222 RüdigerKunow
woman,wouldwarrantaseparatepaper.^61 Ihopetodojusticetoatleast
some of them in a brief narrative about the emergence of a cultural
critiqueoflaterlife.
Thisbringsusbackonceagaintothedialecticofbiologyandculture
which has repeatedly surfaced throughout this book and which here
works in such a way that "culture" needs biological data to stabilize the
meanings of later life it ceaselessly produces, while biological data
without a reference to cultural archives of meaning or interpretation
would remain mute. When it comes to "aging" or "age," biology and
culture are not ontologically different categories but rather, as a
coincidentia oppositorum, conjoined in a form of mutual dependence
and reinforcement. Furthermore, the gendered normalization of "age"
evokestheomnibusargumentofcontemporaryculturalcritique,namely
thateverything,andthusalso"age"isculturallyconstructed.Inthecase
of women in later life, such constructions have worked with particular
insistenceandinsidiousness.
How people perceive their own getting older—and that of others—
greatly influences their behavior in formal as well as informal contexts
and interactions. Sometimes this is a "number's game." Even if the
designation "age" may in many cases refer to nothing more substantial
thanamerenumber,numbersdomatterinU.S.andmanyothercultures,
individually and collectively, because they suggest some unassailable
facticity. One need only mention here the panic attacks some people
experience as they reach symbolically charged age marks, be they 30,
40, or 50.^62 Societies past and present have devised various systems of
(^61) The gendered nature of "age" is systematically addressed by Gullette and
Woodward; for an overview of the cultural determinations working in U.S.
culture cf. especially Maierhofer, Roberta. "Third Pregnancy: Women, Ageing
andIdentityin American Culture."OldAgeandAgeinginBritishandAmerican
Literature and Culture.Ed. Christa Jahnson. Münster: LIT-Verlag, 2004. 155-
- Print.; and Arber, Sara. "Gender and Later Life: Change, Choice, and
Constraints."TheFuturesofOldAge. Ed. John A. Vincent, Chris R. Phillipson,
andMurnaDowns.London:Sage,2006.54-61.Print.
(^62) This cultural mechanism has had its repercussions also in the scientific study
of later late. AsChristine Fry has shown, gerontology is just as "chronocentric"
as the general culture: "Indeed, during the 1960s and 1970s, one of the major
debatesinsocialgerontologycenteredonchronologicalage, whichbecameless