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Reflections of men and women in advanced old age on being born the other sex

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 December 2009

LENA ALÉX ,
BERIT LUNDMAN  and
ANNE HAMMARSTRÖM
LENA ALÉX*
Affiliation:
Center of Gender Excellence, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden.
BERIT LUNDMAN
Affiliation:
Center of Gender Excellence, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden.
ANNE HAMMARSTRÖM
Affiliation:
Center of Gender Excellence, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden.
*
Address for correspondence: Lena Aléx, Center of Gender Excellence, Department of Nursing, Umeå University, Umeå 90187, Sweden E-mail: lena.alex@nurs.umu.se
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Abstract

The study reported in this paper is part of the Umeå 85+ project in Sweden. The aim was to investigate gender perspectives among ‘the oldest old’, by asking men and women in advanced old age living in a sparsely populated area of northern Sweden to reflect on how life might have been if they had been born the other sex. Thematic narratives from nine men and seven women were analysed using qualitative content analysis. The content of these narratives was resolved into eight categories in two domains, respectively men's and women's reflections about being born the opposite sex. The narratives of both the men and women indicated that they were satisfied with their actual birth sex. The men were aware that if they had been born female, they would probably have experienced more hard work and had a more restricted life, and they were conscious of both women's relative powerlessness and their greater ability to manage and organise work within the home. The women's narratives described a femininity characterised by longing for a state of being unconcerned when young, and their narratives also displayed awareness of women's physical strength and that men's lives had also been hard.

Keywords

reflectionolder peoplerural way of lifenarrativegender
Type
Articles
Information
Ageing & Society , Volume 30 , Issue 2 , February 2010 , pp. 193 - 205
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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