Is there something about our gender that alters the way the aging process unfolds? How does being male or female affect us as we grow older? How important is gender to the study of aging? These and similar questions are what "Gender and Aging" is all about. Sixteen essays, written by scholars and practitioners who know their way around gerontology, attempt to spell out how gender is ever present in the aging process, tackle the question of the effects of gender on men and women, and ask how gender plays itself out in the way people grow old.