Crocker, Julie M.; (1998) "You're only as old as you feel": Older women's perceptions of themselves and their lives. Doctoral thesis (D.Clin.Psy), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

The aim of the study was to examine how older women construed being 'woman' and being 'old', how they negotiated the contradictory representations of what it is to be both 'woman' and 'old' and to draw out the discourses they adopted. Fifteen women aged between sixty-five and seventy-seven were interviewed individually, using semi-structured interviews, about how they perceived themselves and their lives as older women. The women were all interviewed in Jersey, Channel Islands. A discourse analytic technique (Potter and Wetherell, 1987) identified five major themes, each containing several sub-themes, around what it meant to be both 'old' and a 'woman'. These discursive themes were not mutually exclusive, but often overlapped, were occasionally contradictory and were taken up by different women to varying degrees. The themes were 'too busy to be old: woman as 'do-er', 'the failing body: the immobile body', 'relationships: the company you keep', 'others as old' and 'wearing well'. Women drew upon these themes to frame their experiences of themselves and their lives and negotiated the contradictory representations of being both 'woman' and 'old' by challenging these negative constructions, resisting them by applying them to 'others' and by 'warding off' old age by keeping busy.

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