Learning to be Old: Gender, Culture, and AgingWhat does it mean to grow old in America today? Is 'successful aging' our responsibility? What will happen if we fail to 'grow old gracefully'? Especially for women, the onus on the aging population in the United States is growing rather than diminishing. Gender, race, and sexual orientation have been reinterpreted as socially constructed phenomena, yet aging is still seen through physically constructed lenses. This book helps put aging in a new light, neither romanticizing nor demonizing it. Feminist scholar Margaret Cruikshank looks at a variety of different forces affecting the progress of aging, including fears and taboos, multicultural traditions, and the medicalization and politicization of natural processes. Through it all, we learn a better way to inhabit our age whatever it is. |
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AARP adverse drug reactions ageism American Asian Americans Barbara Baywood benefits black women bodies Boston Globe busyness cancer caregiving Carroll L Center changes chapter chronic creativity Critical Gerontology crone cultural decline differences disease doctors economic Edited elderly especially essay estrogen ethnicity example experience fear Feminism feminist gender healthy aging Hooyman humanities illness income increase Indians individual internalized ageism issue Journal large numbers late-life Latinas/os lesbians less lives longevity mainstream means Medicare medicine menopause Meredith Minkler middle-class Minority Elders myth nursing home old age old women older women Older Women's League overmedication Pacific Islanders percent person Perspectives physical political prescription drugs problems productive aging programs psychological Quadagno retirement risk role self-reliance sexual sick sick role sixty-five Social Security society spiritual Springer stereotypes story tion white women woman Women and Aging women of color women's aging Women's Health women's studies workers York