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Private and Public Ageing in the UK

The Transition through the Menopause

University of Surrey, UK, k.ballard{at}surrey.ac.uk

Mary Ann Elston

Royal Holloway, University of London, UK, m.elston{at}rhul.ac.uk

Jonathan Gabe

Royal Holloway, University of London, UK, j.gabe{at}rhul.ac.uk

Sociological discussions of the menopause have focused largely on the ways in which women's experiences are socially and culturally shaped, with second wave feminists resisting a biomedical model of the menopause as a deficiency disease. Yet in emphasizing the social and cultural meaning, little attention has been given to women's experiences of the menopause as an embodied transition. This article presents findings from a qualitative data analysis. The authors draw on their previous findings of private and public ageing and show how British women experience both `public', visible age-related changes in body appearance and `private', invisible age-related physiological body changes that they attribute to the menopause. Within private ageing, women report the changes in ovarian physiology as altering their reproductive status, and they thus experience the emergence of a new identity.

Key Words: ageing • embodiment • identity • menopause • private and public • reproductive

Current Sociology, Vol. 57, No. 2, 269-290 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0011392108099166


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