Despite the decline of marriage rate on a global scale, the bias towards women regarding their marital status is not minimized along (Sharp & Ganong, 2011). Empirical researches have provided strong evidence of the discrimination and stereotype against singles (DePaulo & Morris, 2006; Hertel, J et. al., 2007). In addition, it is noted that when facing the discrimination of not getting married, in most cases, women, comparing to men, are dealing with more salient pressure (DePaulo & Morris, 2005).
Explicitly expressed or not, the stereotype and discrimination against single women are widespread in different cultures and societies. In China, the term ‘shengnv’ or the so-called leftover women, which refers to single women who failed to get married at a social prescribed age, often with a rather high educational background or promising career future is widespread in the mass media (Lake, 2018).
The case of ‘leftover ladies’ is not distinct as such terms or clichés span across languages and countries and is constantly being reinforced in the media presentation. In Japan, the term ’Christmas cake’ is used to make fun of women who fail to find a marriage above 25 as they are referred to the useless Christmas cake after December 25th (Rich, 2019). In 2004, the neologism ‘makeinu’, literally ‘loser dogs’, which refers to single women in their 30s without children, won the Vogue Word Award’ in Japan. The referring term also raised national attention and was widely used in the media (YAMAGUCHI, 2006). In Korea, ‘Gold Miss’ is the phrase to describe women who stay single, yet mostly with a rather high social or economic status. It is found that the construction and differentiation of such cured images are constantly tied to the media representation of the group, which may greatly affect their living environments. For instance, in China, the image of ‘leftover women’ being picky and anxious is constantly presented in the media.
Guided by the social constructivism perspective, this article illustrates the image of unmarried women in each society and further explores how it may affect their living environments. Using selected media contents, online interview transcripts as data, we illustrate the different ‘single women’ images each country prescribes. Age, educational background, working status, previous relationship history and the desire to marry are the possible mediated elements of how the single women’s images are prescribed. Through preliminary analysis, the similarities and differentiations of the discourse from each society are listed. Though opposing voices to fight against the discrimination in the societies can be heard, marriage status is still regarded as a criterion in women’s overall social images. Moreover, this very discrimination is still being reinforced by the media representation, which put the unmarried women in a disadvantaged position in the society.