Sex and not the city? The aspirations of the thirty-something working woman

Summary. In addressing the ‘sex and the city ’ theme, this paper begins by suggesting that British women’s lives have altered substantially since the late 1960s, given their rapidly increas-ing uptake of paid employment (‘the city’) and several important changes in their personal lives (‘sex’). Moreover, ‘the city ’ in its more literal sense of urban expanse is growing in world-wide importance. Other factors such as changing cultural representations of female urbanite profes-sionals also point to it being an interesting juncture at which to explore this group’s experiences. The paper therefore analyses female respondents ’ accounts of their relationships, their careers and their lives in London. It seeks to contribute to debates concerning urban (dis)content, liberal feminism and life-stages by connecting these stories to the relevant literatures