Designing ‘older’ rather than denying ageing: Problematizing anti-ageing discourse in relation to cosmetic surgery undertaken by older people

This paper problematizes anti-ageing discourse and interpretations that cosmetic surgery is an ageist practice and older people who undergo cosmetic surgery are denying ageing. It argues that conceptions of cosmetic surgery as anti-ageing are premised on an essentialist conception of the ‘naturally ageing body’. Interview data and media texts are used to demonstrate how, through the notion of “re” suggested by terms such as rejuvenation, reversal and renewal, anti-ageing discourses inscribe ‘ageing’ in the practice of cosmetic surgery by older people. The oppressive interpretation that older people who undergo cosmetic surgery are ‘denying ageing,’ and associated subjection to moral critique, are effects of this discourse. To counter interpretations of cosmetic surgery as ‘anti-ageing’, the paper takes up the idea that cosmetic surgery is undertaken to look better not younger. To advance this argument, the paper suggests that the forms of rationality associated with cosmetic surgery constitute a contemporary regimen of ‘care of the self’ which enable ethical agency and creative self-stylisation. Through this framework cosmetic surgery can be re-imagined as a practice for designing ‘older’ rather than denying ageing.

► Problematizes anti-aging discourse.
► Intervenes in interpretations that older people who undergo cosmetic surgery are denying ageing.
► Draws on Foucault’s work on ethics and ‘care of the self’.
► Older people engage cosmetic surgery to stylize the self.
► Cosmetic surgery is a practice for designing ‘older’ rather than denying aging.