Older Women and Everyday Talk about the Ageing Body

Abstract

This discourse analytic study shows how 10 older women, who exercise regularly or attend the University of the Third Age, adjust to the ageing body in their `everyday talk' through taking a dualist position. The part of the body which is discursively constructed as ageing becomes objectified through appealing to a wider cultural discourse of ageing as biological decline. This dualist position is embedded within a wider cultural discourse of personal agency. The individual's control of the ageing body is emphasized, the ability to monitor and manage `ageing body parts' through exerting the `active mind' and the `busy body' in activities, or simply focusing on `looking good'.