ABSTRACT
Social scientists look at the elderly as a minority group because they have unequal access to the rewards of society and experience prejudice and discrimination. Many of the elderly have financial difficulties in addition to health problems; this is especially true of elderly women and members of minority groups. An extension of the conflict view is exchange theory, in which the elderly are seen as being in a subservient position in American society. In every society, each age group and each gender is assigned different duties, responsibilities, privileges, and roles. Social gerontologist's scientists who study the aging process as it affects the individual and society examine aging from the perspective of a number of theoretical frameworks. The traditional gender roles assigned to males and females in our society, as well as in most others, are the instrumental role for males and the expressive role for females. Biological theories attribute homosexuality either to inherited genes or to sex hormones.
