Grandma as Revolutionary: Elderly Women and Some Modern Patterns of Social Change

Abstract

Despite the disadvantages they face, women in western nations have coped very successfully with the problems of aging during the past century and, with limited material resources, have responded positively to great social and personal changes. Although women make up the majority of the elderly population, these achievements have received little attention. As we face the continued aging of the population and its attendant massive social changes in a setting of increasingly scarce resources, it is essential that all aspects of female aging be studied more closely. They may well provide us with the insights necessary to clarify our vision of the past and future and provide us with appropriate models for survival in a less-than-ideal world.

Stereotypes of Aging Women and Exercise: A Historical Perspective

“…4Certainly, until recently, gerontologists have tended to see problems associated with aging as "male" problems based largely upon studies of old men and the feeling that men were much worse off in old age than women (Russell, 1987). Roebuck (1983), for example, points out that proposals for state pension schemes in England in the late 19th century were developed around the "average working man" despite the fact that the majority of those needing pensions were women.…”