Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-2lccl Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T15:19:03.604Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Becoming and being gendered through the body: older women, their mothers and body image

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 August 2007

LAURA HURD CLARKE  and
MERIDITH GRIFFIN
LAURA HURD CLARKE
Affiliation:
School of Human Kinetics, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.
MERIDITH GRIFFIN*
Affiliation:
School of Human Kinetics, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.
*
Address for correspondence: Laura Hurd Clarke, School of Human Kinetics, The University of British Columbia, 156-1924 West Mall, Vancouver, B.C. V6T 1Z2, Canada. Email: laura.hurd.clarke@ubc.ca
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Following West and Zimmerman's (1987) theoretical understanding of how gender identities are created and maintained, this paper examines the ways in which older women learned from their mothers how ‘to do gender’ through their bodies and specifically their physical appearances. Extracts from semi-structured interviews with 44 women aged 50 to 70 years have been drawn upon to identify and discuss the ways in which women perceive, manage and present their bodies using socially-constructed ideals of beauty and femininity. More specifically, three ways that women learned ‘to do gender’ are examined: from their mothers' criticisms and compliments about their appearance at different stages of the lifecourse; from their mothers' attitudes towards their own bodies when young and in late adulthood; and from the interviewees' own later-life experiences and choices about ‘beauty work’. Interpretative feminism is employed to analyse how the women exercised agency while constructing body-image meanings in a social context that judges women on their ability to achieve and maintain the prevailing ideal of female beauty. The study extends previous research into the influence of the mother-daughter relationship on young women's body image. The findings suggest that mothers are important influences on their daughters' socialisation into body-image and beauty work, and exert, or are perceived to exert, accountability across the life-course.

Keywords

ageingbeautybody imagemother-daughter relationshipsocialisation‘doing gender’
Type
Research Article
Information
Ageing & Society , Volume 27 , Issue 5 , September 2007 , pp. 701 - 718
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Archibald, A. B., Graber, J. A. and Brooks-Gunn, J. 2000. Associations among parent-adolescent relationships, pubertal growth, dieting, and body image in young adolescent girls: a short-term longitudinal study. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 9, 4, 395–415.Google Scholar
Bartky, S. L. 1998. Foucault, femininity, and the modernization of patriarchal power. In Weitz, R. (ed.) The Politics of Women's Bodies. Oxford University Press, New York, 25–45.Google Scholar
Bogdan, R. and Taylor, S. J. 1984. Introduction to Qualitative Research Methods: The Search for Meanings. Wiley, Toronto, Ontario.Google Scholar
Bordo, S. 2003. Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body. 10th anniversary edition, University of California Press, Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P. 1984. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Routledge, London.Google Scholar
Brown, C. and Jasper, K. 1993. Introduction: Why weight? Why women? Why now? In Brown, C. and Jasper, K. (eds) Consuming Passions: Feminist Approaches to Weight Preoccupation and Eating Disorders. Second Story, Toronto, Ontario, 16–35.Google Scholar
Cash, T. F., Ancis, J. R. and Strachan, M. D. 1997. Gender attitudes, feminist identity, and body images among college women. Sex Roles, 36, 7/8, 433–47.Google Scholar
Chodorow, N. 1978. The Reproduction of Mothering: Psychoanalysis and the Sociology of Gender. University of California Press, Berkeley, California.Google Scholar
Fingerman, K. L. 2001. Aging Mothers and Their Adult Daughters: A Study in Mixed Emotions. Springer Publishing Company, New York.Google Scholar
Foucault, M. 1979. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Random House, New York.Google Scholar
Foucault, M. 1980. The History of Sexuality: An Introduction. Random House, New York.Google Scholar
Franzoi, S. L. 1995. The body-as-object versus the body-as-process: gender differences and gender considerations. Sex Roles, 33, 5/6, 417–37.Google Scholar
Hagedorn, R. 1994. Sociology. 5th edition, Rinehart and Winston of Canada, Toronto, Ontario.Google Scholar
Hesse-Biber, S. 1996. Am I Thin Enough Yet? The Cult of Thinness and the Commercialization of Identity. Oxford University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Hill, A. J. and Franklin, J. A. 1998. Mothers and daughters and dieting: investigating the transmission of weight control. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 37, 1, 3–13.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hirsch, M. 1989. The Mother/Daughter Plot: Narrative, Psychoanalysis, Feminism. Indiana University Press, Indianapolis, Indiana.Google Scholar
Kranz, K. and Daniluk, J. C. 2002. Gone but not forgotten: the meaning and experience of mother-loss for midlife daughters. Women and Therapy, 25, 1, 1–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laberge, S. and Sankoff, D. 1988. Physical activities, body habitus, and lifestyles. In Harvey, J. and Cantelon, H. (eds) Not Just a Game: Essays in Canadian Sport Sociology. University of Ottawa Press, Ottawa, Ontario, 267–86.Google Scholar
La Sorsa, V. A. and Fodor, I. G. 1990. Adolescent daughter/midlife mother dyad: a new look at separation and self-definition. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 14, 4, 593–606.Google Scholar
Lattimore, P. J., Wagner, H. L. and Gowers, S. 2000. Conflict avoidance in anorexia nervosa: an observational study of mothers and daughters. European Eating Disorders Review, 8, 5, 355–68.3.0.CO;2-B>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McLaren, L. and Kuh, D. 2004. Women's body dissatisfaction, social class, and social mobility. Social Science and Medicine, 58, 9, 1575–84.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Myers, P. N. Jr. and Biocca, F. A. 1992. The elastic body image: the effect of television advertising and programming on body image distortions in young women. Journal of Communications, 42, 3, 108–33.Google Scholar
Ogden, J. and Steward, J. 2000. The role of the mother-daughter relationship in explaining weight concern. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 28, 1, 78–83.Google Scholar
Ogle, J. P. and Damhorst, M. L. 2003. Mothers and daughters: interpersonal approaches to body and dieting. Journal of Family Issues, 24, 4, 448–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ogle, J. P. and Damhorst, M. L. 2004. Constructing and deconstructing the body malleable through mother-daughter interactions. Sociological Inquiry, 74, 20, 180–209.Google Scholar
Paquette, M. and Raine, K. 2004. Sociocultural context of women's body image. Social Science and Medicine, 59, 5, 1047–58.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pelican, S., Heede, F. V., Holmes, B., Wardlaw, M. K., Raidl, M., Wheeler, B. and Moore, S. A. 2005. The power of others to shape our identity: body image, physical abilities, and body weight. Family and Consumer Sciences Research Journal, 34, 1, 56–79.Google Scholar
Ray, R. E. 2003. The uninvited guest: mother/daughter conflict in feminist gerontology. Journal of Aging Studies, 17, 1, 113–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rieves, L. and Cash, T. F. 1996. Social developmental factors and women's body-image attitudes. Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 11, 1, 63–78.Google Scholar
Rodin, J., Silberstein, L. and Striegel-Moore, R. 1984. Women and weight: a normative discontent. In Sonderegger, T. B. and Dienstbier, R. A. (eds) Psychology and Gender: Nebraska Symposium on Motivation. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, Nebraska, 267–307.Google Scholar
Seid, R. P. 1989. Never Too Thin: Why Women are at War with their Bodies. Prentice-Hall, Toronto, Ontario.Google Scholar
Strauss, A. and Corbin, J. 1998. Basics of Qualitative Research: Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory. Sage, Thousand Oaks, California.Google Scholar
Striegel-Moore, R. H. and Franko, D. I. 2002. Body image issues among girls and women. In Cash, T. F. and Pruzinsky, T. (eds) Body Image: A Handbook of Theory, Research, and Clinical Practice. Guilford, New York, 183–91.Google Scholar
Tepperman, L. and Curtis, J. E. 2004. Sociology: A Canadian Perspective. Oxford University Press, Don Mills, Ontario.Google Scholar
Usmiani, S. and Daniluk, J. 1997. Mothers and their adolescent daughters: relationship between self-esteem, gender role identity, and body image. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 26, 1, 45–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
West, C. and Zimmerman, D. H. 1987. Doing gender. Gender and Society, 1, 2, 125–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
White, P., Young, K. and Gillett, J. 1995. Bodywork as a moral imperative: some critical notes on health and fitness. Society and Leisure, 18, 1, 159–82.Google Scholar
Wolf, N. 2002. The Beauty Myth. HarperCollins, New York.Google Scholar
Woodside, D. B., Bulik, C. M., Halmi, K. A., Fichter, M. M., Kaplan, A., Berrettini, W. H., Strober, M., Treasure, J., Lilenfeld, L., Klump, K. and Kaye, W. H. 2002. Personality, perfectionism, and attitudes toward eating in parents of individuals with eating disorders. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 31, 3, 290–9.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed