The Difficult Age: Exploring Media Representations of Women's Midlife Experiences

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Abstract

This article analyzes media representations of midlife in women based on a thematic analysis of the podcast “5+: Legends and Myths of Middle Age”. Focusing on the experiences of urban, educated, middle-class women, the authors examine how they renegotiate this life stage amidst the destandardization of life scripts and conflicting cultural expectations. The podcast portrays midlife as a period of reevaluating priorities, adapting to age-related changes, and creating new life projects through plasticity and agency. Particular attention is paid to embodiment and medicalization as tools for self-identification and age management, as well as the role of accumulated resources in shaping positive midlife experiences. The study demonstrates how middle-class women, acting as social innovators, are shaping new cultural norms surrounding midlife and challenging the double standard of aging. The authors highlight the need for further research to understand the diverse experiences of midlife among women from different social groups.

About the authors

Zhanna Vladimirovna Chernova

Sociological Institute of RAS — Branch of the FCTAS RAS

Email: chernova30@mail.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0003-3416-5287
SPIN-code: 1080-4280
ResearcherId: O-1945-2013
Doctor of Sociology, Leading Researcher St. Petersburg, Russia

Alexandra Igorevna Litvinova

Saint Petersburg State University

Email: a.litvinova@spbu.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0003-2845-9983
Senior Lecturer, Department of Digital Media Communications St. Petersburg, Russia

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