Toward a Sociology of (Gendered) Disgust: Images of Bodily Decay and the Social Organization of Care Work

Based on a reinterpretation of 105 relations between the elderly and their adult children, this article discusses incontinence as a social and cultural phenomenon. Social norms and cultural symbols that surround the intimate parts of the body affect the way care work is organized, gendered, culturally understood, and socially stratified. To lose bodily control over bodily fluids seems to put the individual's identity and human dignity at risk. The disturbing presence of odors, sights, and textures seems to have a disruptive effect on close relationships. The article further discusses how bodily dimensions of care add new burdens to modern family life in different social contexts and contribute to expand the gender gap in different cultures of care. This seems to be related to how ideas of individualism structure and are structured by economic and social conditions in which people live their everyday lives.