Concepts of Life Span and Life-Stages: Implications for Ethics

References

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• I do this simply because I am myself a citizen of the West and therefore am personally familiar with Western culture. There may be significant cultural differences among life stages between Western and non-Western nations.
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• Ibid., 3.
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• Samantha Brennan suggested to me that the extension of adolescence may be class-based: middle-class children, supported by their parents and undergoing a prolonged education, may be allowed or even required to reach adulthood later than working-class youth, who must become independent sooner. I believe, however, that while some working-class young people may choose or be compelled to become adults sooner than middle-class young people (if, for example, they must become financially self-sufficient at a young age), others may find themselves in the situation of prolonged dependence, living with their parents because their job is only part-time or, even if full-time, it does not pay enough for full financial independence.
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• Ageism is a phenomenon that disadvantages both the old and the very young, but it is probably worse to be an old woman than to be an old man.
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• Ibid., 130, my emphasis.
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• Ibid., 105–06. Reproduction includes “biological children, material goods, and ideas of patriarchy.”
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• Ibid., 181.
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• 2002 . Some members of the audience at the Conference on Feminist Moral Philosophy where I read a draft of this paper suggested that in some respects the multiple ascribed stages of women's lives could also be an advantage, giving women more experiences with change and adaptation than may be encountered within stereotypical male lives.
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• 1996 . Antifeminism in the Academy New York : Routledge . These questions are obviously much too large to explore here. But arguments in favor of these reproductive interventions include appeals to reproductive freedom, giving women the same procreative opportunities that are already enjoyed “naturally” by men; the suggestion that increasing women's reproductive life could better suit women's increasing life expectancy; and the claim that women might be less disadvantaged by what Mary Carpenter calls “sexageism” (Mary Wilson Carpenter, “Female Grotesques in Academia: Ageism, Antifeminism, and Feminists on the Faculty,” in ed. Vévé Clark, Shirley Nelson Garner, Margaret Higonnet, and Ketu H. Katrak [], 141–65), if their reproductive lives lasted longer. On the other hand, arguments against such reproductive interventions include concerns about their effects on women's health and the potential reinforcement of the idea that old age in women is bad, that the purpose of women is sexual and reproductive, and that menopause is a horror.
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