Department of Family Studies and Gerontology

Permanent URI for this community

https://hdl.handle.net/10587/636

Browse

Browsing Department of Family Studies and Gerontology by Author "Berwick, Sandi"

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Not All Positive: A Feminist Phenomenological Analysis of Women’s Experiences of Botox Treatment and Other Injectable Facial Fillers
    (Mount Saint Vincent University, 2014-04) Berwick, Sandi; Humble, Áine
    Non-cosmetic procedures to the face (e.g., Botox and other injectable fillers) have been widely popularized in the media for how they reduce facial signs of aging, yet significantly misunderstood with respect to their impact on women, particularly those who have negative experiences. To fill this research gap, seven women who had negative or mixed emotions about having had Botox or other facial injectables were interviewed. The women were from Canada and the United States, and ranged in ages from 38 to 62 years old. Data was analysed using feminist moral theory and a hermeneutic phenomenological method, focusing on corporeal modes of being, as well as temporal and relational modes. Four women had serious physical and psychological side effects (e.g., heightened sensitivity to noise, anxiety, problems sleeping, and depression) (The Fractured Body), and others had impacts ranging from minor and unwanted physical skin changes to fear of potential, future side effects (e.g., fear of potential addiction) (The Reflective Body). Participants acknowledged influences of sexism and ageism and recognized the impact of patriarchal and capitalistic ideologies (The Commodified Body). Questionable ethical practices were evident in the medical profession, plastic surgery industry, and pharmaceutical industry (The Abandoned Body). Results also explore their transformations in terms of their relationships to their bodies and themselves (e.g., guilt over having had the procedure done yet a more positive outlook on aging), to others, to society (e.g., trust in the medical profession), and to the future (The Transformed Body). Although most people seem to not have negative side effects, there needs to be more room for these women’s voices, as well as a responsive and supportive medical industrial complex, rather than one that silences them.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Older women’s negative psychological and physical experiences with injectable cosmetic treatments to the face
    (Journal of Women & Aging, 2017) Berwick, Sandi; Humble, Áine M.
    Seven women (43 to 64 years old) who had negative or mixed emotions about having Botox and/or facial filler injections to the face to reduce signs of aging were interviewed about the impact of the procedures. Impacts ranged from disappointment to all-encompassing, lingering physical and psychological effects, and some women felt abandoned by the medical industrial complex when they turned to it for help with their symptoms. A feminist phenomenological analysis focused on corporeal, temporal, and relational existential modes of being. We describe their bodily experiences as (a) commodified, (b) fractured.