Feminine identities and aging: fitness between claiming a personal will and submission to social norms?

Identités féminines et vieillissement: le fitness entre revendication d’une volonté personnelle et soumission à des normes sociales ?

Jeanne-Maud Jarthon () and Christophe Durand ()
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Jeanne-Maud Jarthon: CesamS - Centre d'étude sport et actions motrices - UNICAEN - Université de Caen Normandie - NU - Normandie Université
Christophe Durand: CesamS - Centre d'étude sport et actions motrices - UNICAEN - Université de Caen Normandie - NU - Normandie Université

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Abstract: Bodily practices participate in assignments and prescriptions to the norms of gender. Moreover, today the body is an object of consumption that shapes our daily lives. The female press by playing on the stereotypes of the masculine/feminine influences the mechanisms of self-construction. The growing well-being market is a way of modeling corporeities to achieve these stereotypes. Thus we try to understand how the practice of fitness manages, maintains and influences something that belongs to the feminine. The fitness rooms offer a variety of activities to suit all ages and meet an increasing demand. The desire to preserve one's image (and body) for oneself and others (Corbin, A., Courtine, J-J., & Vigarello, G. (2006). Histoire du corps: Les mutations du regard. Le XXème siècle. Paris : Seuil, Coll. L'univers historique. Vol. 3), the need to appear "always young" (Amadieu, J-F. (1990). Le poids des apparences. Beauté, amour et gloire. Odile Jacob, Coll. Poches Odile Jacob, édition 2005; Feillet, R. (2012). « Le corps dans l'avance en âge. Une trajectoire de recherche sur le rôle des APS dans le « bien vieillir ». Entre résistance physique et reconnaissance de soi », Habilitation à diriger des recherches en 74ème section soutenue le 3 octobre 2012 à l'Université européenne de Bretagne sous la direction du Professeur Dominique Bodin; Feillet, R. (2012). Corps, vieillissement et identité : entre préservation et présentation de soi. Place des activités physiques et sportives. Toulouse : Erès, Coll. Pratiques gérontologiques.), the weight of youth in the media (Kaufmann, J-C. (2004). L'invention de soi. Une théorie de l'identité. Paris : Armand Colin, Coll. Individu et société) has led to an opening of the ages of fitness practice. "Tool" to fight against aging or prevent it for women who wish to meet prescribed social norms and/or preserve their health, fitness a means of accessing and participating in a "youthful quest".

Keywords: Fitness; Women; Old age; Body; Well-being / Identity; Identité; Bien-être; Corps; Vieillesse; Femmes (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-06-19
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Published in Movement & Sport Sciences - Science & Motricité, 2017, Genre, corps, et sports, 96, pp.85-96. ⟨10.1051/sm/2017006⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-02117314

DOI: 10.1051/sm/2017006

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