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The interaction of age and gender in illness narratives

Seale, Clive; Charteris-Black, Jonathan

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Authors

Clive Seale



Abstract

Recognition of the greater capacity of older women to draw on supportive social networks has now supplemented an earlier focus of research into gender and ageing which portrayed older men as a 'privileged gerontocracy' because of their greater access to financial resources and spousal care. This study of the experiences of cancer among people of three different age groups conducted a comparative keyword analysis of their narratives to consider the gender differentiation of a third resource: access to medical information and personnel. The analysed narratives were sampled from a large archive of research interviews. It was found that older men with cancer demonstrated a greater involvement with medicine as an expert system than younger men or women or older women. This stemmed from their social confidence when interacting with doctors and their interest in treating their illness as a 'problem' to be fixed with medico-scientific solutions. Compared with younger men and women of all ages, older men were less likely to draw on informal social and family networks for support, or to discuss in a direct style the emotional dimension of illness experience. Our findings contrast with other studies that have reported linguistic disadvantage in older people in elderly care settings, which underlines the importance of context for linguistic studies. © 2008 Cambridge University Press.

Citation

Seale, C., & Charteris-Black, J. (2008). The interaction of age and gender in illness narratives. Ageing and Society, 28(07), 1025-1045. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0144686X0800737X

Journal Article Type Article
Publication Date Sep 22, 2008
Deposit Date Sep 28, 2010
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Journal Ageing and Society
Print ISSN 0144-686X
Electronic ISSN 1469-1779
Publisher Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 28
Issue 07
Pages 1025-1045
DOI https://doi.org/10.1017/S0144686X0800737X
Keywords age, gender, illness
Public URL https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/1021770
Publisher URL http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0144686X0800737X
Additional Information Additional Information : This article © 2008 Cambridge University Press

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