title: Queering the spinsters: single middle-class women in Norway, 1880-1920.
abstract: Constituting what may be called "a community of spinsters," Norwegian middle-class unmarried woman played an important role in undermining and destabilizing the heterosexual cultural matrix during the period 1880-1920. In their anti-sexuality, self-sufficiency and hatred of men the spinsters challenged the heteronormativity of the period, and their queerness still presents a challenge to the harmony-oriented, heteromormative Norwegian women's history.
authors.affiliation: Stein Rokkan Center for Social Research, University of Bergen, Norway. tone.hellesund@rokkan.uib.no
authors.forename: Tone
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Hellesund
mesh_terms: D003466:Cultural Characteristics; D005260:Female; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D018452:Homosexuality, Female / Q000266:history; D006801:Humans; D009664:Norway; D012847:Single Person / Q000266:history / Q000523:psychology; D012923:Social Class; D014930:Women / Q000266:history* / Q000523:psychology