scholarly journals Surgery-for-Life: Aging, Sexual Fitness and Self-Management in Brazil

2014 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 246-259 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Edmonds
Keyword(s):  
Life Course ◽  
Plastic Surgery ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Medical Discourse ◽  
Self Management ◽  
Biological Processes ◽  
Late Capitalism ◽  
The Life Course ◽  
Mental Well Being ◽  
The Ideal

This article draws on ethnographic fieldwork on plastic surgery to explore tensions in aging norms and ideals for women in Brazil.  I situate my analysis in relation to debates about a “de-chronologized life course.”  Some scholars argue that the life course in late capitalism has become less standardized.  In this account, chronological age diminishes in importance as consumers are defined by life style choices available to all ages and the period of youth extends into middle age and beyond.  In Brazil consumers embrace plastic surgery as a means to “manage” aging, mental well-being, and reproductive and sexual health.  This promise of a flexible and optimized aging trajectory seems to echo the notion of a de-chronologized life course.  I argue, however, that medical discourse and patients’ accounts show ambivalence about aging and conflicts in the ideal of medically-managed sexual fitness for women.  Drawing on analysis of changes in family structure and women’s health regimes, I argue that passage through the life course, rather than becoming more flexible, is in some ways becoming more rigidly defined by biological processes.

scholarly journals A Faith to Move Mountains? Childhood Abuse, Religious Change, and Mental Health at Midlife

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 461-461
Author(s):  
Laura Upenieks
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Life Course ◽  
Childhood Abuse ◽  
Childhood Maltreatment ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
Religious Attendance ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Religious Importance ◽  
The Life Course

Abstract Of all the various forms of adversity experienced during childhood, childhood maltreatment (emotional and physical abuse) is shown to have the largest impacts on mental health and well-being. Yet we still have a limited understanding of why some victims of early maltreatment suffer immense mental health consequences later on in the life course, while others are able to cushion the blow of these early insults. Using two waves of data from the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States (MIDUS), this study considers change in religiosity as a buffer across three dimensions for victims of childhood abuse: religious importance, attendance, and the specific act of seeking comfort through religion. Results suggest that increases in religious comfort during adulthood are positively associated with adult mental health for victims of abuse, while decreases in religious comfort over time were associated with worse mental health. Changes in religious attendance and religious importance were not significant associated with mental health for victims of abuse. Taken together, my results show that the stress-moderating effects of religion for victims of childhood maltreatment are contingent on the stability or increases or decreases in religiosity over the life course, which has been overlooked in previous work.

scholarly journals “Hang the Flesh off the Bones”: Cultivating an “Ideal Body” in Taijiquan and Neigong

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (9) ◽  
pp. 4417
Author(s):  
Xiujie Ma ◽  
George Jennings
Keyword(s):  
Physical Education ◽  
Life Course ◽  
Chinese Text ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Transmission Of Knowledge ◽  
Ideal Body ◽  
The Ancient Chinese ◽  
The Life Course ◽  
The Ideal

In a globalized, media-driven society, people are being exposed to different cultural and philosophical ideas. In Europe, the School of Internal Arts (pseudonym) follows key principles of the ancient Chinese text The Yijinjing (The Muscle-Tendon Change Classic) “Skeleton up, flesh down”, in its online and offline pedagogy. This article draws on an ongoing ethnographic, netnographic and cross-cultural investigation of the transmission of knowledge in this atypical association that combines Taijiquan with a range of practices such as Qigong, body loosening exercises and meditation. Exploring the ideal body cultivated by the students, we describe and illustrate key (and often overlooked) body areas—namely the spine, scapula, Kua and feet, which are continually worked on in the School of Internal Arts’ exercise-based pedagogy. We argue that Neigong and Taijiquan, rather than being forms of physical education, are vehicles for adult physical re-education. This re-education offers space in which mind-body tension built over the life course are systematically released through specific forms of attentive, meditative exercise to lay the foundations for a strong, powerful body for martial artistry and health.

scholarly journals Thirty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall - Do East and West Germans still differ in their attitudes towards women’s employment and the division of housework?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gundula Zoch
Keyword(s):  
Life Course ◽  
Maternal Employment ◽  
Well Being ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Female Employment ◽  
Gender Ideologies ◽  
East And West Germany ◽  
East And West ◽  
The Life Course ◽  
East West

Previous cross-sectional studies show less traditional gender ideologies among East Germans after German reunification and even suggest slightly increasing East-West disparities. These findings challenge the assumptions of stable ideologies over the life-course as well as cohort replacement-based convergence over time. This study expands on previous research by analysing differences and trends in gender ideologies in the context of East and West Germany using data from the German Family Panel pairfam (2008-2018). It distinguishes between three cohorts born in the early 1970s, 1980s and 1990s who have different socialisation experiences before and after reunification. The results show smaller East-West differences in gender ideologies for the youngest cohort compared with larger gaps for the two older cohorts born before reunification. Convergence of ideologies is partly due to modernisation trends in West Germany and re-traditionalisation effects in East Germany across cohorts, but also due to attitudinal changes with age. Attitudes towards housework and female employment have particularly converged, while views on maternal employment and the consequences for children’s well-being continue to differ between East and West Germany. The findings underline the importance of persistent, long-lasting ideology differences due to the regime‐specific socialisation and composition resulting from the division of Germany, but also emphasizes the role of ideology change across cohorts and over the life-course for the overall converging trends in gender ideologies.

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