Aesthetic anti-ageing surgery and technology: Women's friend or foe?

Abstract

This study investigates women's attitudes about, and experiences of, aesthetic anti-ageing surgeries and technologies against the contextual backdrop of the growing commercialisation of medicine in the United States. Drawing from 44 intensive interviews with a spectrum of women between the ages of 47 and 76 who use, refuse, and are currently undecided about whether or not they will have or use aesthetic anti-ageing surgeries and technologies in the future, this study asks the following question: in what ways does the increasing availability, accessibility, advertising, and use of aesthetic anti-ageing surgeries and technologies interact with and inform women's perceptions and attitudes about growing older? Data analysis occurs in dialogue with the paradigms of successful ageing and agelessness and draws from, and contributes new readings of, contemporary cultural constructions of femininity. © 2010 The Author. Journal compilation © 2010 Foundation for the Sociology of Health & Illness/Blackwell Publishing Ltd.