Never Married Women
Never Married Women
复制标题
未婚女性
DOI：
10.2307/2074023
复制
发表时间：
1987
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
B. Simon
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
B. Simon
“没有什么比有人在得知我从未结过婚后说，‘哦，你会喜欢我的阿姨_____更可笑的了！她也从未结婚。 “你们两个会有很多共同点”——摘自 1984 年 8 月的一次采访。在这项及时且具有挑衅性的研究中，芭芭拉·利维·西蒙采访了 50 名出生于 1884 年至 1918 年间、从未结过婚的美国女性，并考察了她们对“被无线束缚”的强烈拒绝，正如一位女性所表达的那样。这些引人注目的自画像中弥漫着一种独立的精神，这些女性描述了她们的日常活动、选择和适应，以及塑造了与老处女刻板印象相悖的生活的耻辱。西蒙解释道：“我写了这本关于他们的书，因为我希望其他人也能像我一样了解他们的经历和观点的多样性。只有沉浸在这种多样性中，人们才能开始理解“老处女”的流行观念与单身女性日常生活现实之间的差异……虽然从未结过婚的女性经常受到评判，但很少有人对她们进行研究。作者带着关怀和同理心，描绘了那些生活在未婚和经济独立被认为是不正常的时代的女性。这些女性来自不同的种族、宗教、教育和社会群体，年龄从六十六岁到一百零一岁不等，讨论她们喜欢或讨厌的工作以及与家人和朋友的关系。这些自传性的反思提供了对未婚女性的象征和物质世界的见解，并与当今单身职业女性的生活进行了比较。 20 世纪 80 年代，放弃婚姻的美国女性比例比过去一百年来的任何时候都要高得多。西蒙正面面对被动和不幸的老处女的形象，取而代之的是一群独立和自我实现的女性，她们在许多情况下选择保持单身。芭芭拉·利维·西蒙 (Barbara Levy Simon) 是哥伦比亚大学社会工作学院副教授。
'Nothing is more ridiculous than someone who says, upon learning that I never got married, 'Oh, you would like my Aunt _____ ! She never got married either. You two would have a lot in common' - from an interview, August 1984. In this timely and provocative study, Barbara Levy Simon interviews fifty American women, born between 1884 and 1918 who were never married, and examines their emphatic refusal to be 'yoked by wifing', as one woman expressed it. A spirit of independence pervades these compelling self-portraits as the women describe the day-to-day activities, options and adaptations, as well as the stigma that shaped lives that defied the spinster stereotype. Simon explains: 'I have written this book about them because I want others to learn, as I have, about the diversity of their experiences and perspectives. It is only by immersion in this variety that one can begin to comprehend the discrepancy between popular notions of 'old maids' and the actualities of single women's daily lives...Though women who have never married have often been judged, they have seldom been studied'. With care and empathy, the author presents women who lived at a time when not being married and being financially independent were considered deviant. From a variety of ethnic, religious, educational, and social groups, and ranging in age from sixty-six to one hundred and one years old, these women discuss the work they have loved or hated and their relations with family and friends. The autobiographical reflections provide insights about the symbolic and material worlds of never-married women and comparisons to the lives of single career women today. In the 1980s, a significantly higher proportion of American women are foregoing marriage than at any point in the past one hundred years. Simon confronts head-on the image of the passive and unhappy old maid, presenting instead a group of independent and self-actualizing women who, in many cases, chose to remain single. Barbara Levy Simon is Associate Professor in the School of Social Work at Columbia University.