Shame and the Aging Woman: Confronting and Resisting Ageism in Contemporary Women's Writings PDF
Preview Shame and the Aging Woman: Confronting and Resisting Ageism in Contemporary Women's Writings
SHAME AND THE AGING WOMAN Confronting and Resisting Ageism in Contemporary Women’s Writings J. Brooks Bouson PALGRAVE STUDIES IN AFFECT THEORY AND LITERARY CRITICISM Palgrave Studies in Affect Theory and Literary Criticism Series Editors Adam Frank University of British Columbia Vancouver , Prince Edward Island Canada Joel Fafl ak Western University London , Ontario C anada The recent surge of interest in affect and emotion has productively crossed disciplinary boundaries within and between the humanities, social sci- ences, and sciences, but has not often addressed questions of literature and literary criticism as such. The fi rst of its kind, Palgrave Studies in Affect Theory and Literary Criticism seeks theoretically informed scholar- ship that examines the foundations and practice of literary criticism in rela- tion to affect theory. This series aims to stage contemporary debates in the fi eld, addressing topics such as: the role of affective experience in literary composition and reception, particularly in non-Western literatures; exami- nations of historical and conceptual relations between major and minor philosophies of emotion and literary experience; and studies of race, class, gender, sexuality, age, and disability that use affect theory as a primary critical tool. More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/14653 J. Brooks Bouson Shame and the Aging Woman Confronting and Resisting Ageism in Contemporary Women’s Writings J. Brooks Bouson Loyola University Chicago Chicago, Illinois , USA Palgrave Studies in Affect Theory and Literary Criticism ISBN 978-3-319-31710-6 ISBN 978-3-319-31711-3 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-31711-3 Library of Congress Control Number: 2016948774 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2 016 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifi cally the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfi lms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specifi c statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the pub- lisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. Cover illustration: © Vincenzo Dragani / Alamy Stock Photo Printed on acid-free paper This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG Switzerland P REFACE Shame and the Aging Woman is a book about a dreadful cultural secret that, as I show, is hidden in plain sight. In Shame and the Aging Woman , I offer an unapologetic—even shameless—analysis of the horrible cost that gendered ageism exacts on older women in our graying society. To openly discuss this topic in our anti-aging and age-phobic twenty-fi rst-century society is to break social taboos, since even the words “shame” and “old” can discomfort and offend people. Yet we live in a shame-based and ageist culture in which the intense focus on, and even obsession with, all things youthful leads to a pervasive shaming of aging and old women. The recent and contemporary North American and British women authors that I examine in Shame and the Aging Woman dare to disclose this secret through their relentless exposure of the myriad ways that our culture shames older women. As these writers make visible the hidden shaming of older women that goes on in our society, they expose the high human and emotional price exacted on women in later life in our youth-oriented and appearance-driven culture. In S hame and the Aging Woman , I bring together the research fi ndings of contemporary feminist age studies scholars, feminist gerontologists, and narrative gerontologists, and I also draw on the work of shame theorists as I explain the affective dynamics of sexageism and what I call the “embodied shame” that affl icts older women: that is, women’s shame about the visible signs of aging and the health and appearance of their bodies as they undergo the normal pro- cesses of bodily aging. As I examine both fi ctional and nonfi ction works in Shame and the Aging Woman , I show how sexageism functions as a deeply embedded shaming ideology that oppresses older women, and as I offer a v vi PREFACE sustained analysis of the various ways in which sexageism can devalue and damage the identities of otherwise psychologically healthy women in our graying culture, I use shame theory to explain why sexageism is so deeply entrenched in our culture and why even aging feminists may succumb to it. The fact that women’s studies scholars involved in age studies have admitted, again and again, that there can be something deeply unsettling, if not terribly disconcerting, about the study of gendered ageism points to the diffi culty of the task that I have undertaken. Yet as I have worked on this project, I have had the good fortune to teach students who have become passionately, and also compassionately, involved with the issues surrounding the stigmatized bodies and socially devalued identities of older women in our society. In particular, I have been cheered and invigo- rated by the goodwill, earnestness, and enthusiasm of the many women students that I have taught in my undergraduate and graduate courses devoted to the study of women writers at Loyola University Chicago and also in my courses focused on the topic of shame in literature. Just as I have worked over the past few years to bring the study of emotions back into the analysis of literature, so I have felt it part of my mission as a literature professor to introduce my students to the developing fi elds of twenty-fi rst- century age studies and feminist gerontology in my courses devoted to the study of recent and contemporary women’s literature. Because ageism has become deeply entrenched within feminism over the years, there has long been a feminist avoidance of the issues surrounding gendered ageism and the social devaluation of the identities and bodies of aging and old women in our culture. But many of my young women students view the ageist oppression of older women as an important social justice and feminist issue, and the passion and fervor of my students gives me hope that they will continue to engage with this issue as they move forward in their lives. During the time that I have spent working on—and sometimes strug- gling with— Shame and the Aging Woman , I have been gratifi ed by the impassioned responses of my students and also heartened by the interest of my colleagues in this project. I am especially grateful to Professor Joyce Wexler, the Chair of Loyola’s English Department, for her long-standing and collegial support of my work and to the administration of Loyola University for granting me a research leave and a summer grant while I was working on this project. I have other debts to acknowledge as well. Special thanks are due, as always, to Joseph Adamson, for his vital sup- port and for the inspiration of his example as a pioneer in the study of PREFACE vii shame and literature. And I owe special thanks to Brigitte Shull at Palgrave Macmillan Press, for her interest in my project, and I especially want to thank Ryan Jenkins, my Palgrave editor, for his encouragement and gener- ous support of my work and for his wonderful patience and good humor as he dealt with my various inquiries as I worked on this book. “The natural response to shame is hiding, and hiding breeds silence which further deepens shame,” as shame theorist Gershen Kaufman tells us. Refusing to be silent or to hide in shame, the authors I include in Shame and the Aging Woman may discomfort us. But as they expose the various and often insidious ways that sexageism shames and wounds older women, they also seek to raise awareness of the plight of the older woman in our graying society. As the new emphasis on successful aging in recent times has led to an ever-intensifying dread of aging and a denial of bodily age-related changes, older women are being told, in effect: “Be quiet! Hold your tongue! Don’t talk about it. Don’t tell.” The feminist geron- tologists and age studies scholars and women authors that I assemble in the following pages refuse to follow this cultural mandate. As they expose a painful cultural affl iction that is hidden in plain sight by making vis- ible the ubiquitous presence of shame in the daily lives of older women, they seek to develop our age consciousness and to help us fi nd ways to resist the body politics that devalues and disrespects the lives of so many older women in our age-phobic and anti-aging contemporary culture of appearances. C ONTENTS 1 Aging Women and the Age Mystique: Age Anxiety and Body Shame in the Contemporary Culture of Appearances 1 2 The Mask of Aging and the Social Devaluation and Sexual Humiliation of the Aging and Old Woman 39 3 Facing the Stranger in the Mirror in Illness, Disability, and Physical Decline 93 4 Confronting and Resisting an Unlivable Age Culture 143 Works Cited 193 Index 205 ix
Description:The list of books you might like
