[Author’s Name]
[Institution’s Name]
Essay on Gender and Aging
In recent years, both population aging and gender issues have gained prominence in international forums concerned with population. It is frequently asserted or implied that older women are universally more vulnerable to social, economic, and health disadvantages than older men. The most significant manifestation of this exclusive concern with women when considering gender and aging is the Plan of Action adopted by the Second World Assembly on Aging in 2002.
The assumed relative disadvantage of elderly women is commonly attributed to gender differences in earlier life experiences. But are older women truly disadvantaged globally with respect to all or most essential aspects of well-being? The authors provide empirical evidence that clearly shows that older women are not invariably disadvantaged vis-à-vis men. In particular, they call into question the wisdom and equity of a virtually exclusive emphasis on the needs of women when incorporating gender concerns into policies and programs related to aging. A more balanced perspective that recognizes gender as a potential, but not necessarily central, marker of vulnerability for various aspects of well-being in specific settings and times, and that allows for male as well as female disadvantage, would serve the current and future elderly generations far better (Ilmarinen, 1999).
In terms of gender issues, those women who work as housewives may face aging primarily as a shift in the role of wife and mother to that of grandmother. This often means entering a period of life where more focus on themselves is possible even if they face the need to take care of elderly people in the family. Mature women are, as a positive consequence, imputed with an aura of wisdom and respect in many societies. The powerful older woman is also present as an archetype in mythology and fairy-tales. However, because sexual difference is the most distinctive feature of a person in the framework of Freudian psychoanalysis, in that sense the older woman is a missing person, dysfunctional in sexual and libido terms, she does not exist......
