Undoing age, redefining gender, and negotiating time
Embodied experiences of midlife women in endurance sports
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3131370 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Suzy Ben Dori (0000-0001-6032-1509, Tel Aviv University), A Kemp (0000-0002-2096-710X, Tel Aviv University) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 29 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 1104-1127 |
| Publication date | 2020-11-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Time & Society (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0961-463X • E-ISSN: 1461-7463 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/0961463x20948987 |
| OpenAlex | W3048793571 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 6 |
| References cited | 33 |
Despite the increasing participation of midlife women in sports, and biomedical and consumerist discourses encouraging physical activity, research on intersections of age, gender, and the body in sports is lacking or fragmentary. Based on in-depth interviews with Israeli women aged 40-60 years participating in marathons, ultramarathons, and triathlons, we explore how they experience their participation and how these experiences correspond with normative socio-temporal assumptions about midlife transitions, gender, and the body. Findings reveal that endurance sports enable midlife women to challenge dominant discourses on the "decaying" and "menopausal" body by undoing age and formulating gender narratives that include new identities and negotiations of temporal orders. The interplay between undoing age and redefining gender operates through two mechanisms: "embodied experiences" that introduce the body as a material reality and a source of critical knowledge, and the liminality of mid-age as a life-course transition characterized by the absence of institutional and symbolic anchors. We make a twofold contribution to the critical literature on gender and life course. First, we develop the concept of embodied experiences as a vantage point for understanding the intersections of age and gender. Second, we highlight the potential of participation in endurance sports for negotiating temporal orders and formulate new narratives of femininity and aging
Art · Embodied cognition · Epistemology · Femininity · Life course approach · Liminality · Narrative · Negotiation · Normative · Political science · Psychoanalysis · Social science · Sociology · Undoing · Anthropology · Gender Studies · Psychology · Social Psychology · Sport and Mega-Event Impacts · Sport Psychology and Performance · Sports, Gender, and Society
Life course dynamics
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The Blackwell companion to social theory
The Institutionalization of the Life Course
Sporting Females
Manufacturing heterosexuality
Familism, postmodernity and the state
What exactly has age got to do with it? My life in critical age studies
Age embodied
Capturing women's lives
Throwing like a girl
Men, Women, and Leisure Time
The Technologies of the Self
Valuing "Postmaternity" as a Revolutionary Feminist Concept
Sport and Leisure
Family Time and Industrial Time
Gender and family status differences in leisure-time sports/fitness participation
No matter what I did I would still end up in the same position
Youth Privilege
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Male Dominance under Threat
The Intersection of Age and Gender
The Measurement of Age, Age Structuring, and the Life Course
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| Unique citing works | 6 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2 |
| Citation span | 2023 - 2026 (4) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 6 |