It's on my to-read shelf. I read the first 30 pages or so and found it interesting and funny.

BookRay Guidelines If someone offers to mail you the book, but you are too busy to read it in a timely manner, that's OK. Just let me know and I will move you down on the list. If you are ready to mail but you get no response from the next person on the list, skip them and mail to the next person.

Participants:
1. blacksheeps99 (Austria)
2. Starry-Starry (UK)
3. nillabreen (MA, USA)
4. LaRue (NY, USA)
5. tamugrad02 (VA, USA)
6. skcreader (VA, USA)
7. MarthaMinx (NC, USA)
8. ramson (LA, USA)
9. caligula03 (CA, USA)
10. jenvince (CA, USA)
11. Hawkette (Australia)

Received the book today and I´m really looking forward to read it!

Thanks a lot!

I enjoyed reading this great book! It´s funny and interesting and sometimes a little bit "shocking"! :-)

I learned a lot and now I have to watch some of the mentioned movies and to read even more(also mentioned) books!

Sent to Starry-Starry (Uk) today - I hope you´ll enjoy it, too!

Received today, thanks very much blacksheeps99 and Flashgirl. It looks like a very interesting book. It is next on my TBR as I just have to finish the bokring I already have in the house. I should make a start on it this weekend.

This was a very interesting and entertaining book and I enjoyed it. I'm not sure it can be called a secret history though as the author points out at the end of the book that this subject is "now a recognised field of remarkable scholarship and theory".

Being a single woman now, I found the chapter on the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s most interesting and most disconcerting. I had thought that single life these days was viewed as normal, but apparently not. She has made me re-examine my family's and friends' attitudes towards me and I have realised that things have not changed very much since the fifties in this part of Wales. The comments from my mother about a 'nice young man' that she met the other day, the questions from my sister-in-law to be as to whether I would be bringing a man with me to the wedding and even my aunt asked me recently if I had noticed that my married friends were concerned about me stealing their husbands! I now view these comments and questions in a new light and realise she is right that prevailing attitudes have not changed despite the feminist movement and equal opportunities.

This is an easy book to read, she presents her theories and conclusions in an engaging manner. Though I did find her presentation of statistics pandering to the wow factor. In one paragraph she says "60% of all American women were married", "one in three by age nineteen". "14 million were engaged at age seventeen" and then "97 out of 1,000 between the ages of 15 and 19 gave birth". Presenting statistics in this way doesn't give you any basis for comparison, but does make them sound good.

I liked the way she used fiction and movies as well as academic studies and newspaper reports to gain insights into the attitudes of society at different times. I've not seen this done before and I found it very interesting. My favourite quote is from 1961 and says:
"...Others merely back away from both the 'normal' path to marriage and the ranter's route to stormy singleness; in some private corner of themselves, they plot an independant course, and then pursue it just as silently as people will permit."

Thanks for sharing this Flashgirl.

Posted onto Nillabreen today - 18/10/03

I never thought there was much social stigma attached to being single in this day and age, either. After all, all my friends are single! Then I had this conversation with my mother about my younger sister’s recent engagement and the question of who her bridesmaids will be:

Mom: Well, Jennifer’s been in so many weddings… now I guess it’s payback time.

Me: Funny, I’ve never been in any weddings. None of my friends are married.

Mom: That explains why you’re stuck in a holding pattern.

Like a plane that just circles and circles but never gets to land, that’s my life. Ouch!

I received this book as part of a book ring. Thanks! I'll start it this weekend.

This book made for interesting reading, but I was left with the feeling that the situation was somehow more complex than the author made it out to be, or there were other aspects that were not considered. At times it felt like she was really trying too hard to make her point.

On p.219 the author comments on the many "single-girl" stories appearing in newspapers and magazines in the seventies:
Single-girl stories always included such confessions, worries, or an authorial caveat, as if it was the writer's responsibility to list all contraindications for this radical trial drug called independence. Most of the pieces concluded with a haunting question: 'Even now, in black moments, they ask "What am I doing here?" or "Why should I stay? Who'd notice if I was gone" "What if there is no one here for me?" "Is this... it?"'
I think the author is off-base to criticize the writers of these articles for looking at both sides of the situation, and not presenting single life as an unmitigated joy. It has its downsides just like everything. Neither would an article about married life be very good if it presented it all in one light. The questions quoted above are likely to be asked by any intelligent person who works a secretarial job for too long. We should look at why these kinds of jobs are disproportionately filled by women and why women are paid less than men for the same work, and it's likely that the answers to these questions are to be found in the dark misogyny of western culture hinted at in other parts of the book.

I thought that the author was laying it on a bit thick in some places. In discussing the working conditions of "shopgirls" in the early 20th century, she writes: Some forbade all galoshes or demanded that on wet days girls arrive very early, long before any customers, so that they could remove their galoshes in the entryway and walk on the store floors in workplace shoes. (p.90). Well, yes. I bet department stores ask the same thing of their employees today -- one should not track dirty snow through the aisles. And that phrase "long before any customers" (!) How long does it take to change your shoes?

And I just laughed on p.247 where she writes: "... I also think the most popular cat book of the era ... played on stereotypes associated with single women. Garfield was a male cat, but his primary characteristics were borrowed from traits commonly ascribed to single females... "

Though this book definitely has its flaws, I think it was worthwhile to read it just to be reminded of these issues. My mother was careful to teach me about feminism. I grew up with it. My mother refused to let me watch the tv show Bewitched because she didn't want me to be exposed to a show in which a woman hid her talents to please a man, and that was presented as if that were good or normal. I went to a women's college and took math and science in all-female classes. When I was in graduate school I was a teacher's assistant for an introductory logic course and I was surprised when freshman girls came to office hours distressed because they were absolutely convinced that they could not do logic. Now I work at a voice recognition technology company, and I am one of very few women there. I don't know whether the company discriminates in its hiring (back when they hired people instead of laying them off) or whether the gender gap is purely because there are fewer qualified female applicants. But I make a point of having no illusions. I took off my wedding ring when I went to the interview, because I was concerned that they would not hire someone for whom they might have to provide maternity leave. (And trust me, they don't have to worry about it.)

PS. My husband just came into the room to inform me that the slogan for Secret deodorant has been changed from "Strong enough for a man but made for a woman" to "Made strong enough for a woman.".

(Bachelor Girl will be on its way to LaRue tomorrow)

Just received in today's mail. I went to college with the author, so I am curious to read it!

I'm about halfway through this book, but I'm so bored with it that I'm going to send it on its way unfinished. First, I don't understand why this is called the "secret" history since so far it hasn't taught me anything I didn't already know. And since it draws its conclusions from popular films, advertisements, and novels of the time, I don't think it can be considered an accurate portrait of single women - just look at today's Sex And The City - 100 years from now is someone going to think that is typical of 2003's single women? I sure hope not! Sending to tamugrad02 on Monday.

Got this in the mail today. Will start it as soon as I'm done with my current book. Will journal again upon finshing.

Finished this book last night. I have to say I agreed with LaRue on this book....it wasn't as interesting as I thought it would be. I pretty much skimmed all the chapter until it talked about the 1980s and after. I can't say this book isn't what I expected, because I wasn't sure what to expect. I will be sending it on to the next person in line ASAP. Thanks for bookring Flashgirl.

OH MY GOSH!!! I am so sorry. I thought I had mailed out all my bookrings/rays and then I look in my pile of things to mail out and there's this book. I'm so sorry I've held onto it for this long. I'm going to the post office in about 5 minutes and putting this in the mail. Sorry for the hold up.

received today - will start reading tonight....

rather superficial overview of working women in NYC in the early twentieth century....I prefer reading the primary sources in such works. I did pick up "City of Women" that was referenced in this book. It looks to be more my style.

Received this book in the mail yesterday, and have enjoyed reading others comments thus far. Will read it, and journal away!

Okay, okay, I'll confess...I hung on to this bookring waaaaay too long, and apologise for doing so. I have gotten quite behind in my reading since beginning a new job in January. So sorry!

BUT, the book has been sent to the next reader where it will again continue on it's merry, feminist way.

That said, I did enjoy the historical and cultural tidbits that this book pointed out in regards to how single women have been portrayed in various societies. Due to my Women's Studies background, I did end up skimming some of the material, which ended up being a great refresher of the subtle ways in which generations have modified the oppressive nature of women's "roles and behaviors."

Thanks flashgirl, for sending this one around!

Received this in a box of books that seem to have a feminist theme tied to them. I only remember signing up to read this one so I don't plan to journal the others and will send them on when I send this one out to the next person in line. This is #3 in the line of bookrings to be read. I should get to it by the beginning of next week.

The book has arrived with three other stow-aways. I only recall signing up to read one book... ?

I enjoyed this cultural and historical look at a type of life style I've never personally had. I don't think my college years count. On the first day of orientation I met my future husband. By our senior year we were living together. One month after graduation we were married. We're still married. I had fully expected to be a single girl for a while but it just didn't work out that way.

I really enjoyed her analysis of the cultural icons of the various decades. Her screenwriting background shows in her delightful analysis of a variety of films from the silent era all the way up through the recent television sitcoms. I think her final chapter is the weakest, but it's hard to analyize something while living in the middle of it.

I stayed up until one in the morning to finish the book which is a testiment to how well written it is.

RELEASE NOTES:

Mailing on Saturday.

This arrived today. I have a few rings to finish ahead of it, but will read this as soon as I can. Will journal again when I've started. It looks like a great book!

Just a little note to say that I am starting this today.

I started losing interest about halfway through this (I really tried!), so am going to pass it on without finishing. Am just waiting for an address from Seferim.

Update: Seferim asked to be skipped, so am contacting the next person for their address.
Update 2: tootshelling asked to be skipped. Will contact the next person! LOL!

10/5: Book in mail to Hawkette.

Has arrived with me.

The little poem and picture on the back..."The Bachelor Girl life is one sweet song proving of course it doesn't last too long"...it's quite amusing, although a little disturbing! I rather like my bachelorette-hood.

I always find it interesting to pick up a book with mixed reviews...it's on the TBR pile!

I am in the process of relocating from Australia to the UK, in search of fun, adventure, and interesting work, and this is one of the books on my Mt Toobee that I still want to read...but won't get to before I board the plane. So to make room in my luggage for silly things like clothes and shoes (!!), I have offered it as a bookray in the BCAUS and BCUK Yahoo sites, to see if it can make it's way back to me eventually...

Here is the list so far!
And thanks for helping out everyone - BookCrossers are so great!!

Quilted-Elf (aus)
claudinec (aus)
puppymummy (aus)
chelseagirl (uk)

and then back to me, Hawkette.

PM me to join!

Have sent this one out today to visit some other people, before coming back to me. This should find me in the UK next time around!

Umm Yeah!!! I have been slack about journalling this book even though I have had a look at it and shown it around work and whatnot. Everyone seemed fascinated and we have agreed that we need to get a copy for the collection. (I work in a womens library) There was much laughter and hilarity as I read out snippets to people who were to silly to run out of thelibrary screaming when I opened "YET ANOTHER BOOK!!!!" LOL

I look forward to reading and shall do post haste!!!

Thanks Hawkette!!!