¿Hay diferencias en la manera en que observan hombres y mujeres a los adultos mayores, ancianas y ancianos?

Abstract

This article is about the differences and similarities in the perception that young people make about older ones, this from 3 basic concepts: older people, older woman and older men. The analysis stands over the gerontology field, which highlights that lot of the handicaps of the older people comes from their social exclusion and from an unfavourable cultural context, rather than from the state of their organisms or metal condition. How gender might be involved in the configuration of these exclusions is the object of this research, which one was made with 682 young, female and male, college students, who answered a differential semantic tst. The results show a generalized and consistent negative image about older people, in both sexes over the three concepts. Even there are some differences between sexes in the perception of growing old, these are not significant, so, the conclusion is that the social images about growing old, transcend gender differences, showing the strength that they have in the construction of images that may be affecting the expectations of the older people, in the present and or in the future.