Mother Time

Women, Aging, and Ethics

Contributions by Sandra Lee Bartky, Daniel Callahan, Joan C. Callahan, Peggy DesAutels, Robin Fiore, Frida Kerner Furman, Martha Holstein, Diana Tietjens Meyers, Hilde Lindemann Nelson, James Lindemann Nelson, Sara Ruddick, Anita Silvers, Joan Tronto, Margaret Urban Walker, Susan Wendell Edited by Margaret Urban Walker

Not available to order

Publication date:

09 March 2000

Length of book:

301 pages

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

ISBN-13: 9781461639404

This collection of original essays opens up a novel area of inquiry: the distinctively ethical dimension of women's experiences of aging. Fifteen distinguished contributors here explore assumptions, experiences, practices, and public policies that affect women's well-being and dignity in later life. The book brings to the study of women's aging a reflective dimension missing from the empirical work that has predominated to date. Ethical studies of aging have so far failed to emphasize gender. And feminist ethics has neglected older women, even when emphasizing other dimensions of 'difference.' Finally work on aging in all fields has focused on the elderly, while this volume sees aging as an extended process of negotiating personal and social change.

Part 1 IntroductionMargaret Urban Walker
Part 2 Acknowledgments
Part 3 Introduction
Part 4 I: Looks
Chapter 5 1 "There Are No Old Venuses": Older Women's Responses To Their Aging Bodies
Chapter 6 2 Miroir, Memoir, Mirage: Appearance, Aging , and Women
Part 7 II: Lives
Chapter 8 3 Virtues and Age
Chapter 9 4 Unplanned Obsolescence: Some Reflections On Aging
Chapter 10 5 Stories of My Old Age
Chapter 11 6 Getting Out Of Line: Alternatives To Life As A Career
Chapter 12 7 Death's Gender
Part 13 III: Looking At Health Care
Chapter 14 8 Old Women Out Of Control: Some Thoughts On Aging, Ethics, and Psychosomatic Medicine
Chapter 15 9 Menopause: Taking the Cure or Curing the Takes?
Chapter 16 10 Religious Women, Medical Settings, and Moral Risk
Chapter 17 11 Age, Sex, and Resource Allocation
Part 18 IV: Living Arrangements
Chapter 19 12 Aging Fairly: Feminist and Disability Perspectives on Intergenerational Justice
Chapter 20 13 Home Care, Women, and Aging: A Case Study of Injustice
Chapter 21 14 Caring for Ourselves: Peer Care in Autonomous AgingRobin Firoe
Chapter 22 15 Age Segregated housing as a Moral Problem: An Exercise in Rethinking Ethics
Part 23 Index
Part 24 About the Contributors

Mother Time is a vivid, contentious invitation to engage in rethinking widespread assumptions about aging and gender, the better to understand ethical dimensions of women's experiences of aging. All essays are insightful, engaging, and clearly written.