"An impressively researched, analytically nuanced study."—Women’s Review of Books
"Carefully researched, engagingly written, and resonant for contemporary scholarship, the book represents a valuable contribution to feminist media history and to the broader study of American social history. Above all, her account works against the tendency to homogenize both women’s experience and popular culture."—American Historical Review
"Parts of this work really soar. Lehman is particularly adept at demonstrating just how quickly sitcom portrayals of working women reflected social changes. . . . Similarly, Lehman compellingly describes how ideas about sexual liberation for women became juxtaposed against messages of concern along with a certain amount of blaming the victim first in television police dramas and then in films such as Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977). . . . [This is an early work of promise by someone who] [Lehman] . . . clearly has the gift for finding the social significance in what most Americans regarded as little more than mindless entertainment."—Journal of American History
"An intriguing book."—Psychology Today
"This engaging, lively look at “bachelorettes” in popular culture of the 1960s and 1970s is simultaneously scholarly and accessible; it is also quite comprehensive. A sharp, smart, and informed writer, Lehman knows the territory well and did copious research to include as many key figures as possible. Highly recommended."—Choice
“Ranging across diverse media, genres, and audiences, Lehman artfully maps the motivations, meanings, and contradictions that both liberated and limited the ‘single girl’ in the American imagination.”—Bonnie J. Dow, author of Prime-Time Feminists: Television, Media Culture, and the Women’s Movement Since 1970
“Carefully researched, beautifully written, this is a must-read book for anyone who wants to understand the cultural and social roots of the modern women’s movement.”—Ruth Rosen, author of The World Split Open: How the Modern Women’s Movement Changed America
“This is feminist cultural history at its best!”—Elana Levine, author of Wallowing in Sex: The New Sexual Culture of 1970s American Television