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>> Hi. Welcome back to our discussion
with Professor Gail Hawkes.
This is part three of the UNLV Sociology Department's
video discussions.
This is Professor Gail Hawkes, who has come to us
from the University of New England, in Australia
where she is a professor of Sociology, and the author
of a number of books on sexuality, focusing on history,
"The Sociology of Sex and Sexuality", "Sex and Pleasure
in Western Culture", and "Theorizing the *** Child
in Modernity" with Danielle Egan.
And what we talked about last,
the last couple little vignettes was about the history
of sexuality, but you are engaged
in some really interesting research right now
on aging, older women and sex.
Can you tell us about that?
>> Yes, well, I'm sort of, I'm the prototype.
It occurred to me, as a woman who came into her sort
of *** maturity in the sixties,
when the pill was first available,
that we were the first generation of woman who --
to enter -- sorry, the first generation of woman
to grow older, perhaps, in a different way;
and that different way would have been --
was, in my sense sort of sexuality awareness of aging
as a process in ways that possibility were different
to my mother's awareness of aging, for example.
Because when we are in *** maturity when we were
in our teens, we were the first sort of generation of women
to be encouraged to use our bodies more actively in relation
to sex and *** pleasure, to display them
in of course the miniskirts, and the bra, you know this,
the no bras, and topless on the beach and all sorts of --
So, there was a very -- this was a very different way
of growing up, sexually, than my mother, for example.
And so, my question was; what is --
have these women who grew up being encouraged to behave
like this, they should be more open,
relaxed about their bodies, how did it feel
for them to be getting older?
Because I knew, because I'm it.
And so a team of us got together in Australia and with success
in getting an Australian Government Grant to look
at what is it -- what is it like to grow old in Australia
and we looked at six women from 55-85.
>> And you did a really interesting
research methodology.
Can you talk a little bit about that?
>> Yes, well, we sort of had two parts.
One was -- I mean, we decided of course to have
in depth interviews because this was a very much an exploratory
study, no one had done this before.
So we used in depth interview techniques.
But, toward the end of this process, we were interviewed
on national radio -- or I was interviewed on national radio
and we asked all sorts of questions about the project
and we had so many -- or the station had so many people,
woman ringing in, saying how wonderful it was
that they were talking about this, da da da,
so we set up a blog on a social media site; where we --
it sort of -- it was sort
of like an online focus group, if you like.
That we had one
of our postdoctoral research fellows monitoring this site
and putting up questions every month.
So, it ran for three months and we had select visual cues.
So, we used sort of birthday cards, which circulated,
I don't know if you have ever seen these.
They are fairly horrifying.
The women, interestingly, sent them to each other.
They usually, well they are always in relation to sex.
But and they are humorous and they are sort of grotesque,
sort of caricatures of older women
and especially their bodies.
So, there is a lot of sagging ***
and there is a lot of wrinkles and.
>> Right, I have seen these.
>> Yes.
>> Yeah.
>> So, and...
>> And those are the cues.
>> Yes and we use them to lighten up the cues,
this is one of the cues in the interviews.
Had they ever seen these, if they sent them,
what they thought they said about women, and so on.
>> So, what are women saying?
Are they liberated and free and we've got
that to look forward to in our future?
>> Well, I think on the blog, yes.
It was what we haven't got
through coding the interview yet.
We have got 90-some interviews and very long interviews,
which we are coding at the moment.
And so we will be writing that up later.
But the blog was fascinating,
because of course this was much more immediate,
it was interactive, there were probably 50 or 60 women talking
to each other at the height of this.
I think 100 initially, but they sort of dwindled down in the end
to about 20 after three months.
But by this time they were very close, you know, sort of open
with each other and what we seem to be seeing was a picture
of a much more nuance and more positive view that women had
about getting older, which really was not as body-focused
as these popular images would suggest.
It was -- this was much more about feeling powerful,
it was about sort of being proud of themselves because --
as they were getting older, because of what they had done
in their lives and it was a much more holistic view I think.
>> So the body actually becomes less important.
>> Well, I -- this may be -- it is a little early to make
that straight forward claim, but I think the impression is
that although, they all recognize the changes associated
with age and the body, they sort of set that aside --
against the pluses, which they saw as sort of freedom,
sometimes *** freedom and *** freedom.
But more a sense of freedom and achievement and holistic sight.
It was very positive.
Much more so than the often times the interviews were,
which was interesting.
>> That is interesting.
This is heartening, because so much of what we talk
about sex is either it must be this way or forget it
and then it is negative,
but here older women are both completely free,
not completely free because there are always norms,
but I am very happy to see that because we do not think
about women's -- older women's sexuality,
it is completely invisible and grotesque at some level,
but it is good that they are filling that in
with something positive.
>> Yes, absolutely, I totally agree
and I think what is happening is possibly
that because there are no models for growing older, sexually,
for women today, they are sort of doing it themselves.
It makes sense.
But having said that, what you said about norms of course
and [inaudible] one of the most moving things
about these blog quotes that we have pulled out so far is the,
delight at being given the space to say things that they said,
a lot of them could not say --
they could not say to even their best girlfriends.
So, this sort of demonstrates the sort of their power,
the social silencing if you like, of older *** behavior,
where women sort of they feel embarrassed
about mentioning it even to their girlfriends who all talk
about their kids, and their husbands, and their wives,
and whatever, but they won't necessarily discuss this bodily
thing and they were able to on blogs and they were just saying,
"Thank you so much" to each other and it was lovely.
>> Another fine example of sociological research
and the liberatory potential of research in a way.
>> Absolutely.
>> Well, thank you very much.
I really appreciate you coming to spend time with us
and look forward to more from you and thank you for being here
and listening to our discussions with Professor Gail Hawkes.
I am Barb Brents from the Department of Sociology
at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
Thanks.
>> Thank you.