ABSTRACT
In the previous chapter we saw how the way a woman manages her hair can summon up a number of different associations. Some of these may cast her as really old, as old old; and this in turn may shape how interactions in particular sites unfold. In this chapter we examine how other appearance-related talk and practices in which my participants engaged made older age relevant and contributed to casting them as older. We will see, too, how this was often achieved without any older-age relevant terms or expressions being used. We shall focus on two aspects of participants’ talk and practices that resonate with the wider literature. These are, first, participants’ orientation to age-appropriate social norms of appearance for older women; and secondly and relatedly, ways in which participants orientated to the importance of – or displayed lack of interest in – their appearance. We shall see how, in these orientations, they also displayed an orientation to older age, and how certain of their practices and ways of talking about appearance can be seen to be CBAs of older women. We shall also, though, see more of the low-key and very subtle work in which participants engaged to resist dominant social norms of appearance management for older women. In sum, we see participants managing both their own, internalized, expectations about appropriate ways of looking after their appearance as older women, and their understanding of others’ expectations. We should reiterate at this point that ‘resist’ is really too strong a word for the low-key work that is evident in what participants do: ‘manoeuvre around’, side-step or finesse are perhaps better descriptions of what is going on in the practices and sequences we shall consider.
