Since the 1970s, when Susan Sontag coined the term, discussions on the double standard of ageing has continued to evolve. Recently, scholars of feminist gerontology have called for an intersectional approach to address cultural norms of physical appearance and ageing. In this paper, we aim to investigate whether men and women internalise ageist norms differently; that is, double standards of ageing exist. Second, we explore whether self-identified social class affects the internalisation of these norms. To the best of our knowledge, the present study is the first to examine the double and triple standards of ageing with nationally representative data (N = 1600).

Drawing from Bourdieusian capital theory, sociology of the body, consumer culture, and feminist gerontology, we suggest that the double standard of ageing exists for women who feel that ageing erodes their appearance, give more importance to their appearance than men, and fear looking old from an early age. Further, a ‘triple standard’ is also traced. Our results indicate that ageing working-class women are less confident about their appearances than upper-class women. Thus, upper-middle-class women seem less vulnerable to the negative aspects of ageing than women who have less social, cultural, and economic capital to enhance their ageing appearance. The triple standard extends to men as well: appearance is evaluated as equally important by upper-middle-class middle-aged men as by women of similar age and social background. Alternatively, our results could be interpreted as upper-middle-class people experiencing more restrictive norms regarding ageing; that is, such people are compelled to seek anti-ageing solutions and are not allowed to surrender to the natural ageing process.

自 1970 年代苏珊·桑塔格 (Susan Sontag) 创造该术语以来，关于衰老双重标准的讨论一直在不断发展。最近，女权主义老年学学者呼吁采用交叉方法来解决外貌和衰老的文化规范。在本文中，我们旨在调查男性和女性是否以不同的方式内化年龄歧视规范；也就是说，存在双重老龄化标准。其次，我们探讨自我认同的社会阶层是否会影响这些规范的内化。据我们所知，本研究是第一个用具有全国代表性的数据（N  = 1600）来检验衰老的双重和三重标准。

借鉴布迪厄资本理论、身体社会学、消费文化和女权主义老年学，我们认为衰老的双重标准存在于女性认为衰老侵蚀自己的外表、比男性更重视自己的外表、害怕看起来老的女性。从小时候。此外，还追踪了“三重标准”。我们的研究结果表明，与上层阶级女性相比，上了年纪的工薪阶层女性对自己的外表缺乏自信。因此，与拥有较少社会、文化和经济资本来改善衰老外观的女性相比，中上阶层女性似乎更不容易受到衰老的负面影响。三重标准也适用于男性：中上层中年男性对外表的评价与年龄和社会背景相近的女性同等重要。或者，我们的结果可以解释为中上阶层的人在老龄化方面经历了更多的限制；也就是说，这样的人被迫寻求抗衰老解决方案，不允许屈服于自然衰老过程。