Gender & Aging (Generations and Aging) Book

Sex is easy; it is a biological characteristic based on one's chromosomes. Two X's or one: that is the question. The question of gender and its effects on aging, now that is a bit more difficult. Gender is the public or societal meaning of one's chromosomes. While no one will dispute the impact biological factors have on the aging process, the relevance of one's biological characteristics is, in large measure, socially determined. Is there something about our gender that alters the way the aging process unfolds? How does being male or female affect us as we grow older? How important is gender to the study of aging? These and similar questions are what Gender & Aging is all about. Sixteen essays, written by scholars and practitioners who know their way around gerontology, attempt to spell out how gender is ever present in the aging process, tackle the question of the effects of gender on men and women, and ask how gender plays itself out in the way people grow old.Read More