Abstract
The focus of this chapter is two case studies, both of which feature women who break cultural “rules” concerning the performance of ageing femininity. The first discusses a group of women aged 73–90, known collectively as The Fabulous Fashionistas; the second features historian and classicist Mary Beard. The case studies are used as a mechanism for analysing the ambivalent and contradictory nature of cultural attitudes towards ageing women and how these translate into seemingly arbitrary judgements; key components of femininity—display, sexuality, visibility—are examined to explore how and why the Fashionistas are celebrated whilst Beard is censured in media discourses. The chapter concludes by arguing that the women featured, in offering a challenge to ‘the way things are’, raise important questions concerning how far society has progressed in terms of accommodating ageing femininity.
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Anderson, C. (2019). Transgressive Women: Celebration and Censure. In: Discourses of Ageing and Gender. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96740-0_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96740-0_8
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