In 2018, in an email exchange with my mentor, M’nucha Bialik, I expressed frustration at how confusing and overwhelming shidduchim felt, how (at that time) nothing felt intuitive and I was constantly stressing about making a wrong decision and feeling like the whole business was opaque and contradictory. M’nucha responded empathetically, observing that some people learn a lot on their journey, earning a masters degree or even a PhD in shidduchim.
This was before I went back to school for my MSW, which I did about a year later, but that phrase must have stayed in my subconscious because a year after graduating, I enrolled in a PhD program, with a fairly vague goal of ultimately writing a dissertation about singlehood, i.e. earning my actual PhD in shidduchim.
It was all fun and games (NOT) until I completed the coursework and started the proposal phase. I read and wrote a lot about the research on singlehood, the Orthodox community, and the shidduch system. And now I need to formulate a study problem and a research question and I’m actually not quite sure where I’m going with this.
I’m drawn to qualitative research, which involves interviews or written surveys, hearing people’s stories, finding themes and arriving at a deeper understanding of a particular issue. So I will probably do a qualitative study. But what is precisely the phenomenon I will look at and the question(s) I want to answer?
There is gap in the literature when it comes to understanding the charedi/”yeshivish” experience of singlehood (for both men and women, but I’ll be studying women). So I’m hovering there, but again, haven’t quite locked down where.
I truly would love to hear – what aspects of this experience do you think deserve more attention? What study would you love to read, or even participate in? What other thoughts or ideas or reflections do you have about this? Thank you in advance!
(Photo credit: Ann H/Pexels)
So interesting! And I feel like there is so much to explore. I’ve been very interested recently in wondering about the experiences of “older singles” AFTER they got married, which may be outside your area of study. Do they look back at the experience differently now? Do they notice any benefits? Did they have a hard time readjusting their sense of self and life views when so much of who they were was through the lens of being single (something I’ve been particularly thinking a lot about myself)?
This is so interesting, too, I fully agree!! I actually would love to do a study of women in the “yeshivish” community who have had their first child at an advanced maternal age. I definitely hope I get to do that study as well.