Introduction

This volume of original chapters is designed to bring attention to a neglected area of feminist scholarship - aging. After several decades of feminist studies we are now well informed of the complex ways that gender shapes the lives of women and men. Similarly, we know more about how gendered power relations interface with race and ethnicity, class and sexual orientation. Serious theorizing of old age and age relations to gender represents the next frontier of feminist scholarship. In this volume, leading national and international feminist scholars of aging take first steps in this direction, illuminating how age relations interact with other social inequalities, particularly gender. In doing so, the authors challenge and transform feminist scholarship and many taken for granted concepts in gender studies.