Mutton Dressed as Lamb: An Idiom-Based Perspective on Discourses of Gender and Aging

Abstract This study investigates the British English idiom “mutton dressed as lamb” across time and in public and private discourse to describe and understand its contributions toward discourses of aging and gender. The “mutton” idiom is often viewed as humorous and innocuous. We argue that this masks more critical, dehumanizing evaluations of older women, forming part of a wider and under-researched area of discourses and social inequalities around femininity and aging. Our study uses Appraisal theory and corpus-assisted frameworks to explore the reciprocal relationship between public and private discourses. We compare data from multigenerational female interviewees with a twentieth-century corpus of UK news publications, considering evidence of continuity and change over the last 80 years. Our analysis reveals that the “mutton” idiom encapsulates a complex set of discourses around how older women are judged against powerful, implicit cultural “standards.” Our critique examines how this idiom, infrequently used yet resilient, continues to influence prevailing discourses of gender and aging despite sociopolitical transformations in women's rights and social status. Finally, we explore the implications for future ideologies around the aging, gendered body and self.