Last love: The 'double standard of ageing' and women's experience of gender and sexuality at mid-life



Pickard, Susan ORCID: 0000-0003-3429-8880
(2022) Last love: The 'double standard of ageing' and women's experience of gender and sexuality at mid-life. JOURNAL OF AGING STUDIES, 60. 100989-.

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Abstract

This paper explores the concept of the double standard of ageing as applied to women's experience and perceptions of mid-life sexuality and love affairs. Drawing on a selection of popular and literary women's writing, it argues that the recurring trope or motif of the 'last chance' affair is an ideological vehicle that serves to age women by dividing their lives in two - pre and post-sexual, youthful and middle-aged - with all the associations of a decline in status and value that have, moreover, much broader implications for gendered equality. There is also a submerged theme of empowerment running through these women's stories, through which, among other things, it is possible to critique normative sexuality, which enshrines male privilege, at earlier points in the life course. However, the continued salience of the double standard suggests both the presence of a powerful tributary feeding ongoing gender inequality and the role that age plays in this.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: Double standard of ageing, Gender, Sexuality, Inequality, Literature, Life writing
Divisions: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Law and Social Justice
Depositing User: Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited: 12 Nov 2021 08:26
Last Modified: 18 Aug 2023 01:30
DOI: 10.1016/j.jaging.2021.100989
Related URLs:
URI: https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3143070