Vous êtes sur la page 1sur 19

Journal of Aging Studies

17 (2003) 379 397

Gendered identities in old age: Toward (de)gendering?


Catherine B. Silver
Brooklyn College and The Graduate Center, The City University of New York, 365 Fifth Ave.,
New York, N.Y. 10016, USA

Abstract
In postindustrial societies, like the United States, the loss of socioeconomic power and status
among older people have created an arena where patriarchal rules and gender-based expectations
have been altered, providing the context for new (de)gendered identities. In this article, we analyze
assumptions regarding gender and age representations. By comparing different views of ageing
psychoanalytic, feminist, and that of older people themselveswe want to explore how they reflect
underlying ideologies about the body, gender, and the self. These approaches to ageing are examined
to assess the meaning of gender and age as social constructs. The article addresses the issue of
(de)gendering by suggesting that in the third and fourth ages, gendered identities become altered in
ways that diminish gender differences and clear-cut gender representations. We end the article by
discussing some implications for doing research about the production and consumption of knowledge
about ageing.
D 2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Ageing; Gender; Feminism; Psychoanalysis

1. Introduction
Older people, like most marginalized groups in advanced industrial societies, face a
paradoxical situation. On one hand, they are at a socioeconomic disadvantage compared to
younger age groups (Quadagno, 1999). On the other, their marginality situates them in a
sphere of normative freedom from which they can question societys norms and
deconstruct the discourse of ageing (Hazan, 1994). In the United States, as in most
advanced industrial societies, disengagement from the adult world is accepted if not

E-mail address: csilver@Brooklyn.cuny.edu (C.B. Silver).


0890-4065/$ see front matter D 2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/S0890-4065(03)00059-8

380

C.B. Silver / Journal of Aging Studies 17 (2003) 379397

expected in the third and fourth ages of life (Featherstone & Hepworth, 1991).1
Adult life is expanding as old age is pushed further away, especially for women,
who have a longer life expectancy than men.2 The extension of life into a fourth age
(Baltes & Smith, 1999) has led to an increasing segregation and depersonalization of the
oldest old (85 years and older), mostly women, who represent the fastest growing group
of the elderly population (Neugarten & Neugarten, 1996; Blaikie, 1999). This situation
may be changing with new life styles, and the medicalization of ageing that has prolonged
the middle years and changed standards of ageing.3
Better quality of life, preventive medicine, and sophisticated use of technology
including cosmetic surgeryhave slowed down the ageing process. Since the turn of the
century, individuals in postindustrial societies have gained, on average, 30 years in life
expectancy, with women having gained seven more years than men. Today, older
individualsespecially the aging baby boomersare better educated, better-off financially, and more sophisticated about ageing than previous generations. Paradoxically, these
changes have increased the fear of ageing and death and have strengthened the images of
old age as an illness. The body, especially the aged female body, is increasingly subjected
to the dictates of the biopolitics of science and society (Foucault, 1978; Lock, 1993). Age
segregation, medicalization, and an ideology of self-control regulate individuals in old
age. While this situation may reflect older peoples choices, we have to keep in mind that
medicalization and age norms are largely attempts to control the fears of ageing and death
among the nonaged.4 These fears are redefined and rationalized as social problems. They
are responded to in ways that allow the nonaged to control the lives of older men and
women (Bauman, 1992, p. 155).

There has been increasing evidence of the importance of distinguishing between the young old and the
oldest old in terms of physical conditions, mental health, and life satisfaction. In this paper, we will use the
broad concepts of the third and fourth ages that correspond to age ranges 60 84 years for the former and 85 years
and above for the later (Baltes & Smith 1999). More than being simple age categorizations, the third and fourth
ages represent states of mind and symbolic spaces that separate older individuals from the adult working world
of the nonaged. We do not propose to distinguish between the third and fourth ages in this article.
2
In the United States, longevity of white females is 83 years; black females and white males 78 years; black
males 71.5 years.
3
The words used to describe older people vary and many have a negative connotation. We do not like to use
the term elderly. In this article we will use a variety of terms like the aged and older individuals. Primarily, we will
talk of individuals in the third and fourth ages of life. The term third age was initiated in France in the 1960 and
used in many European countries. A survey of older peoples feelings regarding the language used to describe
them showed that the term third age was the most acceptable to them. Individuals who defined themselves as
belonging to the third age describe themselves as ante-aged being in healthy physical, mental, and emotional
conditions when the pains of aging are not primary as with the oldest old (Hazan, 1996) who belong to the fourth
age.
4
We use the term nonaged to describe individuals fully employed in mainstream society in terms of work
and family obligations as parents. We will not use the term adult world to describe the nonaged because it implies
that the aged are no longer adults.

C.B. Silver / Journal of Aging Studies 17 (2003) 379397

381

As we know, gender and age are not natural states but social constructs (Butler, 1993;
Lorber, 1994) that support a social order organized around power relations of men over
women, and of young over old. Normative and discursive structures are used to
maintain and reproduce a socialemotional order that does not fit the realities of marginalized
groups such as older people (Bourdieu, 1984). The socialemotional order of the adult world
is defined by laws, social expectations, gender norms, values, and ideologies that shape an
individuals life and psyche around accomplishments, mobility, and economic rewards that
are future oriented. These concepts, however, have little meaning in understanding the
everyday life and psychic realities of older people.
In the United States, we are faced with a paradox: Older women, who are still at a
socioeconomic disadvantage compared to older men, are more likely to have a positive view
of ageing, feel less depressed, and engage in creative pursuits (Barefoot, Mortensen, Helms,
& Schroll, 2001; Field, 1999; Friedan, 1993). The loss of socioeconomic power and social
status of older/retired individuals, especially men, has created a social arena where patriarchal
rules and gender-based expectations have been weakened, creating the conditions for altered
identities. How are we to make sense of this situation? My theoretical query is to explore how
different views of ageingpsychoanalytic, feminist, postmodern, and that of older people
themselvesdeal with this paradox. In this article, we describe different approaches to ageing
to show how they often ignore, distort, or misperceive the changes taking place in older
peoples sense of gendered selves; we compare how different discourses of ageing categorize
age and gender;5 we contribute to an analysis of (de)gendering processes by discussing how
gender categorization becomes less central as an organizing principle among older people;
and we explore how fears of ageing and death shape views of ageing among the nonaged.

2. Psychoanalytic approaches to gender and ageing


The psychoanalytic views of ageing have for the most part stigmatized older individuals,
especially women. Until recently, psychoanalysts and social gerontologists approached
ageing within a framework that defined the ageing process as a decline, an illness, and a
series of losses around a decaying body. Often, psychoanalysts have used a language and
proposed a dualistic view of ageing based on their own unacknowledged and repressed fears
and anxieties of ageing and death. Woodward, in a fascinating book, Aging and its
discontents (1991), argues that Freud was terrified of ageing and, more often than not, coped
with his anxiety by ignoring the impact of age in his theories of the self. By focusing
primarily on issues of sexuality in childhood, he was leaving out an analysis of the links
between sexuality and age over the life course.

The term discourse in this paper does not refer either to a linguistic analysis of text or the methodologies of
knowledge production like many feminists theorist have undertaken so well. Rather, we use the term discourse in a
broader sense to analyze the assumptions underlying in the use and meaning of the categorizations of age and
gender.

382

C.B. Silver / Journal of Aging Studies 17 (2003) 379397

In his own dreams, as reported in The interpretation of dreams (Freud, 1900), Freud
described ageing as a series of lossesthe loss of teeth, the loss of limbsthat he
conceptualized as a form of castration. Freud at age 50 already talked about how his body
was failing himhis intestine, his heart, and his speech. Because of his cancer of the throat
and prosthesis he was in constant pain, especially in his later years.6 Freuds negative feelings
toward ageing are captured in the following quote from a letter to Lou Andreas-Salome:
With me, crabbed aged has arrived, a state of total disillusionment, whose sterility is
comparable to a lunar landscape, an inner ice age (Andreas-Salome, 1964).
Freud argued that the self becomes more rigid with age, the libido having lost its mobility.
He believed that it was difficult for older individuals to undergo psychoanalysis. This was
especially true for women, because their psychic energy had been used-up in childbirth and
mothering. At age 70, Freud lectured on Femininity (1933) and compared the possibility of
psychic development of men and women. If men at the age of 30 are still youthful, women, he
implied, are oldwhich is to say rigid and incapable of change:
A man of thirty strikes us as youthful, somewhat unformed individual, whom we expect
to make powerful use of the possibilities of development opened up to him by analysis.
A woman of the same age however, often frightens us by her psychical rigidity and
unchangeability. Her libido has taken up final positions and seems incapable of
exchanging them for others. There is no path open to further development. It is as
though the whole process remains thenceforward insusceptible to influences, as though,
indeed, the difficult development to femininity has exhausted the possibilities of the
person concerned (Freud, SE vol. 22: pp. 13435).
In addition to libidinal energy, the superego played a different role in the psychic
structure of older females and males. The tyranny of the male superego diminished with
age, allowing for a greater enjoyment of life but also creating fears of losing power and
control.7 Women, who did not internalize as strong a superego in the Oedipal struggle,
did not experience the same fear of loss and castration later on in life.8
In contrast, Lou Andreas-Salome, who was only 5 years younger than Freud, experienced
ageing as a culmination of psychic and intellectual growth, a creative process. Women
psychoanalysts like Melanie Klein, Karen Horney and, of course, Lou Andreas Salome
herself, were living examples of a more positive view of ageing (Chodorow, 1989). Deutsch
(1945, pp. 460462) saw old age as a time of creativity for women, comparing them to

Despite Freuds negative view of ageing and complaints about the deterioration of his body and mind, it is in
the late period of his life that he wrote masterpieces such as: Inhibitions, symptoms and anxiety (1926), The future
of an illusion (1927), Civilization and its discontents (1930), Female sexuality (1931), Moses and monotheism
(1939).
7
Ageing reconfigures the Oedipus drama, but this time, around a powerless and weakened father who is afraid
of being rejected by younger sons/colleagues.
8
The weakened superego of women that was for Freud linked with a weaker sense of morality has also been
reinterpreted by feminists as a manifestation of womens strength, adaptability, and mastery over life.

C.B. Silver / Journal of Aging Studies 17 (2003) 379397

383

adolescents going through puberty. Myerhoff, in her study of an old-aged Jewish community,
noticed that women were more likely to express emotional needs and faced ageing as a
challenge and a career, rather than as a disease (1978). More recently, psychoanalysts have
started to study old age as a stage of development and see the self as constantly changing
(Butler, 1975). In the third and fourth ages there is a restructuring of the personality
(Neugarten, 1977; Neugarten & Neugarten, 1996; Laufer, 2000), a sense of reclaimed
powers (Gutmann, 1997), and a renewal of emotional needs and psychic creativity
(Lomranz, 1998, Silver, 1992). The dominant Freudian discourse made invisible a paradigm
of ageing based on renewal and transformation.
The psychoanalytic views on menopause are also revealing (Lock, 1993, pp. 330341).
Freud and early psychoanalysts accepted the medical model that saw womens irritability
and depression as being caused by biological and hormonal changes, namely, declining
estrogen levels. The medical model, which described menopause as the fatal touch of
death itself, reenforced the view of postmenopausal women as useless and abject,
having lost both reproductive power and sexual attractiveness (Kristeva, 1982). Psychoanalytic models define menopause as a symbolic loss of femininity and a deep narcissistic
wound. Ageing as a source of narcissistic injury is defended against by mechanisms of
denial and splitting that reenforce the negative cultural representations of ageing around
images of passivity, decay, and obsolescence. Despite the attempts to conceptualize
menopause in psychological terms and the use of life stages (Erikson, Erikson, & Kivnick,
1986; Gutmann, 1980), biological models never fully lost their power among Freudian
psychoanalysts.
In many ways, the culture of psychoanalysis has continued to share a negative view of
older individuals, especially women, and helped sustain a discourse on ageing as a physical
and mental decline. The Freudian tradition has also reinforced dichotomous thinking by
contrasting young and old rather than focusing on the continuities between age groups and
the heterogeneity of older populations.9 On the whole, the psychoanalytic discourse has
ignored issues of ageing and paid little attention to gender differences by using a male
developmental model of the self as the standard measure of humanness (Gilligan, 1982). By
strengthening the binary categorizations of gender and age, the traditional psychoanalytic
discourse, supported by medical and scientific models of the mind, has helped reproduce a
social order based on internalized expectations of domination of male over female, young
over old. We now turn to feminists and postmodern thinkers who have deconstructed some of
these assumptions.

3. Feminist analysis of gender and aging


It is impossible to talk about gender and ageing without first acknowledging the
contributions and ambivalence of feminist writers, starting with the classical statements of
9

The population of older men and women has become more heterogeneous in socioeconomic, health, and
cognitive-related factors than the adult world (Foner, 1986).

384

C.B. Silver / Journal of Aging Studies 17 (2003) 379397

Simone de Beauvoir in The coming of age (1970a). De Beauvoir made a remarkable analysis
of women and ageing, showing that women, especially ageing women, were objectified as
the Other and marginalized by society. She showed the discrimination and inequality that
characterized womens lives in society. She was the first to look at the interplay of sexism and
ageism in modern society, and to show how women internalize the negative images and
stereotypes of ageing, creating the Other within us. She also conceptualized the third age
as a time of liberation from the patriarchal order, but a liberation that could not be enjoyed. I
quote:
It is in the autumn and winter of life that woman is freed from her chains; she takes
advantage of her age to escape the burdens that weigh on her; she knows her husband
too well to let him intimidate her any longer, she eludes his embraces, at his side she
organizes a life of her ownin friendship, indifference, or hostility. If his decline is
faster than hers, she assumes control of the couples affairs. She can also permit
herself defiance of fashion and of what people will say; she is freed from social
obligations, dieting and the care of her beauty. As for her children, they are old
enough to get along without her, they are getting married, they are leaving home. Rid
of her duties, she finds freedom at last. Unfortunately, . . . she finds this freedom at the
very time when she can make no use of it. This recurrence is in no way due to
chance: patriarchal society gave all the feminine functions the aspect of a service, and
woman escapes slavery only at times when she loses all effectiveness (The second sex,
1970b, pp. 583584).
Simone de Beauvoirs analysis is existentially pessimistic in that she does not see that the
freedom of old age can empower women or bring about psychic rewards. If anything,
freedom brings with it further frustrations because it leads nowhere. The experience of
freedom becomes itself a burden and a lack: No one needs me! (de Beauvoir, 1970b,
p. 584). It is important to keep in mind the historical period when de Beauvoir was writing, a
time when there were few options open to women and limited collective consciousness about
womens rights. Furthermore, her own personal idiosyncratic feelings about womanhood and
her conflicts with Sartre also explain her pessimistic attitudes toward the liberatory potential
of ageing within a patriarchal society (Woodward, 1988).
Ageism exists in society at large, including among feminists who, fighting for economic
equality in the labor force and for the rights over their young (i.e., reproductive) bodies, have
often ignored the plight of older women (Cooper, 1988). Initially, feminists who started the
U.S. Womens Movement did not pay much attention to Simone de Beauvoirs analysis of
ageing. Later on, when they did, they criticized her for her ageist and sexist attitudes
(Maierhofer, 2000). Ironically, early feminists themselves exhibited ageist attitudes toward
older sisters. As a founder of Womens Studies expressed:
. . . The message has gone out to those of us over 60 that your Sisterhood does not
include us, that those of you who are younger see us as men see usthat is, as women who
used to be women but arent anymore. You do not see us in our present lives, you do not

C.B. Silver / Journal of Aging Studies 17 (2003) 379397

385

identify with our issues, you exploit us, you patronize us, and you stereotype us. Mainly
you ignore us (Macdonald & Rich, 1983, p. 118).
The indifference and hostility to issues of ageing changed among U.S. feminists with the
graying and feminization of old age, particularly their own. In their analysis of old age,
second wave feminists in the 1970s and 1980s stressed womens oppression and objectification. With the exception of Sontags (1972) analysis of the double discrimination or
double jeopardy based on sexism and ageism, feminists paid little attention to the Other
within us. The emphasis on older women as victims created several problems. First, it
reenforced the images of older women as vulnerable, childlike, and in need of help.
Second, by seeing old age primarily as a problem for womenshowing a bias in favor of
gender differencesfeminists lost the opportunity to understand the (de)gendering process.
The hypersensitivity to questions of economic inequality and the fight against sexism and
racism in feminist discourses led to overlooking ageism and generational issues.
It was not until the third wave of feminism in the 1990s that ageing became a major issue
for graying feminists. Betty Friedan, the mother of the first wave of contemporary U.S.
feminism, was among the first to recognize ageing as a feminist issue in her book The
fountain of age (1993). Since then, ageing has continued to be a feminist concern (Garner,
1999), but the discourse of ageing has broaden from seeing ageism as another form of
victimization and exploitation of womenespecially poor and minority womento include
an exploration of older womens identities away from the traditional requirements of
womanhood and femininity (Banner, 1992; Pearsall, 1997). Ageing is increasingly understood as a form of resistance to the patriarchal order (Greer, 1999). Among postmodern
feminist thinkers, issues of embodiment, technologies of the self, and regulation of the body
around Foucaults formulation of the knowledge/power nexus (Hewitt, 1991) have taken
central stage.10 There is little room in their analyses for the subjective experiences of ageing
(Banner, 1992; Gray, 1996). The bodyas machine, plastic body, cyborghas no definite
gender or age. Body parts can be replaced and the fear of death postponed infinitely. The
illusion of immortality that these views illustrate is a denial of ageing and of death in an age
of tele-technology (Bauman, 1992; Clough, 2000).
Gender structure makes a difference in the way the aging body is understood. Older
womens bodies are more likely to be perceived as deformed, ridiculous looking, and
desexualized. They become frightening, crones, and witch like, as imagined in childrens books and fairy tales. The language that describes older women is indicative of a deepseated, unconscious fears and a rejection of the ageing female body, with its connotations of
danger and contamination that need to be kept separate and isolated (Douglas, 1966). The
new focus on embodiment reflects a concern about the regulation of sexuality and the
medicalization of menopause (Gannon, 1999; Greer, 1992). The pre/post menopausal
10

I am using the term postmodern to refer to thinkers that vary in their theoretical approaches and
methodologies. However, for the purpose of my argument regarding gender categorization and (de)gendering,
I have clustered them because they share a focus on issues of identity, subjectivity, and the use of discursive
methodologies.

386

C.B. Silver / Journal of Aging Studies 17 (2003) 379397

body is a metaphor for an analysis of the control of womens sexuality by men, science, and
the medical world. If sexuality and the fragmenting body are no longer key signifiers of
self-identity or threats to the social order, why do older women need to be regulated and
controlled through biopolitics? The female body, which no longer reflects reproductive
abilities nor attracts the gaze of men, has become a reminder of death to come. The fears of
ageing and death have to be controlled and kept at bay, especially in a society like the United
States, which is obsessed with youth images, narcissistic gratifications, and the prolongation
of life at all costs.
Unlike the pessimistic logic of existential freedom, as expressed by de Beauvoir, women
now can make choices, take risks, and engage in new pursuits. As they grow, older women
generally become more satisfied with their lives (Greer, 1999).11 A longitudinal study of
gender differences in depressive symptoms from age 60 to 80 shows an increase in symptoms
for men but not for women (Barefoot et al., 2001). Women exhibit what Margaret Mead
called a postmenopausal zest. In contrast, men often become psychologically more
vulnerable than women because they feel they have more to lose, and subsequently try
harder to retain a sense of power and authority, however illusory that may be. Furthermore,
men do not maintain friendship networks over the life course as women do, especially among
the oldest old (Jerrome & Wenger, 1999). The view that ageing is subjectively more difficult
for men than for women goes counter to the common belief that ageing is easier, if not
rewarding, for men and punishing for women. The theoretical bias of stressing gender
differences, combined with the assumption of womens multiple victimization based on race,
ethnicity, and sexual orientation, has limited an understanding of ageism (Woodward, 1999).
Paradoxically, the lack of attention to older individuals among feminists has hampered their
understanding of the processes of (de)gendering. Humanist and critical gerontologists have
reclaimed de Beauvoirs work and ideas, and focused on the paradoxes and contradictions of
the ageing self, viewed through the expression of older persons themselves rather than
through the lenses of the nonaged.

4. (De)gendering in old age


4.1. Deconstruction of gendered identities
In the United States, we are profoundly ambivalent about ageing. Fears of ageing and
death, especially among younger adults, lead to the rejection of older individuals and their
psychic realities. Men and women by keeping active and healthy want to feel that they are not
ignored, pushed away by younger people, and, above all, that they are still in control of their
lives (Furman, 1997). The nonaged want to keep older people at bay and invisible because
they remind them of the potential for suffering and of their own mortality.

11

Once again we are aware that ethnicity, race, and class introduce variations into the components of life
satisfaction. Feminists have tried to take these factors into account (Dressel, 1997; Jackson, 1997).

C.B. Silver / Journal of Aging Studies 17 (2003) 379397

387

Men and women spend a significant period of their liveson average 19 years for women
and 14 years for menin the third and fourth ages, in a habitus (Bourdieu, 1984)
characterized by a weakening of social expectations about mobility and a lessening of
traditional gender norms. The social order of the third and fourth ages can thus be
conceptualized has having modified patriarchal power and traditional gender relations.
Men and especially women no longer have to endure, to the same degree, societal controls
in their private lives. In the third and fourth ages, sexuality and work are no longer at the core
of self-identity.12 These features become integrated in a more complex and different
configuration of the self. Gender categorization becomes less salient than age as a way to
self-define (Silver & Muller, 1997; Woodward, 1991) and as a basis to stereotype older
people (Kite, Deaux, & Miele, 1991). Longitudinal studies also suggest that gender
roles become more malleable than age categorization (Verbrugge, Gruber-Baldini,
& Fozard, 1996).
Men and womens location in the social structure during their adult years (structures of
power, inequality, kinship structures, patriarchal structures) greatly shapes their social status,
economic positions, and sense of self in advanced years.13 Retired men often face a loss of
power, income, status, public recognition, and authority in the family.14 Women also face
loses, but since they have less resources, power, and authority to start with, their sense of loss
is quantitatively and qualitatively different. The changes primarily affecting women, such as
menopause, the empty nest, widowhood, are defined as loses and are thought to bring
about self-doubts and depression in women. By defining these changes as losses, society
legitimizes and reenforces an ageist ideology. In mens eyes, the loss of physical beauty and
reproductive power made women into social rejects and useless sexual objects.15 Actually,
these changes have only a short-term negative impact on women, (Lock, 1993; Lopata, 1996;
Neugarten & Neugarten, 1977) who psychologically gain after such losses (Rubin, 1979).
What these changes have in common is the lifting of social and symbolic controls around
sexuality, femininity, and family obligations. It is this transformative process that creates a
potentially disruptive situation in existing gender relations.
It is meaningful to remark that research findings about gender differences in old age are far
from consistent.16 Some studies show major gender differences, especially in standards of

12

We do not mean to imply that older people are no longer sexual or sexually active, only that sexuality is
now part of a larger configuration of the self.
13
In this article, we do not review all these factors and their complex interactions. They have been
exhaustively discussed elsewhere (Baltes & Mayer, 1999).
14
More than 50 years ago, Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswick, Levinson, and Sanford (1950) observed that
modernity involved the loss of fathers authority in the family. They studied the impact that such loss had on mens
sense of self, political ideologies, and family dynamics. The loss of paternal authority is further eroded in old age.
15
The language of loss is itself an ageist statement that feminists have tried to challenge by proposing positive
formulations.
16
Without examining these studies in detail, it is important to point out that they use different methodologies
and can lead to different results, depending on whether or not they are using cross-sectional or longitudinal data
(Barefoot et al., 2001).

388

C.B. Silver / Journal of Aging Studies 17 (2003) 379397

living, life style (Quadagno, 1999; Riley, 1999), physical and mental health (Coyle, 1997),
values (Helterline & Nouri, 1994), and expression of the self (Ryff & Marshall, 1999). These
studies show clear gender disparities, with women facing greater socioeconomic hardships
than men. Other studies such as the Berlin study (Baltes, Freund, & Horgas, 1999) show
small differences in the mental and functional health domain and even fewer gender
differences in personality and social integration. The findings of the Baltimore Longitudinal
Study on social activities among older people also show small differences between men and
women in psychosocial characteristics. One area that shows significant differences is
household division of labor with men doing more housework than women as they age
(Verbrugge et al., 1996). Trying to make sense of these findings, there seems to be clear
gender disparities in socioeconomic factors, while psychological and personality factors show
fewer gender differences as individuals grow older. In institutional spheres, gender inequalities and discrimination persist. But in the microworld of social interaction and in the day-today expression of the self, gender differences diminish. This discrepancy between the
institutional order and the private life of individuals has become more apparent in the third
and fourth ages, where male domination and gender differences are less central in shaping
everyday experiences. While the socioeconomic disparities between older men and women
have persisted, traditional gender expectations have changed and the subjective sense of self
has turned out to be increasingly personal and idiosyncratic (Chodorow, 1999).
The elderly by cocooning themselves in the social capsule of the third age, they freed their
mind and actions from a whole load of social impositions that would have impinged upon
their outlook and prospects (Hazan, 1996, p. 141).
Today, older women have more choices, greater aspirations, and can more freely express
nontraditional gender and sexual orientations.17 The leveling of power differential between
older men and women and the weakening of traditional gender expectations in everyday life
induce the emergence of new psychological states, namely, tendencies toward the integration
of feminine and masculine characteristics (Baltes & Smith, 1999; Jung, 1933). Gutmann
(1987) pointed to the socioevolutionary tendency of gender reversal in old age. Some
researchers make a case for helping the integration of feminine and masculine features in old
age (LaBouvie-Vief, 1994); still others argue that the personality structure of older persons
becomes more androgynous (Erikson et al., 1986, p. 214; Huyck, 1999). Androgyny as a
psychological state that combines aspects of femininity and masculinity affects social and
health outcomes, with femininity playing an increasingly important role for both males and
females. There is a positive relationship between androgyny and qualitative well being
(Ruffing-Rahal, Barin, & Combs, 1998), as well as between androgyny and productivity
among scientists (Rossi, 1985a,b). A tendency toward androgyny was shown to be especially
17

The double burden that characterizes womens working life often does not end in their older years because
women are still expected to take care of others. Women are often locked in the societal expectations of taking care
of children, elderly parents, and husbands while contributing economically to the household (Silver, 1998; AttiasDonfut, 1996).

C.B. Silver / Journal of Aging Studies 17 (2003) 379397

389

significant in widowhood (OBryant, 1994). These psychological processes and subjective


states can be experienced as arenas for creativity, and forms of liberation from the restrictive
definitions of womanhood and femininity (Pearsall, 1977, Myerhoff, 1978).
Feminists who advocate a (de)gendering process stress the need to deconstruct modes of
binary thinking and their expression in institutional settings and ideologies that reproduce
inequalities. The question remains: How do individuals change modes of thinking about
gender in social settings that are built on binary conceptions? The analysis of the third and
fourth ages is provocative because it provides an arena to explore what happens to the self
when binary thinking and gender categorization loose their organizing power. Research
findings point to the greater gender flexibility and changeability of the self. The lifting of
normative expectations, rolessness (Erikson et al., 1986), role reversal (Gutmann, 1987), and
biopsychological changes (Rossi, 1985a,b) create a paradoxical situation that presents older
individuals with greater economic dependence and at the same time greater normative
freedom from institutional frames (Bauman & May, 2001). Feminist theorists have argued for
the need to create gender equality and diminish gender differences. However, despite
socioeconomic changes and womens achievements in the labor force over the last decades,
the social order is still constructed and reproduced around gender differences defined as
natural. Postmodern feminist theorists have challenged the binary construction of a
gendered self and have stressed the need for analyzing and understanding multiplicities
and intersectionality of features of the self. However, their theoretical construct has yet to
include an epistemology of age.
The disappearance of a clear-cut gendered representation of the self among individuals in
the third and fourth ages of life has been accompanied by the salience of another us and
them mentality. There is paradox here: In the third and fourth ages, individuals are less
likely to define themselves in terms of gendered identities. But their marginalization as a
group leads them to a mode of thinking that opposes young and old. There is a parallel
between the positions of women and older people as Others. Features such as strangeness,
vulnerability, needing help, and need for self-discipline define both groups. Mens unconscious fears of women and of their sexuality have been overlaid by unconscious fears of pain,
ageing, and death. Gender as a marker of identification and constitutive of selfhood in old age
becomes less salient compared to other features of the self. The experience of a different form
of domination, that is, the control of the old by the young, is responded to by the use of
protective devices, to which we now turn.

5. Contradictions of the self in old age


(De)gendering is linked with experiences of greater flexibility, openness, and multiplicity
of the self. The discourse of older people, as described in interviews, narratives and
biographies, reflects a vision of the self full of contradictions and paradoxes. As mentioned
before, gender categorization and self-definition around a gendered self becomes less central
among older people. What takes central stage in the life of older individuals are mechanisms
to cope with the alienation, discrimination, and isolation that result from being socially

390

C.B. Silver / Journal of Aging Studies 17 (2003) 379397

marginalized as old. This marginalization brings about psychic response to cope with the
binary split of young versus old (Hazan, 1998; Lax, 2001).
How do older people protect themselves against the dismissals, paternalistic, condescending attitudes, and stereotypes, as well as the fears of death projected unto them by the
nonaged? The contradictions of the self in old age reflect the simultaneous experience of
separateness and freedom, resistance and conformity. This combination of normative freedom
and social isolation brings about contradictions and disjunctions. Among them: the split
between the ageless components of the self and dramatically changing physical and socioeconomic circumstances (Kaufman, 1986); the experience of time and space as a limbo
state (Hazan, 1980, p. 117) reflecting a state of mind that is primarily concerned with
present rather than future or the past issues. This state of mind is expressed in a language that
favors literal and metaphysical modes of communication rather than symbolization (Hazan,
1996); the affective discontinuities that take the form of disassociative emotional states
between affects and events, similar to what Johnson (1998, p. 80) has described in the
narrative of African American slaves; the disjunction between physical pain and inner
feelings that lead to the formulation of the mask of ageing that refers to the discrepancy
between inner feelings of youthfulness and older appearances and conformity to age norms
(Featherstone & Hepworth, 1991; Gubrium, 2000). The exploration of these dynamics give
insights in how marginalized groups resist the inequalities, stereotypes, physical and mental
isolations in their daily lives (Moody, 1988).
The disassociation between inner and outer realities, and between affects and events,
generate new patterns of communication as described by Hazan (1996) in his study of older
people who attended the University of the Third Age (U3A) in Cambridge (England). Hazan,
in analyzing texts written by older people, described how they generated and consumed
knowledge about themselves. Individuals in the third age created a form of local knowledge that was highly critical of social formulae and cultural codes. The texts that they
produced clearly demonstrated that they do not regard themselves as an object of knowledge.
They do not present themselves to themselves as Others; they decline to see themselves as
old. Compartmentalization of the psyche, time lag, and mind /body splits are survival
strategies and forms of resistance to the world of the nonaged. These processes of
disassociation are often misunderstood as reflecting a pathological response to aging.
Compartmentalization, disassociation, and splitting are strategies used by older individuals
to insulate themselves from the stereotyping, devaluing, and stigmatizing judgment of
younger people. These strategies allow them to simultaneously conform and resist demands
put on them. The simultaneity of these contradictory responses makes older individuals seem
irrational, crazy, or pathological in the eyes of the nonaged.

6. Social and psychological splitting in old age


Several points should be kept in mind when attempting to address the paradoxical situation
of older individuals characterized by a combination of powerlessness and power, conformity
and agency. The marginalization of older individuals, especially the oldest old, objectifies

C.B. Silver / Journal of Aging Studies 17 (2003) 379397

391

them as victims, but this process is often accompanied by more subtle changes in value
systems and psychological needs that transform a sense of self in a complex way (Reinharz,
1997; Silver, 1992). Although they are perceived as static, rigid and unable to adjust, older
people are undergoing massive changes. Older people cope with the contradictions of aging
through what Lomranz identifies as a process of aintegration; that is, forms of coping that
do not imply conformity, adaptation, or unity of the self, but are based on the ability to deal
with contradictions, fluid situations, and double binds (1998). As a result, physical, social,
and psychological aspects of life become compartmentalized through processes of psychological and social splitting. These processes are responses to the multiplicities of interpsychic
and intrapsychic contradictions of old age.
Social splitting is more than an individual response to anxiety. It is based on cultural
definitions, social expectations, and authorized knowledge about ageing that interact with and
reinforce personal expressions of the self, especially in societies obsessed with youth images
and a narcissistic culture (Cushman, 1995; Lasch, 1978). Social splitting refers to
mechanisms used to cope with anxiety about ageing and death by projecting such fears unto
older individuals using cultural codes and linguistic formulations. Social splitting reflects the
distancing between age groups based on an us and them mentality. It is accompanied by the
increasing gap between the subjective I and the social me (Mead, 1934). Binary
thinking of younger versus older creates the social and cultural conditions for adults to
project their fears of ageing and death unto older groups that become the target of their fears.
As Freud pointed-out in Civilization and its discontents (1930), social splitting is used to
project social anxiety onto more vulnerable groups, such as Jews and minorities, who are
experienced as different and threatening. In todays society, the oldest old have become the
ultimate target in an endless chain of projections along age groups. Even in nursing homes it
is the oldest old among the residents, those most likely to feel vulnerable and sick, that are
defined as the Other (Hochschild, 1973; Spilerman & Litvak, 1982).
Psychological splitting reflects a process of disassociation between body and mind,
between physical and mental spheres, between good and bad inner representations
(Klein, 1963). Psychological splitting can mean the disjunction of mind/body in a way that
allows for a denial of ageing or mis/recognition of the body. However, psychological
splitting is not only a form of denial. It is also a resistance against demands for adaptation and
conformity and as a response to inescapable physical pain and suffering. There is an
important distinction to be made between (ad)ministering older peoples sociomedical
conditions and older individuals own abilities to stand outside of their own bodies when
the physical pain and suffering is too great. Freud already suggested in his essay on The libido
theory and narcissism (1917) that when the body is filled with pain, we take a stand outside
of our bodies and watch ourselves as strangers.18 By becoming strangers to our bodies we
liberate our minds, in a way similar to what mystics do.

18

Being a stranger to oneself does not refer to a feeling of alienation in the Marxist sense. It connotes the
ability of older people to be both subject and object of their own knowledge. It provides an emotional distance that
creates a sense of security and psychic control.

392

C.B. Silver / Journal of Aging Studies 17 (2003) 379397

The crucial distinctions between objective social realities and individuals subjective
responses, between objective and subjective definitions of age, and between false and
true self (Winnicott, 1965) have to be considered carefully when applied to individuals in
the third and fourth ages of life. Processes of physical deterioration and mental growth,
emotional losses and creativity, past and present recollections occur simultaneously on a
continuum full of disruptions, displacements, and repetitions. To the nonaged, the lack of
consistency, integrity, and unity of the self are interpreted as problematic and in need
of control and solutions. However, older people do not experience the self as fully coherent or
clearly gendered. Behind the mask of aging resides a world with its own emotional logic,
disordered experience of time/space, and a language of essentials used to create a world of
their own.

7. Conclusion
The different views of ageing discussed in this article illustrate the interaction between
sociological, psychological, and idiosyncratic concerns. The medical discourse defines ageing
as a decline and an illness. The psychoanalytic discourse defines the experience of old age as
a castration, a symbolic loss, and a narcissistic injury. In these models, women are either
stigmatized or ignored and gender and age are conceptualized in binary terms. The early
feminist discourse focused on the victimization and exploitation of women, taking into
account the interplay of sexism and racism with little attention to ageism. Postmodern
theorists challenged the social construction of gender and saw ageing in terms of fragmentation of the body, discipline, and technologies of the self, but with little consideration to
physical and emotional pain. The discourse and practices of older people themselves give us a
view of ageing based on their experience of the self as conflicted, with compartmentalization
of psychic processes around disordered experience of time and space, with disjunctions
between emotions and events, and splits between body and mind. Older people deconstruct
the adult world and use psychic mechanisms to protect themselves against discrimination and
social isolation. They also create arenas of normative freedom and a parallel world of
meaning. The convergence of these social and emotional dynamics contributes to a process of
(de)gendering.
It is with some irony that we conclude that in postindustrial societies like the United States,
the third and fourth ages come close to embodying a feminist utopia of gender equality
(Frueh, 1997). In this utopian society, power relations and gender differences become
minimized, androgyny becomes the norm, and the self can be actualized in contradictory
ways. As we know, such transformations never occur without strong opposition from those in
power, the nonaged, who want to maintain a social order that favors their interests, needs, and
world views. We have a long way to go before creating new paradigms and providing
institutional support to these (de)gendered views of the self. However, cultural, medical, and
economic changes, together with the upcoming retirement of the baby boomer generation,
offer new social arrangements that can destabilize present definitions, images, and practices
of ageing. A conceptualization of a (de)gendered social order is proposed by Lorber (2000) as

C.B. Silver / Journal of Aging Studies 17 (2003) 379397

393

the basis for a new feminist movement. It is our view that the basis for such a movement is
already taking place through the changes that accompany the third and fourth ages of life.
However, (de)gendering does not guarantee that other forms of domination will vanish. If
anything, as we have seen, there is a tendency to recreate an Other in order to protect oneself
from anxiety about ageing and death. Younger people define older people as the Other.
(De)gendering with its rejection of binary thinking can bring about more equality in society at
large, but only when other forms of domination, such as ageism, have also been curtailed. The
exploration of these dynamics in the third and fourth ages gives us insights into how other
marginalized groups resist the inequalities, stereotypes, and isolation in their daily lives, as
well as produces new meanings, symbols, and modes of representation that can simultaneously connect and distance them from the dominant groups.
I would like to end with some research implications. Most of the research about old age has
been done by the nonaged across a variety of disciplines. The world of older individuals
needs to be studied from the inside. However, rather than the researcher becoming an insider
or going native, it is important to get older individuals to become researchers themselves
(Hazan, 1996). Concretely, this means that research about the production and consumption of
knowledge about aging should come from older individuals in collaboration with the
nonaged. If we assume that there is a breach in communication between the nonaged and
older people, and that the mask of ageing hides a world of contradictions and disjointed
feelings, then it becomes imperative to ask older individuals to react to their own productions.
I am not suggesting that the nonaged cannot contribute to an analysis of old age. What I am
suggesting is that the central involvement of older people in the full research process becomes
essential to an understanding how knowledge about aging and (de)gendering is produced.

Acknowledgements
I would like to acknowledge the support of the Research Foundation of the City University
of New York for awarding me a grant (PSC-CUNY #633332) to carry out this research. I
would also like to thank Claudine Attias-Donfut, Patricia Clough and Judith Lorber for
inspiring me to write this paper.

References
Adorno, T., Frenkel-Brunswick, E., Levinson, D. J., & Sanford, R. N. (1950). The authoritarian personality. New
York: Harper and Brothers.
Andreas-Salome, L. (1964). The Freud journal (S. A. Leavy, Trans.). New York: Basic Books. (Original work
published 1927)
Attias-Donfut, C. (1996). La Dependance des personnes agees. Une affaire de femmes. Retraite Et Societe, (with
Renaut S.). Paris: C.N.A.V. (13/122-133).
Baltes, M. M., Freund, A. M., & Horges, A. L. (1999). Men and women in the Berlin aging study. In Baltes, &
Mayer (Eds.), The Berlin aging study: Aging from 70 to 100. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Baltes, P., & Smith, J. (1999). Multilevel and systematic analyses of old age: Theoretical and empirical

394

C.B. Silver / Journal of Aging Studies 17 (2003) 379397

evidence for a fourth age. In V. Bengston, & K. W. Schaie (Eds.), Handbook of theories of aging
(pp. 153 173). New York: Springer.
Banner, L. W. (1992). Full flower: Aging women, power and sexuality. New York: Knopf.
Barefoot, J. C., Mortensen, E., Helms, M., & Schroll, M. (2001). A longitudinal study of gender differences in
depressive symptoms from age 50 to 80. Psychology and Aging, 16/2, 342 345.
Bauman, Z. (1992). Mortality, immortality and other life strategies. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Bauman, Z., & May, T. (2001). Thinking sociologically. London: Blackwell.
Blaikie, A. (1999). Ageing and popular culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinctions. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Butler, J. (1993). Bodies that matter: On the discursive limits of sex. New York: Routledge.
Butler, R. (1975). Why survive? Being old in America. New York: Harper Torchbooks.
Chodorow, N. J. (1989). Seventies questions for thirties women. Gender and generation: I. A study of early
women psychoanalysts. Feminism and psychoanalytic theory. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Chodorow, N. J. (1999). The power of feelings: Personal meaning in psychoanalysis, gender and culture. New
Haven: Yale University Press.
Clough, P. (2000). Auto affection. Unconscious thought in the age of teletechnology. Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press.
Cooper, B. (1988). Over the Hill: Reflections on ageism between women. New Haven: Freedom Crossing Press.
Coyle, J. M. (1997). Research Implications. Handbook on women and aging ( pp. 465 469). Westport, CT:
Greenwood Press.
Cushman, P. (1995). Constructing the self, constructing America: A cultural history of psychotherapy. New York:
Addison Wesley.
De Beauvoir, S. (1970a). The coming of age (P. OBrien, Trans.). New York: Norton.
De Beauvoir, S. (1970b). The second sex (H. M. Parshley, Trans.). New York: Vintage Books.
Deutsch, H. (1945). The psychology of women: A psychoanalytic interpretation, vol. 2. New York: Grune and
Stratton.
Douglas, M. (1966). Purity and danger: An analysis of concepts of pollution and taboo. New York: Frederick A.
Praeger.
Dressel, P. L. (1997). Gender, race, and class: Beyond the feminization of poverty. In M. Pearsall (Ed.), The other
within us ( pp. 113 120). New York: Westview Press.
Erikson, E. H., Erikson, J. M., & Kivnick, H. Q. (1986). Vital involvement in old age: The experience of old age in
our time. New York: Norton.
Featherstone, M., & Hepworth, M. (1991). The mask of ageing and the post-modern life course. In M.
Featherstone, M. Hepworth, & B. Turner (Eds.), The body: Social process and cultural theory ( pp. 370 389).
London: Sage.
Field, D. (1999). Continuity and change in friendships in advanced old age: Findings from the Berkeley older
generation study. International Journal of Aging & Human Development, 48/4, 325 346.
Foner, A. (1986). Ages in conflict: A cross-cultural perspective on inequality between young and old. New York:
Columbia University Press.
Foucault, M. (1978). The history of sexuality, vol. 1: An introduction (R. Hurley, Trans.). New York: Pantheon
Books.
Freud, S. (1900). The interpretation of dreams. SE 4 5, xi-338, 339, 627.
Freud, S. (1917). The libido theory and narcissism. SE 16, 412 430.
Freud, S. (1926). Inhibitions, symptoms and anxiety. SE 20, 77 175.
Freud, S. (1927). The future of an illusion. SE 27, 3 56.
Freud, S. (1930). Civilization and its discontents. SE 21, 59 145.
Freud, S. (1931). Female Sexuality. SE 21, 223 43.
Freud, S. (1933). Femininity. SE 22, 112 135.
Freud, S. (1939). Moses and monotheism. SE 23, 3 137.
Friedan, B. (1993). The fountain of age. New York: Simon and Schuster.

C.B. Silver / Journal of Aging Studies 17 (2003) 379397

395

Frueh, J. (1997). Visible difference: Women artists and aging. In M. Pearsall (Ed.), The other within us
( pp. 197 220). New York: Westview Press.
Furman, F. K. (1997). Facing the mirror: Older women and beauty shop culture. New York: Routledge.
Gannon, L. R. (1999). Women and aging: Transcending the myths. London: Routledge.
Garner, J. D. (1999). Feminism and feminist gerontology. Journal of Women and Aging, 11/2 3, 3 12.
Gilligan, C. (1982). In a different voice: Psychological theory and womens development. Cambridge: Harvard
University Press.
Gray, F. du Plessix (March 26, 1996). The third age. The New Yorker, 186 192.
Greer, G. (1992). The change: Women, aging and the menopause. New York: Knopf.
Greer, G. (1999). The whole woman. New York: Knopf.
Gubrium, J. (2000). Aging and everyday life. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.
Gutmann, D. L. (1980). Psychoanalysis and aging: A developmental view. In I. G. Stanley, & G. H. Pollock (Eds.),
Adulthood and the aging process ( pp. 489 517). Washington: NIMH.
Gutmann, D. L. (1987). Reclaimed powers: Toward a new psychology of men and women in later life. New York:
Basic.
Gutmann, D. L. (1997). The human elder in nature, culture and society. Boulder, CO: Westview.
Hazan, H. (1980). The limbo people: A study of the constitution of the time universe among the aged. London:
Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Hazan, H. (1994). Old age: Constructions and deconstructions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hazan, H. (1996). From first principles: An experiment in aging. Westport, CT: Bergin and Garvey.
Hazan, H. (1998). The double voice of the third age. Splitting the speaking self as an adaptive strategy in later life.
In L. Lomranz (Ed.), Handbook of aging and mental health: An integrative approach ( pp. 183 196). New
York: Plenum.
Helterline, M., & Nouri, M. (1994). Aging and gender: Values and continuity. Journal of Women and Aging,
63, 19 37.
Hewitt, M. (1991). Bio-politics and social policy: Foucaults account of welfare. In M. Featherston, M.
Hepworth, & B. S. Turner (Eds.), The body: Social process and cultural theory (pp. 225 255). London:
Sage Publications.
Hochschild, A. R. (1973). The unexpected community. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Huyck, M. H. (1999). Gender roles and gender identity in middle life. In L. Willis (Ed.), Life in the middle:
Psychological and social development in middle age. New York: Academic Press.
Jackson, J. J. (1997). The plight of older black women. In M. Pearsall (Ed.), The other within us ( pp. 37 42).
New York: Westview.
Jerrome, D., & Wenger, C. G. (1999). Stability and change in late-life friendships. Ageing and Society,
19/6, 661 676.
Johnson, B. (1998). The feminist difference. Literature, psychoanalysis, race and gender. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press.
Jung, C. G. (1933). Modern man in search of a soul. New York: Harcourt Brace and World.
Kaufman, S. (1986). Cultural components of identity in old age. The ageless self: Sources of meaning in later life.
Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
Kite, M. E., Deaux, K., & Miele, M. (1991). Stereotypes of young and old: Does age outweigh gender? Psychology and Aging, 6/1, 19 27.
Klein, M. (1963). On the sense of loneliness. Envy and gratitude and other works ( pp. 300 313). New
York: Delta (1975).
Kristeva, J. (1982). Powers of horror: An essay on abjection. New York: Columbia University Press.
LaBouvie-Vief, G. (1994). Psyche and eros: Mind and gender in the life course. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Lasch, C. (1978). The culture of narcissism. New York: W. W. Norton.
Laufer, J. (2000). The struggle between living and dying: The analysis of a 90 year old woman. Psychoanalytic
Review, 87/5, 699 715.

396

C.B. Silver / Journal of Aging Studies 17 (2003) 379397

Lax, R. F. (December, 2001). Psychic and social reality in aging. The Psychoanalytic Review, 88(6), 755 770.
Lock, M. M. (1993). Encounters with aging: Mythologies of menopause in Japan and north America. Berkeley:
University of California Press.
Lomranz, J. (1998). An image of aging and the concept of aintegration: Coping and mental health implications.
In J. Lomranz (Ed.), Handbook of aging and mental health: An integrative approach ( pp. 207 250). New
York: Plenum.
Lopata, H. Z. (1996). Current widowhood: Myths and realities. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Lorber, J. (1994). Paradoxes of gender. New Haven, CT: Yale.
Lorber, J. (2000). Using gender to undo gender. A feminist degendering movement. Feminist Theory, 1(1),
79 95.
Maierhofer, R. (2000). Simone de beauvoir and the graying of American feminism. Journal of Aging and Identity,
5/2, 67 77.
Macdonald, B., & Rich, C. (1983). Look me in the eye: Old women. Aging and ageism. San Francisco: Spinster/
Aunt Lute.
Mead, G. H. (1934). Mind, self and society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Moody, H. R. (1988). Toward a critical gerontology: The contribution of the humanities to theories of aging. New
York: Springer.
Myerhoff, B. (1978). Number our days. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Neugarten, B. L. (1977). Personality and the aging process. In S. H. Zarit (Ed.), Readings in aging and death:
Contemporary perspectives ( pp. 72 77). New York: Harper & Row.
Neugarten, B. L., & Neugarten, D. A. (1996). The changing meanings of age. In D. Neugarten (Ed.), The
meanings of age: Selected papers of Bernice Neugarten ( pp. 72 77). Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.
OBryant, S. L. (1994). Widowhood in later life: An opportunity to become androgynous. In M. R. Stevenson
(Ed.), Gender roles through the life span. Muncie, IN: Ball State University.
Pearsall, M. (1997). In M. Pearsall (Ed.), The other within us: Feminist explorations of women and aging
( pp. 1 8). Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Quadagno, J. S. (1999). Aging and the life course: An introduction to social gerontology. Boston: McGraw-Hill.
Reinharz, S. (1997). Friends or foes: Gerontological and feminist theory. In M. Pearsall (Ed.), The other within us
( pp. 73 94). New York: Westview Press.
Riley, M. (1999). Sociological research on age: Legacy and challenge. Aging and Society, 19/1, 123 132.
Rossi, A. S. (Ed.) (1985a). Gender and the life course. New York: Aldine.
Rossi, A. S. (1985b). Gender and parenthood. In A. S. Rossi (Ed.), Gender and the life course ( pp. 161 191).
New York: Aldine.
Rubin, L. B. (1979). Women of a certain age: The midlife search for self. New York: Harper & Row.
Ruffing-Rahal, M. A., Barin, L., & Combs, C. (1998). Gender role orientation as a correlate of perceived health,
health behavior, and qualitative well-being in older women. Journal of Women and Aging, 10/1, 3 19.
Ryff, C. D., & Marshall, V. W. (Eds.) (1999). The self and society in aging process. New York: Springer.
Silver, C., & Muller, C. (1997). Effects of ascribed and achieved, characteristics on social values in Japan and the
united States. Research in Stratification and Mobility, 15, 153 176.
Silver, C. B. (1992). Personality structure and aging style. Journal of Aging Studies, 6/4, 333 350.
Silver, C. B. (1998). Cross-cultural perspectives on attitudes toward family responsibility and wellbeing in later
years. In J. Lomranz (Ed.), Handbook of aging and mental health: An integrative approach ( pp. 383 442).
New York: Plenum.
Sontag, S. (1972). The double standard of aging. Saturday Review of the Society, 55, 29 38.
Spilerman, S., & Litvak, E. (1982). Reward structures and organizational design of institutions for the elderly.
Research on Aging, 4, 43 70.
Verbrugge, L. M., Gruber-Baldini, A. L., & Fozard, J. L. (1996). Age differences and age changes in activities:
Baltimore longitudinal study of aging. Journal of Gerontology, 51B/1, 530 541.
Winnicott, D. W. (1965). The maturational process and the facilitating environment. London: Hogarth Press.

C.B. Silver / Journal of Aging Studies 17 (2003) 379397

397

Woodward, K. (1988). Simone de beauvoir: Aging and its discontents. In Shari Benstock (Ed.), The private self:
Theory and practice in womens autobiographical writings ( pp. 90 113). Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press.
Woodward, K. (1991). Aging and its discontents: Freud and other fictions. Bloomington: Indiana University
Press.
Woodward, K. (1999). Inventing generational models: Psychoanalysis, feminism, literature. Figuring age:
Women, bodies and generations (pp. 149 168). Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Vous aimerez peut-être aussi