Currently obsessed with this BBC Archive footage about "A Spinster's Life" from 1968. The three women being interviewed are all absolute legends, and come at spinsterhood from very different angles. Some personal highlights (or, more accurately, notable moments, since they're not all positive):
"I prefer the term bachelor girl!"
One woman can't get a mortgage because she's not married. Another lives in a London bedsit rather than stay at home in a small Northern village
The consistent "they" the second woman uses to talk about potential lovers, and the massive smile on her face about it
"I realised I don't need to have a husband"
The first woman having a load of hobbies and being an artist
The third woman (pictured above, secretly my favourite) coming across very much as someone who doesn't really fit in anywhere, and the way she describes that
The way they each describe social expectation and what it means for them and which parts they do and don't reject
It's just really cool to hear these women talk about their experiences and know that all throughout time women have defied social expectations, even if it cost them in other ways. And hearing all this in their own words, with their different views on the topic, resists the tendency to frame women of the past as one homogeneous group and gives them back their agency and personhood.
The full thing is up on youtube if you're interested (I really recommend following BBC Archives, they have some amazing social history stuff)
turnnoffyourmind
areudirty
theartofmadeline
stormborns
gracieabrams
andulkaphoto
