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Women and Aging: An International, Intersectional Power Perspective

by Joan C. Chrisler, Class of '43 Professor of Psychology, Varda Muhlbauer and Florence L. Denmark

Gender inequality doesn't end at the wage gap or the division of household labor. Women also get the short shrift when it comes to research on aging.

Despite our growing numbers in the population, older women are understudied by behavioral science researchers, and there has been little interaction between women's studies and gerontology.

- Joan C. Chrisler

Her book, "Women and Aging," is a follow-up to "Women over 50: Psychological Perspectives," which Chrisler also co-edited with Muhlbauer, a senior lecturer in the Department of Management and Business Administration at the Academic College of Netanya, Israel. (Denmark is a pioneering social psychologist and past president of the American Psychological Association.) Both books address the fact that social, economic, medical and educational changes in Western countries have provided women considered "midlife" and "young-old" (ages 65-74) with a very different aging experience than that of their elders.

"Western women ages 50-74 have more social and economic power than ever before, and it is interesting to see how they are — or could be — using it," said Chrisler. "In the current book we show how these changes do not extend to low-income women in the West or to most women in lesser-developed countries. Some older women are working, traveling, building communities, running for political office, taking courses, engaging in hobbies and sports, and are in good health, whereas others are struggling to make ends meet or dealing with ill health and disability."

In commissioning chapters from faculty and students in the U.S. and Israel who are working in the fields of psychology, social work and economics, Chrisler and her co-editors instructed them to think internationally and cross-culturally. (Chrisler's chapter, "Older Women, Power, and the Body," was co-authored with Meaghan Rossini '13 and Jessica Newton, M.A. '14.) She hopes the information revealed in the new book inspires others to do further research so that psychotherapists, health care providers and public policy makers can address the very diverse needs of older women.

In 2013, Chrisler and Muhlbauer received the Florence L. Denmark Award for Contributions to Women and Aging from the Society for the Psychology of Women, a division of the American Psychological Association.

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