WMN3460

Intergenerational tyrannies: Gender, age and culture

Proposed to be offered next in 2000

Helen Johnson

8 points - 2 hours per week - Second semester - Clayton

Objectives On successful completion of this subject, learners will have reflected upon the following topics: identified major issues throughout gender studies, anthropological and comparative social knowledge in which there is a significant component addressing women, men and the aging process; evolved an understanding about how knowledge is created and disseminated relating to the psychosocial aging of women and men of different sociocultural heritages both within and across cultures; critically analysed current knowledge engaging with the anthropological, historical, social, and economic research available in studies of women, men and aging, particularly in relation to age, race and ethnicity; considered the ways in which elderly and young women and men interact both within Australia and in several countries outside Australia, and the significant sociocultural factors which shape intergenerational encounters, and improved their assimilation and development of concepts, their ability to make cognitive connections, and enhanced their critical thinking and oral communication skills.

Synopsis The subject is concerned with the concepts of and relationships between on the one hand, gender and age, and on the other, ethnicity and culture. Its primary aim is to illuminate the ways gender, ethnicity and age shape social status, ideas about women and cultural interactions. By exemplifying the experiences and social position of older people in a variety of communities, it considers the proposition that as women grow older their experience of aging can be more difficult than for men. Certainly, anxieties about the aging process can exacerbate the difficulties facing women in modern society. The disempowerment of women in the West can be seen in the use of 'old woman' as a disparaging classification. And, the social construction of ageism can be seen to intensify the adaptations required to the complex effects of the aging process when the intersections of class, physical challenges, and sexual orientation are considered. Although women are often caricatured as burdensome within Western patriarchal structures, and are desexualised and segregated by men and younger women, the subject explores how aging can be experienced in diverse ways in difference cultures. It also examines the issues generated by diverse social constructions of 'aging' through an analysis and comparison of intergenerational confrontations and collaborations across a variety of cultures.

Assessment 2 short exercises (1500 words): 40% - Long essay and oral presentation (3000 words): 60%

Prescribed texts

Bernard M and Meade K (eds) Women come of age Edward Arnold, 1993
Blakemore K and Boneham M Age, race and ethnicity Open University Press, 1994
Dandekar K The Elderley in India Sage, 1996
Gelfand D and Kutzik A (eds) Ethnicity and aging Springer, 1979
Sokolovsky J (ed) The cultural context of aging Bergin and Garvey, 1990

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