Participação masculina na Universidade para a Terceira Idade: homem idoso ... onde está você?

Abstract

The routine at the Third Age University, an extension program offered in Campos dos Goytacazes, a town in the State of Rio de Janeiro, since its creation in 1994 has pointed this program to be a place mainly occupied by women. Aged man where are you? is the focus of our investigation. The interrogation soon emerged moving us to propose a research that has as central axis the articulation of the gender dimension with aging. Women see the groups for close association or third age universities as a way of social insertion that give an exceptional character to old age, different from men who usually when retired take refuge in home living or seeking bars or street corners because they see groups for close association as things appropriate for women or as a despised club and even as place for senile persons. Our objective is to portray a profile of the elderly former participants in the Third Age University, investigating the meanings aged men attribute to this stage of life and the possible consequences in their lives