Discourses of Ageing and Gender: The Impact of Public and Private Voices on the Identity of Ageing Women

Description

This book presents in-depth investigation of the language used about women and ageing in public discourse, and compares this with the language used by women to express their personal, lived experience of ageing. It takes a linguistic approach to identify how messages contained in public discourse influence how individual women evaluate their own ageing, and particularly their ageing appearance. It begins by establishing the wider cultural context that produces prevailing attitudes to women, before turning to an analysis of representations of the ageing female body in beauty and cosmetic advertising and the lifestyle media. The focus then moves to a detailed investigation of women’s own perceptions of the process of ageing and of their ageing appearance as revealed through their personal narratives. The final chapters challenge dominant attitudes to women and ageing by presenting two case studies of women who for different reasons and in different ways refuse to conform to cultural expectations. This work provides a platform for further academic research in the fields of linguistics, gerontology, gender and media studies; as well as offering meaningful applications in the wider domains of business and advertising. Front Matter ....Pages i-ix Introduction (Clare Anderson)....Pages 1-13 Cultural Context (Clare Anderson)....Pages 15-60 Analytic Frameworks (Clare Anderson)....Pages 61-71 Public Voices: Skincare Advertising and Discourses of “Beauty” (Clare Anderson)....Pages 73-112 Public Voices: The Media Mirror (Clare Anderson)....Pages 113-136 Private Voices: Talking About Ageing (Clare Anderson)....Pages 137-187 Private Voices: Ageing in the Mirror (Clare Anderson)....Pages 189-230 Transgressive Women: Celebration and Censure (Clare Anderson)....Pages 231-248 Conclusions and Implications (Clare Anderson)....Pages 249-256 Back Matter ....Pages 257-275