
database on singleness
studies as part of their 2003-4 special research theme "Gendered
Passages in Historical Perspective: Single Women."
http://www.scc.rutgers.edu/rcha/
Syllabi
Singles
in Society - Bella M. DePaulo, 1999
http://www.medusanet.ca/singlewomen/resources/dpsyl.htm
Single
Women in the U.S.: Social, Psychological and Historical
Perspectives - E. Kay Trimberger, 2002
http://www.medusanet.ca/singlewomen/resources/ktsyl.htm
Papers
Linda Berg-Cross, Anne-Marie
Scholz, Joanne Long, Ewa Grzeszcyk, and Anjali Roy - "Single
Professional Women: A Global Phenomenon, Challenges and
Opportunities."
Journal of International Women's Studies 5, no.5
(June 2004): 34-59.
External link to: http://www.bridgew.edu/SoAS/jiws/Jun04/Single.pdf
Abstract: This paper presents
the globalization of elite single professional women (SPW)
as the first new global sociological phenomenon of the twenty-first
century. We trace the economic roots of the phenomenon and
how female empowerment interacts with the psychological
prerequisites for mating. We then trace how the phenomenon
is being expressed outside of the United States, in India,
Poland, and Germany. We conclude by putting these observations
into a historical perspective and briefly listing possible
strategies for responding, adapting, and maximizing one’s
options.
Roona Simpson - "Contemporary
Spinsters in the New Millennium: Changing Notions of Family
& Kinship"
New Working Paper Series, LSE Gender Institute, Issue 10,
July 2003.
External link to:
http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/genderInstitute/pdf/contemporarySpinsters.pdf
Abstract: Familial change in recent
decades has been the subject of much academic theorising
and political attention, with concerns raised that changing
familial forms signal a decline in obligations and commitments
and a concomitant rise in selfish individualism. Remaining
single can be seen as paradigmatic of individualism in contemporary
Western societies, and single women in particular risk being
depicted as strident individualists characterised by their
lack of connection to significant others, despite their
singleness historically being explained in relation to duties
to care for parents and wider family members. This paper
draws on ongoing research on the family and social networks
of contemporary spinsters. I look specifically at their
caring relationships as daughters and mothers and argue
that the changes and continuities illustrated reflect more
an increasing diversity in the context and meanings associated
with these caring commitments rather than their decline.
I suggest this research both challenges a conception of
the individual as autonomous and self-directed, supporting
rather a more relational interdependent conception, and
that it supports arguments about the progressive potential
of diversity of familial practices in the context of changing
cultural and societal conditions of contemporary Western
societies.
E.
Kay Trimberger - "Friendship Networks and Care"
Working Paper # 31, Center
for Working Families, U.C. Berkeley, Fall 2001.
External link to: http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/wfnetwork/berkeley/papers/31.pdf
Abstract: Based on her own research
and a survey of both quantitative and qualitative social
research, the author demonstrates the importance of care
by a network of friends for the elderly, the seriously ill,
single adults, singles mothers in times of crisis. Although
women predominate as friends who care, the response of gay
men to the AIDS epidemic demonstrates that such care does
not have to be gender specific. The author discusses the
limits of such informal care, and argues for greater cultural
recognition of care by friends as distinct from family,
and for changes in social policy.
Anne
Byrne - "Singular Identities: Managing Stigma, Resisting
Voices"
Article Published in Women's Studies Review, Vol.
7, 2000, 13-24.
Link to SSWN page: http://medusanet.ca/singlewomen/resources/byrne.htm
Abstract: This paper argues that
single women are stigmatised in contemporary Irish society
and that this is particularly evident in people's everyday
interactions with single women. Stigmatising interactions
are apparent in relation to singleness itself, marital status,
the bearing of children and sexuality, indicating the pervasiveness
of heterosexual, familistic ideologies in Irish society.
The paper describes a set of stigma management strategies
deployed by women in response to single stigma. Within these
responses, emerging forms of resistance to dominant ideologies
of womanhood are evident in women's explanations of 'why
I am single'.
Abstracts
Abstracts
from 'Single Women in History 1000-2000' -
West of England and South Wales Women's History Network
12th Annual Conference, University of the West of England,
Bristol, UK, 23-24 June 2006.
http://humanities.uwe.ac.uk/swhisnet/PAPERS/Abstracts.htm
Abstracts
from members' panels on single women at the
Canadian Historical Association Annual Meeting, May 2002.
http://www.medusanet.ca/singlewomen/resources/cha2002.htm
See the schedule for the 'Gendered Passages in Historical
Perspective: Single Women' seminar at the Rutgers Centre for
Historical Analysis:
http://rcha.rutgers.edu/event2003.php
Funding
The Anthony Marchionne Foundation Small
Grants Program
The Marchionne Foundation currently supports researchers
who are interested in the study of people who have never
married.
Though the Foundation has a Psychology emphasis, the Grants
Program is interested in research on all aspects of life-singlehood,
and has funded researchers from a variety of disciplines.
http://www.wsu.edu/~socpsych/anthony_marchionne_foundation.htm
