"Crying whenever Monday comes": Older unmarried women in the Netherlands and the game of comparison, 1955-1980

The Dutch Women's Action Committee for Early State Pensions advocated the r eduction of the retirement age for unmarried women. In doing this, the comm ittee brought forward an image of older unmarried women that was rather dif ferent from the self-images the older unmarried women presented in letters and questionnaires es 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-i mages is related to the legal nature of the welfare state and the consequen t comparison between social categories.