Full Description
The first book in the new series Diversity and Aging, Laura Hurd Clarke's Facing Age examines the relationship between aging and women in a culture obsessed with youthfulness. From weight gain, to wrinkles, to sagging skin, to gray hair, the book explores older women's complex and often contradictory feelings about their bodies and the physical realities of growing older. Although the women in the book express discontent about their aging visage, they also emphasize the importance of functional abilities and suggest that appearance becomes less central in later life.
Drawing on in-depth interviews conducted over a ten year period, Hurd Clarke brings alive feminist theories about aging, beauty work, femininity, and the body. The book also discusses medicine and the aging appearance, with interviews from medical providers and women about treatments such as Botox injections and injectable fillers. This book makes an important and timely contribution to the discussion of gendered ageism and older women's experiences of growing older in a youth-obsessed culture.
Contents
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1: Introduction
Overview of the Book
Methods and Samples
Strengths and Limitations of the Studies
Chapter 2: Theorizing the Aging and Aged Woman's Face, Body, and Embodied Experience
Women and Body Image
Women and the Feminine Beauty Ideal
Beauty Ideology and Social Positioning
Ageism and Beauty Ideology
Older Women and Embodiment
Medicalization and the Aging Female Body
Theoretically Situating This Book
Chapter 3: Embodied Appearance in Later Life: What Older Women Have to Say
Older Women, Aging Bodied, and Body Image
The Power of the Reflected Image
The Losing Battle of Weight Gain
Grey Matters: Older Women and their Hair
Shifting Priorities and Pragmatic Acceptance
Summary and Conclusions
Chapter 4: Anti-aging Medicine, Wrinkles, and the Moral Imperative to Modify the Aging Face
The Rise of Non-surgical Cosmetic Procedures
Non-surgical Cosmetic Procedures and Aging: The Perspective of Physicians
Interviews with Women before the Rise of Non-surgical Cosmetic Procedures
Interviews with Women after the Development of Non-surgical Cosmetic Procedures
Summary and Conclusions
Chapter 5: Imaging Aging: Media Messages and the Perspectives of Older Women
Beauty and Aging in Print Advertisements
Older Women Reflect on the Body and Face of Beauty in the Media
"Aging is a Serious Problem:" Women, Ageism Discourses, and Beauty Work
Summary and Conclusions
Chapter 6: Women and Aging: The Face of the Future
Conclusion
References
Index
About the Author
