These are paradoxical times to be an older woman. As individual older women take the stage as role models in the arts and the public sphere, female elders as a group are marginalized as dependent, declining and unimportant.

Women and Aging surveys the evolving sociopolitical landscape in an era still struggling with gender and age discrimination. This insightful volume recasts familiar concepts such as social roles, appearance, health, sexuality and transition through the related lenses of empowerment/restraint and quality of life/well-being for a deeper understanding of the...