Taking Stock: A Visual Analysis of Gendered Ageing

Abstract

While various forms of imagery have been highlighted as central to processes of social construction, the potential of visual methodologies to generate insight into gendered ageing has yet to be fully exploited. We build on the developing body of visual analyses within work and organization studies to suggest how understandings of gendered ageing are impacted by our consumption of workrelated images, empirically explored here using stock photographs. We examine images of men and women of various ages to unpack the visual construction of gendered ageing within online news media, a critical context within the new economy. Through our own analysis, and our review of participants' responses to three images, we contribute to the unpacking of culturally produced agesensitive subject positions through examination of the interrelationships between gender, age and employment. These combined methodologies offer new insights into ways in which understandings of gendered ageing are both (visually) constructed and interpreted.

‘You Just Had to Get on with It’: Exploring the Persistence of Gender Inequality through Women’s Career Histories

“…‘Doing gender’ (West and Zimmerman, 1987) becomes ‘doing gendered ageing’ with negative perceptions of ageing bodies (Riach et al, 2015) that challenge professional norms valorizing younger male workers (Thomas et al, 2014). Negative perceptions of older women’s physical appearance and flexibility/energy (Moore, 2009) result in them being marginalized and silenced (Pritchard and Whiting, 2015). The analysis presented here of women’s career life histories offers new insights into why change has proved so slow.…”

Aesthetic labouring and the female entrepreneur: ‘Entrepreneurship that wouldn’t chip your nails’

“…Two studies contributing to methodological developments here are Kelan (2013) and Pritchard and Whiting (2015). Both explore participant interpretations of gendered representations via photo-elicitation.…”

“…Kelan (2013) explored MBA student positioning in relation to images of business women within an interview-based photo-elicitation process, highlighting how sexual attractiveness and sexuality were negotiated. In contrast, Pritchard and Whiting (2015) used group photo-elicitation to explore reactions to images of gendered ageing, offering understandings of how acceptable femininity and masculinity are constructed differently across the lifespan. Our research draws on Kelan’s (2013) suggestion that post-graduate students undergoing ‘identity formation’ (p. 46) are a particularly relevant audience with whom to explore such issues, but utilises the group photo-elicitation approach of Pritchard and Whiting (2015).…”

Reconstructing Retirement as an Enterprising Endeavor

“…News is increasingly accessed online rather than in print, with the United Kingdom’s most-read news website (Daily Mail/Mail Online) achieving a monthly reach of nearly 30 million in 2016 (Ofcom, 2017). Part of a broader analysis of age and work (Pritchard & Whiting, 2012, 2014a, 2015), our focus is the coverage of the Weary report (Friends Life & Future Foundation, 2011) in U.K. online news. This is reviewed via analysis of media texts that discussed or featured the report, and of the below-the-line reader comments in response, to examine the ways in which retirement is reconstructed as a period of entrepreneurial endeavor.…”

“…Authors then came together to review the analysis in a process described as “circular movements between an overall understanding and closer textual analysis” (Jørgensen & Phillips, 2002, p. 153). This included an ongoing commitment to reflexivity in subsequent analysis (Pritchard & Whiting, 2015).…”