: Clare Anderson
: Discourses of Ageing and Gender The Impact of Public and Private Voices on the Identity of Ageing Women
: Palgrave Macmillan
: 9783319967400
: 1
: CHF 53.90
:
: Allgemeine und Vergleichende Sprachwissenschaft
: English
: 279
: Wasserzeichen/DRM
: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
: PDF
This book presents in-depth investigation of the language usedaboutwomen and ageing in public discourse, and compares this with the language usedbywomen 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.

Clare Anderson is Associate Tutor at the University of Birmingham, UK. She also runs a consultancy that specialises in helping individuals, companies and brands to use language to perform more effectively. Her work focuses on women and leadership, and language and diversity.
Acknowledgements5
Contents6
List of Tables8
1 Introduction9
Gender and Age in the Mirror9
Theoretical Context of This Study14
Overview of Analytical Approach17
Content of This Book19
References20
2 Cultural Context22
The Cultural Mirror22
Gender and Age(Ing): An Under-Explored Relationship23
Whose Life Is It Anyway? Cultural Appropriation of Ageing and the Institutionalisation of the Lifecourse25
Chronological Age as a Social Construct26
The ‘New Middle Age’ and the ‘Unrelenting Body’28
Young and Old—‘The Greatest Opposites’: A Culture of Binaries30
Discourses of Consumerism: ‘The Finest Consumer Object’32
The ‘Mass-Mediated’ Female Body: Femininity and Women’s Magazines33
Gender and Age: ‘Troublesome Dichotomies’36
Language and Gender: ‘Women’s Language’37
Decoupling Gender and Sex39
Femininity: A ‘Slippery Subject to Grapple With’42
Ageing Femininity46
Ageing, Femininity and Sexuality48
Ageing and Identity50
‘Identity Trouble’51
Identity as Embodied