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Old Age And The Process Of Aging

Decent Essays

This paper argues that gerontology, the study of old age and the process of aging, have overlooked gender inequality within policies of patriarchal structures, and within the ideologies of western capitalist society. This is a major source of women’s social and economic powerlessness’ in old age. Ray (1996) explains feminist gerontology as a connection between feminism and gerontology focusing on gender and gender relations. Feminist gerontology deals with populations of both women and men, and through the connection between gender, conclusions in research on women are drawn from building upon research based on men (Calasanti, 2004). Patriarchal structure of western society still maintains the core preference of traditional gender roles, which lead to familiar results in old age. The manifestation of this ideology can be seen in advertisement in media and again repeated within institutions of political and educational domains. Its ability to take several forms produces the root of issues of inequality in old age and difficulty women face compared to men. Gender, within research of gerontology is relatively recent in its consideration in exploring the experience of elderly in western society (Wray, 2003). Therefore, differentiating between genders is done through describing the obstacles that women face in old age compared to men, such as gap in life expectancy, where women tend to live longer than men (Backes et al., 2006). Their ‘prolonged’ lifespan in comparison to men

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