“Crying Whenever Monday Comes”: Older Unmarried Women in the Netherlands and the Game of Comparison, 1955-1980

Abstract

The Dutch Women's Action Committee for Early State Pensions advocated the reduction of the retirement age for unmarried women. In doing this, the committee brought forward an image of older unmarried women that was rather different from the self-images the older unmarried women presented in letters and questionnaires sent to the committee. And the image presented by the committee was again different from the image of older unmarried women that emerged in the parliamentary debate. Such a variation in images and self-images is related to the legal nature of the welfare state and the consequent comparison between social categories.