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Book Review: Learning to be old: Gender, culture, and aging

sick child or elderly parent). However, unlike most writers, who focus on the ways that women need to adapt in order to achieve balance, Becker instead points us to the underlying societal values and practices that make the management of life outside the workplace the responsibility of women. She critiques policies and cultural assumptions that exclude men from the role of caring for others and that take for granted women’s natural abilities and desire to fulfill that role. Also compelling is Becker’s analysis of trauma and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). She demonstrates that the business of keeping our soldiers fighting is also the business of treating and medicating the psychological consequences of being in combat while turning a blind eye to the relentless machine of war and what it demands of our citizens in combat. She explains that scientists and practitioners are charged with the task of devising stronger treatments to create stronger soldiers who are better able to withstand the stress of war. Her discussion of the PTSD diagnosis, like her discussion of the gendered nature of our popular notion of stress, will be of interest to the wide readership for which this book is intended. Lay audiences will learn much from this book, but Becker also aims to convince researchers, service providers, and students across disciplines and levels that we need to rethink our reliance on stress as an orienting idea that guides us—because it guides us away from the harsh questions around issues of poverty, inequality, and discrimination. One concern with Becker’s critique of psychology, psychiatry, and other disciplines is that her criticism of much of the research on the connection between stress and illness is at times dismissive enough to risk alienating the very professionals who are necessary to redirect the course of research and practice to focus on societal ills and social change. Another concern is that Becker does not readily acknowledge the potential for the use of the stress concept as a helpful construct to explain the translation of social ills into human illness. Social scientists and practitioners do want to understand why poverty may be associated with heart disease, diabetes, and other conditions, and the notion of stress might be useful in developing this understanding. Indeed, recent years have seen an impressive body of research on the physical and mental health effects of social inequality (Fuller-Rowell, Evans, & Ong, 2012; Seng, Lopez, Sperlich, Hamama, & Meldrum, 2012; Smith, 2008, 2010). We must also remember that the process of social change is not static; rather, it requires ongoing vigilance and considerable risks that are themselves stressful for advocates and activists. This complicated cycle is one with which we must contend as social scientists, as practitioners, and specifically as psychologists who examine the role of gender and its intersections. In this way, Becker’s book supports the progressive work of feminist psychologists who think deeply about the context and its effects, and she provides useful guidance concerning the work ahead of us, as we face the interwoven tasks of the science, advocacy, and activism of social change.