Older Women, Liberation and Lifestyles: Self-Care and Other-Care‪.‬

Introduction Cultural images of older people in our society, as well as studies that have focused on the problems of old age, have contributed to stereotypes of older women as weak, dependent, and burdensome. Extensive studies such as those conducted by the Research School of Social Sciences at the Australian National University (Kendig 1986; Kendig and McCallum 1990; McCallum 1989; McCallum 1990) focused on care for the elderly, their social networks, health, housing and financial difficulties, and the related social policies. In the Australian gerontological literature generally, older people are presented as 'the deserving poor' for whom collective provision should be made through the agency of welfare provisions (Russell and Oxley 1990). At the same time, while older people are perceived as a burden on the economy because of their growing consumption of health and welfare services (Arber and Ginn 1991), their contributions to society remain largely unacknowledged.