Looking through the glass: being single women in Malay society

Abstract

This paper discusses issues regarding the phenomenon of singlehood in Malay society. Single in this context refers to "never married women" or better known as "andartu" and "andalusia". In Malaysia, this issue is often highlighted in popular discourses but hardly examined academically. Therefore, this explorative study is an attempt to understand the phenomenon through h qualitative approach using content analysis technique. Data is derive from articles that appear in online Malay newspaper that is Utusan Malaysia Online. The period covered is between1998 to 2008. From the analysis, three main themes were identified and they are: conflicting images of single women, their social standing and the paradox of educating women.