Mother Time: Women, Aging, and Ethics

by Margaret Urban Walker Donald J. Schuenke Chair (Editor), Sandra Lee Bartky (Contribution by), Daniel Callahan president emeritus, The H (Contribution by), Joan C. Callahan (Contribution by), Peggy DesAutels (Contribution by)

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781461639404
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	03/09/2000
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	301
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Margaret Urban Walker is professor of philosophy at Fordham University. She is the author of Moral Understandings: A Feminist Study in Ethics (Routledge, 1998). She lives in New York City.

Table of Contents

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

What People are Saying About This

Thomas R. Cole

Feminists and philosophers alike have been slow to contribute to the lliterature of aging. Mother Time haelps make up for lost ime. The essays—variously trenchant, poignant, daring and illuminating—spur us toward social justice and personal well-being in the lives of older women.

Editorial Reviews

Supported by a grant to the Ethics Center of the U. of South Florida from the Commission on Aging with Dignity, scholars<-->mostly of philosophy, ethics, and feminist studies<-->attended a working conference in 1998, and then submitted 15 contributions that provide a sampling of thought on various ethical aspects of looks, lives, health care, and living arrangements as they concern aging women. From the introduction by editor Walker (philosophy, U. of Fordham): "...the contributors to this volume do not agree among themselves on a variety of questions that are raised herein, for example, on the value of autonomy as a central moral or social ideal, or on the degree to which an understanding of aging-as-decline is socially constructed." Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

I am greatful to the contributors to Mother Time for focusing on a number of issues associated with aging.

Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy - Mary Mahowald

Sharp critiques and fresh writing startle us into more careful thought and (I hope) more caring advocacy.. .. The gender-savvy moral philosophy of this volume joins other new work in the arts and humanities to suggest that feminist age studies is going to have a good millennium.

Margaret Morganroth Gullette

I am greatful to the contributors to Mother Time for focusing on a number of issues associated with aging.
— Mary Mahowald

Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy

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.

Nwsa Journal

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.

Feminist Formations

Feminists and philosophers alike have been slow to contribute to the literature of aging. Mother Time helps make up for lost time. The essays—variously trenchant, poignant, daring, and illuminating—spur us toward social justice and personal well-being in the lives of older women.

Thomas R. Cole

These essays are imaginative forays into the terrain where issues of gender and of aging intersect. Various moral problems are given illuminating and overdue attention, and in addressing them, the authors clarify deficiencies in much dominant moral theorizing.

Virginia Held