Sociologies (Nov 2012)
L’autonomie au grand-âge : corporéisation du vieillissement et distinctions de sexe
Abstract
This article questions the gender-based descriptions and perceptions of autonomy and dependence. Based on the analysis of forty interviews with aging men and women, it is particularly concerned in the first place with the processes used to describe the bodies of men and women (who? what arguments? etc.). It goes on to ask in what manner the resulting descriptions reinforce (or not) the bi-categorization of sex and nature-related arguments which specify the modernist sex/gender system. The interviews have shown on the one hand that the pointers which bear witness to the material and subjective experience of old age depends largely on the observation of the body, particularly as engaged in anthroponomical work and in the conditions necessary for home-based care and, on the other hand, the reference to the body reinforces the sex-based nature of visions and practice linked to aging. As far as the norms are concerned, we have noticed the reorganization of the criteria of the assignation of sex-based positions and their hierarchical organization. The ever increasing references to the autonomy of those concerned are in fact based on supposedly neutral and objective bodily signs which gender-type forms of aging and act as a discriminatory factor in modes of accompaniment.
