Be a fan of The New Social Worker's page on Facebook!

Latest Jobs From SocialWorkJobBank


Powered by SocialWorkJobBank.com

Buy all your textbooks, reading materials, and gifts here

Get Free Social Work E-News


Fill out your e-mail address to receive our newsletter!



Subscribe
Unsubscribe
Receive social work news, links to interesting sites, job listings, and more when you subscribe to our free e-newsletter. The Social Work E-News will be sent about once a month. Your e-mail address will not be given out and will only be used for E-News delivery.
Read past e-newsletters


Professional Development

Receive a 15% discount on continuing education at CEU4U.

The New Social Worker has teamed up with

CEU4U.com

to offer credit for reading THE NEW SOCIAL WORKER, as well as other interesting, educational, convenient, and affordable courses to enhance your knowledge and skills. Go to the online continuing education site for more information and to take a course. You will receive a 15% discount on your course purchase.

Get credit for reading books, audio/video courses, and more at CE-Credit.com. Get more information and sign up now.


Submit an Event

Download the Free Social Work Toolbar!

Download the new FREE Social Work Toolbar today! A great alternative to other toolbars for your browser. IE and Firefox versions available.

Translate This Page

Contact Us

THE NEW SOCIAL WORKER Online
P.O. Box 5390
Harrisburg, PA 17110-0390
717-238-3787
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it


Find a social work job or a social work employee! Visit SocialWorkJobBank.com, THE NEW SOCIAL WORKER's online job board for professional social workers.
Book Review: Age Matters: Realigning Feminist Thinking PDF Print E-mail
Written by Karen Zgoda, MSW, LCSW   

Book review of Age Matters: Realigning Feminist Thinking, by T. Calasanti & K. Slevin (Editors)
Calasanti, T., & Slevin, K. (Eds.). (2006). Age matters: Realigning feminist thinking. New York: Routledge. 353 pages, $37.95.

    Readers eagerly searching for ways to interject a broad, conceptual understanding of age into their feminist thinking will be pleased with this edited book. Topics covered include the legacy of Betty Friedan, age relations in terms of inequality, conceptualizations of the aging body, interpersonal relationships among older adults, care work, employment, and the lifespan experiences of lesbians.
    Many contributors to the book discuss a lack of confronting ageism, the bias or discrimination faced by older adults based on age, within feminist work. Some explore in-depth the relationship a woman has with her aging body in a society that glorifies youthful attractiveness and physical stamina. Yet others discuss the aging body generally as a revenue-producing target for the pharmaceutical industry, such that commercialized forces seek to redefine our notions of a normal, aging body to that of a decaying structure in need of costly biomedical interventions to function optimally.
    Of particular interest to social workers are the chapters highlighting the voices of the aging themselves. It is here that the reader will get the strongest sense of how ageism and feminist thought converge and apply to the individual. For example, the reader learns from the interviews with older lesbians that these women unanimously think of aging as a positive process but are dissatisfied with their weight. Some realities of life, it seems, do not change all that much as we grow older. Even more interesting is the chapter detailing the lessons that manliness can bring to feminist ideology, particularly that both men and women will experience a loss of power and privilege as they age. As such, the experience of aging together may lead to increased opportunities for mutual understanding and communication between the sexes.

Reviewed by Karen Zgoda, MSW, LCSW, a social worker at the Veronica B. Smith Multi-Service Senior Center in Brighton, Massachusetts. Her research interests include the role of technology in social work, social informatics, and the aging population. She is currently working on her Ph.D. in social work at Boston College. See Karen's web site at http://www.karenzgoda.org.

Did you enjoy this article? Please bookmark it onto:
Del.icio.us!Google!Facebook!Slashdot!Technorati!Yahoo!
 


Google
 
Web www.socialworker.com