PARASITISM AND PHALLOCENTRISM IN SOCIAL PROVISIONS FOR THE AGED

Aging is a sexed issue. Women are the majority of the aged population, the majority of informal carers, the majority of service providers an d the majority of recipients of formal care. Yet traditional gerontolo gy accorded sex the status of a descriptive variable, rather than a ce ntral category of analysis and explanation. For its own part, feminism remained largely preoccupied with the first forty years of the female cycle. Recent years have, however, seen a growing awareness of the pe culiar and particular problems confronting women in an aging society, and a range of empirical studies have emerged which canvass aspects of those debates. This article draws together a wide-ranging but fragmen ted literature from a number of countries. The first part of the argum ent concerns the extent to which and the ways in which the care of the aged is parasitic upon the unpaid and poorly paid labor of women in g eneral, and old women in particular. The second part characterizes exi sting social provisions for the aged as phallocentric, in that they pr ivilege and correspond with the interests, expefiences and preferences of men, advantaging them in relation to women.