Ageing Women and the Culture of Eternal Youth: Personal and Theoretical Reflections from a Feminist over Sixty in Brazil

Cecilia Sardenberg’s chapter is an essay on the control over the body that a culture of eternal youth imposes on aging white, middle class women in Brazil. Sardenberg draws attention to the ideals of femininity inherent in media representations, the products, services and body technologies geared towards women’s beautification and the fight against aging.

She writes about the challenges of being caught between the dominant narrative of aging as decline and the narrative propagated by the cosmetics industry of a denial of decline.