Older women, for the most part, do not participate in women's self-help groups or feminist-related educational activities (Borkman 1982), although their feminist numbers are growing. They are more often found in seniors' advocacy groups or health-related organizations. Volunteer work figures prominently in the lives of aging women where the care giving role - a familiar one - is continued. However, given the current and difficult situations that older women find themselves in, the need for resource development through education is crucial. There are many active, informed, and educated older women involved in seniors' advocacy groups and many of the concerns they are voicing are concerns of older women, although they are voiced under the neutral banner of "seniors' rights." Given the current political climate of anti-feminism, perhaps this is a wise, if perhaps unconscious, strategy. The danger is that as the most highly serviced of any age group, older women are viewed as the beneficiaries and consumers of costly social programs.

Until older women strike at the heart of the discrimination against them, in the form of negative valuing and lack of recognition for their past and potential contributions to society, little change can be expected. The role of education in directing and encouraging these changes may be a slow but inevitably powerful one if we begin to develop truly educational opportunities for older women.

Opening up Our Future

Older women deserve a tremendous amount of respect and appreciation, particularly from those of us who stand on the thresh-old of our own middle and old age. Never has a generation of women experienced the degree of change and upheaval in their social and personal lives as has the current cohort of women who are now in their 60s, 70s, and 80s and older. These are not "disadvantaged" women, but women whose accomplishments, talents, perseverance, and strengths have gone unnoticed, often unappreciated and undervalued.