The aim of this research piece is to focus on the ëempoweringí potential inherent in that interface between feminist gerontology and critical educational gerontology. Following a feminist criticism of critical educational gerontology as yet another patriarchal discourse where women are silenced and made passive through their invisibility, the research piece attempts to construct a critical epistemology for feminist educational gerontology. Five principles are suggested as the basis of a feminist educational gerontology, namely : acknowledging older women as an oppressed population due to the 'double standard of aging; a focus on women's lifelong cumulative disadvantages; emphasizing a 'politics of difference'; embracing a feminist praxis in both gerogogical and research activities; and finally, embodying a drive towards the empowerment of older women in a distinct but collective effort.
 

Rationale

It is welcoming to note that over the past decade, social gerontologists have begun to apply feminist perspectives to comprehend better the complexities inherent in the lives of older women. Despite the diverse interests present in such studies, many provided support to Sontag's (1975) 'double standard of aging' for older women due to the combination of ageism and sexism, as well as to that the male-centered bias present in gerontological theorizing and policy-decisions. It is also welcoming that some publications (e.g. Browne, 1998) provided theoretical and practical possibilities towards the elimination of existing patriarchal-ageist subjugations. Perusing such publications, one notes that educational practice featured as a consistent recommendation. Nevertheless, it is lamentable to note that whilst educational gerontology is devoid of a feminist discourse (Ray, 1999), at the same time feminist adult education is oblivious to older women (Gibson & Allen, 1993). In educational gerontology, the distinct experience of older women is even surprisingly sidestepped in 'critical educational gerontology' [CEG], as that branch of older education exclusively concerned towards the empowerment and emancipation of older adults. This has invariably engendered a situation where the inherent potential of educational practice to act as a catalyst towards the empowerment and emancipation of older women is still an unknown and underutilized terrain. The aim of this research piece was precisely to focus on the ëempoweringí potential inherent in that interface between feminist gerontology and CEG. Such an endeavour included two major objectives. First to conduct a feminist assessment of CEG's ontological framework. And secondly, to be constructive, that is, to attempt to formulate a critical feminist epistemology within educational gerontology in the hope that it would act as a catalyst for the transformation of existing patriarchal-ageist subjugation of older women.
 

The Personal is the Political!

 Reflecting feminists' concern with the tenet that 'the personal is political', a brief autobiographical note is highly relevant. With respect to the present publication its useful to clarify that the author wears three hats. First, I consider myself to be a critical educator. My early years were characterized by a working-class familial environment. Following a successful (by bourgeois standards) educational career, I was posted to teach in a remedial school where I experienced Bourdieu's (1995) claim that schools constitute the pre-eminent institutional machinery for the certification of social hierarchies. Dispirited by the authenticity of Bourdieu's claim, but fuelled by an optimistic habitus, I embraced Paulo Freire's (1972) critical educational epistemology as a potential strategy to transform existing oppressive realities. My second hat is of a critical gerontologist. This resulted from the awareness that both mainstream gerontology and old age social policies generate a new form of domination over older persons exercised in an increasingly skillful manner by the elite. This was experienced in a personal manner when my grandmother experienced extensive poverty in her later life ? despite experiencing two World Wars and contributing to society in various positive ways. My final hat is that of a heterosexual male. This hat is central with respect to the aims and objectives of this publication considering that some social scientists may endorse Heath's (1987, p. 1) claim that "men's relation to feminism is an impossible one". Yet, this argument is clearly essentialist since it equates unjustly manhood with oppression and inequality, ignoring documented research (e.g. Kimmel, 1995) which highlighted the many male feminist activists. Here, I concord fully with Hopkins (1998, p. 50) who stated that what is "important about being a feminist is not that one perceives as a woman, but [to] perceive and understand as a feminist".
 

Critical Feminist Gerontology

Critical feminist gerontology resulted as that interface between feminist gerontology and critical gerontology (Ray, 1999). Whilst it is true that definitions of the term 'feminism' are criticized for depicting a limited content shared by its advocates, one can locate three common foundations : (i) a political commitment to improve the conditions of females, (ii) a critical perspective of male-dominant forms of knowledge, and finally, (iii) a praxeological dimension concerned with the development of liberating forms of practice (Weiner, 1994). One, would be however misled to assume that such endeavours are employed in an one-dimensional assault on patriarchy. As stated aptly by hooks (1981, p. 194) "feminism is not simply a struggle to end male chauvinism or a movement to ensure that women will have equal rights with men" : it is a "commitment to eradicating the ideology of domination that permeates Western culture on various levels" as well as a dedication to "reorganizing [society] so that the self development of people can take precedence over imperialism, economic expansion, and material desire". On similar grounds, feminist gerontology resulted from the concern of gerontologists towards older women as being both a unique and population at 'risk'. Feminist gerontology strives "to empower older women through assisting them in developing new roles, in identifying their abilities and strengths, and in utilizing their knowledge" (Garner, 1999, p. 7). On the other hand, critical gerontology refers to an analysis of old age that investigates "normative questions, material interests, the functioning of gerontology itself and other factors that are regarded by the mainstream as only of 'contextual' importance" (Baars, 1991, p. 221). Although there is no specific school of critical gerontology (Achenbaum, 1997), it is however possible to discern three major strands (Minkler, 1996) : (i) an epistemological critique of obsessive objective measurements of gerontological variables, (ii) a humanistic perspective attempting to understand the meaning of the aging experience through literature, narratives, diaries, etc, and finally, (iii) an 'emancipatory enterprise' ? that strives toward a liberation from the system of domination and from a depreciation of the meaning of old age. Critical gerontology was recently successfully interwoven with feminist gerontology by Ray (1999) who argued that critical feminist gerontology [CFG] :     [first] challenges the scientific paradigm by being personally "involved" and critical (as opposed to distanced and objective), as well as overtly political (in the sense of advancing an agenda meant to empower both the researcher and re-searched), and [secondly] pursues alternative ways to report scholarly findings which are equally "involved" and critical.

Ray (1999, p. 173-174) made it very clear that CFG is not an attempt to criticize other existing stands of feminist gerontology or as an exertion to formulate a more adequate feminist paradigm in gerontology : it strives for "disciplinary border crossings, paradigm shifting, and genre-bending" with the purpose of empowerment by standing on the shoulders of the preceding feminists. Hence, one locates four major principles for CFG. First, researchers must pursue an involvement with both gerontological discourse and individuals' concerns - aiming to comprehend the subject's experiences whilst sharing their own feelings and experiences. This results in a disconnection between formal and personal relations which may give birth to a personal relationships that may mature over time. Secondly, research must be embedded in a critical dimension. CFG rejects that the goal of research is to discover and document laws of human behaviour as this reinforces power relations and bureaucratic forms of control. CFG does not attempt to solve problems as defined by the social elite, but aims to raise and identify hidden problems that the elite adapt to but do not solve. Third, researchers and research generated must be directed by a political commitment. Research thus becomes an endeavour to empower, an attempt to confront the injustice of a particular society, unembarrassed by the label 'political' and unafraid to take on an emancipatory consciousness - even if this means to 'rock the boat'. Finally, researchers must pursue alternative ways to report scholarly findings which are equally involved and critical. Research results must not be presented in a detached and neutral way where the author is hidden, but be embedded in theatrical, expressive, or dramatic styles which can take the form of a work of fiction, a movie or play. Following Ray's (1999) rationale for CFG, a feminist educational gerontology is to be developed on existing radical educational paradigms. This leads us to an overview of critical educational gerontology which argued that the "provision of education for older adults should relate to their gaining power over their lives" (Glendenning & Battersby, 1990, p. 222).
 

Critical Educational Gerontology

Critical educational gerontology [CEG] materialized from two major concerns. First, from a radical concern to overcome the oppressions which locked older adults into ignorance, poverty, and powerlessness. And secondly, as a reaction to the uncritical and apolitical dispositions present in educational gerontology. The origins of CEG can be found in Allman's (1984) Freirean rationale who claimed that the enhancing of the quality of life of older persons will not be achieved by just any learning experience, but only through a liberatory education. The latter aids older learners to be in control of their thinking, and employs the self-help concept which bestows on older learners both power and control in all the aspects of the educational session including organization and curriculum planning. Following Allman, Battersby (1985) asserted that biological, physiological and psychological explanations of learning in later life were unsuccessful to recognize the social and cultural characteristics of old age, and hence, called for educational scientists to take a critical approach stock of this third age educational revolution. However, the rationale for a critical educational gerontology was only firmly established in subsequent article by Glendenning and Battersby (1990) where it was argued that most older adult educational programs are based upon erroneous taken-for-granted assumptions. These included the dominance of the psychological "deficit" model of older adultsí learning abilities; assuming that any type of education is emancipating and empowering; an uncritical stance on the programsí aims and purposes; disregarding the programsí inherent bourgeois bias; overlooking the diverse degree of marginalization amongst older persons; and finally, assuming that older adult education is exercised in the interests of older people. Following a sound challenge of the such conventional wisdom the authors put forward four major principles for CEG (see also Battersby & Glendenning, 1992). These included the embodiment of a socio-political framework which examines society's treatment of older people within the context of the economy; the founding of CEG upon critical social theory; the integration of a new discourse that includes such concepts as emancipation, empowerment, and social and hegemonical control; and finally, the embodiment of the notion of praxis as the dialectical practice between theory and practice.

Following Freire's (1985) tenet that "education is politics", CEG posited gerontological educational practice in a critical framework where older adults are in control of their thinking and learning so as to be able to transform existing ageist oppressions. As regards the techniques of CEG, Battersby (ibid., p. 8-9) formulated a radical rationale for the practice of gerogogy that "conceptualizes teaching and learning as a collective and negotiated enterprise amongst older adults" and assumes "a liberating and transforming notion which endorses principles of collectively and dialogue as central to learning and teaching". Founding critical gerogogy on both problem-posing and dialogue, CEG endeavoured to encourage tutors and students to examine the relation between knowledge and power and control. Elsewhere, it was asserted that critical gerogogy consists "of the practical articulation (i.e. praxis) of the principles of critical educational gerontology", and recognized "that education is not a neutral enterprise and that it involved moral and ethical dimensions" (Glendenning & Battersby, 1990, p. 228). Hence, through the practice of critical gerogogy, CEG "would encourage tutors and students to examine the relation between knowledge and power and control" (Glendenning, 1991, pp. 215-16).
 

Critical Educational Gerontology : A Feminist Commentary

Albeit critical educational gerontology [CEG] is still an unfinished product, there is no doubt that it has surely been a major contributor to the progressive development of educational gerontology. Distinct contributions include the embodiment of the field in a normative and ethical engagement (Cusack, 1999); inspiring the implementation of critical gerogogical programs (Nye, 1997); highlighting the possible hegemonic nature of older educational programs (Formosa, 2000); and injecting a critical twist in the analysis of typical traits of conventional older learners (Formosa, 1999). As a result, it is no longer assumed that all programs are examples of good practice or that any education emancipates elder learners. At the same time, critical gerogogy progressed the development of a social/educational vision for older adult educators, that embeds the learning process in a politicized quest for equality and social justice. However, this does not mean that CEG suffers from no theoretical or practical lacunae. From a feminist perspective, our major concern here, CEG seems to be still yet another example of a patriarchal discourse where women are silenced and made passive through their invisibility. Despite criticizing mainstream educational gerontology for ignoring the diverse degree of marginalization and heterogeneity amongst older persons, no attention is given neither to gender as one of the major variables that augment marginalization in old age and nor to the distinct theoretical/empirical advances in both feminist gerontology and feminist adult education. CEG's patriarchal stance is especially evident when one looks at Glendenning and Battersby's (1990) ëconventional wisdomí. What about the taken-for-granted assumption that programs and content were designed to meet the needs of all older persons, when most emerged as a reflection of masculinist suppositions regarding later life that engender a masculine orientation towards the production of knowledge (Formosa, 2000). What about the commonly held perception that programs which attract an extensive majority of older women are of little value? Another ësilencedí conventional assumption regards the presupposition that older persons enjoy ample leisure time. Yet, for many older women this is simply not the case. I admired many women who added older adult education to their heavy load of household chores and grand-parenting responsibilities. In this respect, CEG is found in default for overlooking that older women face a worse aging experience than men (see Coyle, 1997) due to the 'double jeopardy of old age' as well as due to lifelong cumulative disadvantages.

As Glendenning and Battersby (1990) clearly indicated, CEG is an application of Paulo Freire's radical pedagogy to the realities of later life. Whilst there is no doubt as regards Freire's invaluable contribution to radical education, it is not entirely immune from theoretical or practical lacunae (Mayo, 1999) - such as incorporating a simplistic dichotomy of 'oppressor' and 'oppressed', its naïveté, and avoiding a sustained discussion on gender, race and sexuality. It is thus very unfortunate that CEG has not grappled with Freire's theory in a critical matter, and just pasted on a gerontological perspective. One asks to what extent is society characterized by Freire's simple division of 'oppressed elderly' and 'young oppressors' - On the contrary it seems that society incorporates a matrix of domination in which even older persons participate in the domination of each other on the basis of other variables than age, such as religion, sex, class, and sexual orientation. Following Weiler (1991), it is also true that Freire's pedagogy is to an extent oblivious of the learning differences between men and women. Moreover, in positing dialogue at the center of critical gerogogy, one also needs to reflect that in learning groups, men often dominate the discussion, so that women can assert their opinions and participate in a more limited manner. Another lacuna consists of the absence of the authors' own intellectual biographies. As readers, we have no sense of their own histories and positions in relation to research. We also get the unfortunate impression that there is considerable 'distance' between the authors and older learner, and at no point are the voices of educators and learners present. It is thus lamentable that CEG seems to undress older persons from their humanistic nature and treats them only as 'objectified subjects' to be liberated. Can it be, as Withnall (2000) argued recently, that CEG's focus to unmask distortions present in mainstream educational gerontology contains the risk of becoming another oppressive discourse?

A final problematic concern is that CEG fails to theorize and highlight the possible paradoxical moments in later life. In its emphasis on the centrality of 'capitalismí in making sense of and the transformation of existing oppressions in later life and its neglect of the fact that the production of knowledge can take place at the private and personal levels of individuals, CEG's stance is rather 'political economical' than really 'critical'. There is no doubt that the existing local, partial, and multiple oppressive relationships in later life require a more deconstructive epistemology. Power in current western societies does not flow in a centralized fashion, but follows a shifting and fragmented character. Power is not something which someone or some dominant group has, but exists in actions that are immanent in all social relationships. The mechanisms of power have a capillary format that permeates in all directions and which, in particular, may be seen in the constitution of subjects (Foucault, 1980). Each 'capillary' if outlined and addressed in depth, will surely assist the CEG in reaching higher liberating levels. My particular project has surely a more limited focus, and concentrates solely on the feminist spatial location. Yet, I treat such as an important step in making sense, and consequently transforming, the multiple, albeit totalizing, interlocking sites of oppressions in later life.
 

Towards a Critical Feminist Epistemology in Educational Gerontology

It is in light of the above considerations that this research piece attempts to construct a critical epistemology for feminist educational gerontology. The following principles are a direct attempt to situate a critical educational in a feminist gerontological perspective in hope that older adult education becomes more an actual example of 'transformative education' for older women rather yet another euphemism for glorified occupation therapy. I believe that

A feminist educational gerontology is directed by a rational that acknowledges older women as an oppressed population due to the 'double standard of aging'. A central issue in the setting up and planning of feminist educational gerontology is the awareness of the negative effects that ageism and sexism have for older women. This 'double standard of aging' manifests itself in various aspects. For instance, while men are 'allowed' to age naturally without social penalties, the aging female body arouses distaste (Arber and Ginn, 1991). The discrepancy between the societal ideal of physical attractiveness in women and their actual appearance also widens with age, whereas signs of aging in men are not considered so important. Moreover, older women are more commonly ridiculed and referred to by derogatory colloquialisms in jokes, fiction, poems, media industry, and film/theatrical productions (Palmore, 1997). They are also less likely to earn a full pension due to breaks in their employment patterns during maternity and family care or to be covered by private pensions when compared to older men - positing a higher incidence of poverty amongst older women than men. Since most older women spend their final stage of life as widows or as single persons, they find it very difficult to find available care-givers, forcing many to become dependent and live in institutions. Finally, one must acknowledge that older women experience more failing health and disabilities, a more limited school education, as well as increasing victimization (see Coyle, 1997).

A feminist educational gerontology acknowledges that the subaltern position of older women is also the result of lifelong cumulative disadvantages. Inequalities between the sexes in old age are not particular to that life stage but are continuous with other gender-based disparities earlier throughout the life course found especially in familial and occupational relations. A radical-feminist perspective of the former has compared the situation of wives to that of a serf whereby the husband provides money for food, clothing, and protection in return for playing "their traditional role as takers of shit" by "absorbing their husbandsí legitimate anger and frustration" generated at the workplace (Ansley, quoted in Bernard, 1976, p. 233). Moreover, the responsibility of housework and care for the children, sick, and older persons is still a female responsibility, wives get fewer of the material benefits of family life than their husbands (Delphy and Leonard, 1992). Focusing on the occupational realm, it is well documented that the majority of women are employed in low-status, low-paid, sex-segregated work, which offers little opportunity to progress, prosper, or lucrative pensions (Arber and Ginn, 1991). Another area of concern regards educational opportunities of older women when younger. As Browne (1998, p. 158) rightly argued, older women who hold no educational qualifications because "education was not important for a girl" cannot be blamed for not having a "well-paid profession that cushions her retirement years". Hence, a critical feminist educational gerontology seeks to gear its transforming activities even to past experiences of older women.

A feminist educational gerontology rejects that there is a universalized singular identity among women and emphasizes a 'politics of difference'. Older women's subjugated positions are not solely the result of one's biographical experience but are directly influenced by social, cultural, and political-historical structures - which result in varied social positions. In fact, one locates many groups of women, each of whom encounter different life circumstances : women in single-parent families or in two-parent families; women in lesbian relationships or in heterosexual relationships; black and white women; lower-class and middle-class women; and so on. Chronological age, even if small, is also crucial since one's location in political history may given younger/older women better or worse life chances. At the same time, women-to-women oppressive relations must be also acknowledged. Such a complex web of positions and relationships cannot be adequately addressed through a universal concept of women, known as 'white feminism', since such a category is not marked by other negative distinctions. On the contrary a feminist educational gerontology must be embedded in a 'politics of difference' which fundamentally acknowledges diverse structured inequalities and oppressions. This necessitates a theoretical and practical orientation that is sensitive to paradoxical forces that make space for the many anomalies found in the experiences of older women, and that is therefore perceptive to the local and overlapping aging experiences found amongst diverse cohorts of such a cohort.

A feminist educational gerontology abandons traditional strategies of learning and teaching and embrace a feminist praxis in both gerogogical and research activities. A feminist praxis includes a firm commitment to transforming the world through educational activity so that the plight of older women is improved; a rejection of the theory/research divide, so that manual and intellectual activities are symbolically related towards the generation of feminist emancipation; and finally, a integration of the methodological/ epistemological split so that learners are expected to live out the engendered feminist gerontological knowledge in both private and public lives (Weiner,  1994). Consequently, I advocate Weiler's (1991) call to situate a feminist gerogogy in a Freirean epistemology that both complements and augment the latter. In this respect a feminist gerogogy is to be based on the following principles : (i) the educational activity must derive from the older women's experience as well as being continually subject to revision as a result of impending new encounters; (ii) feminist teachers should not take the role of facilitators but must take sides with and are committed to the sufferings of older women; (ii) acknowledging the matrix of domination where everybody is somebody's Other by positing the educational activity on ëaffinity groupsí where learners are 'unified' through "their activity of mutual critique, support and participation, as each group worked through, as much as possible ways in which the others supported or undercut its own understandings and objectives" (Ellsworth, 1994, p. 319); (iii) manipulating the institutionally imposed authority of the teacher in a positive sense where "the authority of the feminist teacher as intellectual finds expression in the goal of making students themselves theorists of their on lives by interrogating and analyzing their own experience" (Weiler, 1991, p. 462); and finally, (iv) enabling the educational activity to take the role of a 'progressive' movement whereby both students and teachers engage actively in counter-hegemonic activities.

Finally, a feminist educational gerontology is ultimately a drive towards the empowerment of older women in a distinct but collective effort. Despite that feminist educational gerontology aims for individual older women to become critically aware of their situation, its transformative vision is a collective one as there are no private solutions for women's issues. Albeit transformative change must commence from a personal feminist consciousness, individual conversions must be eventually translated in a collective effort to bring forth structural and political changes. Despite the matrix of oppressions present in contemporary society, it is dangerous to focus on questions of identity and individualism, selfhood and experience. Whilst acknowledging the benefits of postmodern feminist gerontology, embracing a total postmodern perspective runs the risk of becoming utilized agenda in favour of relativism and pluralism which may collapse into individualistic reductionism, dissolving the possibility of collective action, and suppression of political will. Feminist educational gerontology therefore adopts a critical stand in its engagement in transformative education where possibilities for action are undertaken as a "collective enterprise where different people do piece-work on different aspects of the problem" and where "each contribution is related to the larger system of ideas" rather than a "private theory to bear one's name" (Sherwin, 1988, p. 23).
 

Conclusion

This research piece attempted to accentuate the neglect of both educational gerontology and adult education to older women as an oppressed population. It emerged as a reaction to the failure for the establishment of the feminist paradigm shift that feminist scholars predicted in the early seventies. Moreover, this attempt must not be interpreted as an attempt to create a new kind of instrumental knowledge on either feminist gerontology or educational gerontology, but only an attempt to come at a better understanding of that interface between the two fields. Nor is it devoid any limitations. First of all, it could be well be that my three hats do not fit one head since this run the risk of not empathizing full with the structural and subjective interpretations of the feminization of aging. Secondly, I found it somewhat perplexing to approach the subject of older women in a holistic fashion when so many aspects of later life are diverse, full of cultural variance and individual idiosyncrasies. Finally, I have also to acknowledge, as an author from the second age, I could only research the area in a spirit of intergenerational solidarity. Although I tried my best to perform 'age suicide', I found this to be relatively problematic. It is extraordinarily enigmatic to empathize fully with older persons whose course of social mobility has come to an end, whose language is built upon life-long experience and invested with material belonging to other generations. Finally, one must not neglect the fact that education may not have all the answers for older women and must be supplemented by other institutions. However, this is not the same as saying that feminist educational gerontology has no critical role to play in the emancipation of older women, since it includes a theory of action where, through their sense of agency, learners are given the opportunity to act and change oppressive social structures. A feminist educational gerontology surely provides older women with the opportunity to form a type of organisation through which they can find strength and purpose in a common vision to denounce mystification and contribute to the enhancement of just and equitable relationships that further democracy, authenticity, and freedom.
 

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