Question

I would like it if somebody could help me figure out the main points in this article... I think the main points are that women perceive aging in a different way than men do. However, I'm not so sure that I am correct. I actually found this article quite difficult to understand.

Answer 1

02.06 Aging—Study 1
Selected Text/Images from: Gendered Perceptions of Aging: An Examination of College Students (Barnett and Von Rohr)

Few studies examine how the gendered nature of aging impacts young adults—shaping their images of later life, attitudes toward elderly persons, aging anxieties, and conceptions of the start of “old age.” We examine gender differences in young adults’ views of elders and the aging process using a survey of college students and content analysis of student-drawn sketches of elders…

…Compared with men, women report significantly more positive attitudes regarding interaction with elders, as indicated by survey responses. They also express greater anxiety about declines in their attractiveness, life quality, and abilities. No gender difference is found in anxiety regarding reproductive aging. Gender differences are observed in conceptions of the start of old age. Both genders view old age as beginning at a younger age for women than men; however, compared with women, men report significantly younger perceived ages as the onset of old age for women and men. Turning to the control variables, women report higher levels of grandparental influence than men. We also find some evidence of a gender difference in the age distribution of our sample with a slightly higher proportion of men than women being traditional students. Women and men do not differ in frequency of current interaction with elders.

Turning to sketches, we find several significant gender differences, including a tendency for respondents to draw a figure of their own gender. Fifty-six percent of women drew an elderly woman, while only 23% drew an elderly man. Similarly, 53% of men illustrated an elderly man, compared with only 30% drawing a picture of an elderly woman. Men were also significantly more likely than women to draw a figure of indeterminate gender. Consistent with the survey items measuring attitudes, women tend to draw more positive images of elders than do men. Forty-one percent of men’s drawings were rated as negative, in contrast with only 16% of women’s sketches. Fifty-four percent of the drawings by women depicted positive images, compared with only 32% of sketches by men. These findings are consistent with patterns in facial expressions. While only 5% of women drew a frown on their elder, nearly 17% of men did. The majority of figures were drawn with smiles; however, over 60% of the drawings by women included smiles, compared with fewer than half of men’s sketches. Although only marginally significant (p < .10), we find that depictions of walking aids are somewhat more common in sketches drawn by men. The gender patterns in the illustration of wrinkles and baldness are in the expected directions—with women more likely to draw wrinkles and men more likely to illustrate baldness; however, the differences are not significant.
Figure 1: Positive sketch of an elderly women, Figure 2: Sketch of elderly person of unclear gender with a frown using a device to assist with walking, Figure 3: Sketch of elderly man with frown using a device to assist with walking
…The sketches, which we view as indicators of dominant cultural images of older adults, provide some evidence to support our hypothesis that images of older women are more positive than those of older men. We find that, compared with sketches of older men, sketches of elderly women are more likely to be overall positive in character and to depict smiles, but less likely to depict walking aids…

…Although we find some indication of more positive conceptions of elderly women than men, our results provide stronger evidence of gender differences in attitudes toward older adults. Paralleling other studies (Haught et al., 1999;Laditka et al., 2004; McConatha et al., 2003; Rupper et al., 2005), we find that women hold more positive attitudes toward elders than do men. Further, this pattern holds across sketches of women, men, and those of other or indeterminate gender and across our survey and sketch indicators of attitudes. Women report more positive views of attitudes regarding interaction with elders, as measured using survey items; and, they are more likely than men to draw sketches of older adults that are positive and depict smiles…

…Contrary to our expectations, we also find that women have greater anxiety than men about declines in cognitive and physical abilities. In sum, our findings suggest that women tend to have more anxiety about their own aging than do men; however, this gender difference does not apply to all sources of anxiety. More research is needed to determine whether there are aspects of aging about which men express considerable worry, which might include retirement or spousal death.

…we observe that old age is viewed as beginning at an earlier age for women than men. Extending the literature, we find that, compared with men, women tend to perceive later ages as the onset of this stage of life for both women and men. This pattern parallels our finding of women’s more positive depictions of elders in their sketches—regardless of the gender of the figure they drew—which suggests that similar underlying processes may generate women’s more positive perceptions of elders and their more “generous” definitions of the timing of old age.