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Name: Learning to Be Old

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Non Fiction

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What does it mean to grow old in America today? Is 'successful aging' our responsibility? What will happen if we fail to 'grow old gracefully'? Especially for women, the onus on the aging population in the United States is growing rather than diminishing. Gender, race, and sexual orientation have been reinterpreted as socially constructed phenomena, yet aging is still seen through physically constructed lenses. This book helps put aging in a new light, neither romanticizing nor demonizing it. Feminist scholar Margaret Cruikshank looks at a variety of different forces affecting the progress of aging, including fears and taboos, multicultural traditions, and the medicalization and politicization of natural processes. Through it all, we learn a better way to inhabit our age whatever it is.