新视野大学英语 读写教程第四册 unit8-c

　　What Does It Really Mean to Grow Old
In my late fifties, and then my sixties, I heard, "I can't believe you're that old. You don't look that old." At first that felt like praise. Then I became a bit uneasy. It reminded me of early pre-feminist days when I was complimented by some men for being "smarter", and "more independent" than those "other" women.
Slowly other experiences began to accumulate, reminding me of a real change in my life status.
First, I moved. And while I found easy acceptance among older people in the community, when younger people talked to me they invariably would say something like, "You remind me of my grandmother." Grandmother?! I felt like I had been given a label and my position lowered somehow.
Recently, I have, in fact, become a grandmother. I found most young friends expected me — automatically — to "be" a certain way. Many of those expectations were in accord with what I felt. Some were not. I did not instantly fall in love with my grandson. I was much more drawn¹ to my daughter and what she was experiencing. I must admit that I am now a devoted² grandmother, but being put in a particular category about that bothered me, as though all of my reactions could be known in advance and belonged to the general group "grandmother" rather than to me.
I lost some money recently through bad judgment³ and suddenly had the realization⁴ that I would never be able to replace it. I do not have enough time left to be able to earn that money again.
I looked in the mirror and saw lots of wrinkles. I had a hard time fitting that outward me with the me inside. I felt like the same person, but outside I looked different. I checked into a face lift, with much unease. What a piece of marketing⁵ took place in that doctor's office! He told me he would make me less strange to myself. I would look more like I felt! I became frightened by the whole process. Who was I then? This face? What I felt like inside? How come the two images were not connected? My own ageism told me that how I looked outside was ugly. But I felt the same inside, not ugly at all.
Finally, death entered my life as a direct reality. My oldest friend died of cancer three years ago. My father died two years ago after what turned out to be needless surgery. Another close friend died last month after a year of struggling with cancer. My mother is dying slowly and painfully after suffering a massive stroke. The realization hit me that I can expect this kind of personal contact with death to occur with greater and greater frequency.
Not just my age, but life itself was telling me that I was becoming an older/old woman!
Think of all the adjectives that are most disrespectful in our society. They are all part of the ageist description of old women: useless, powerless, complaining, sick, weak, conservative, rigid⁶, helpless, unproductive, wrinkled, ugly, unattractive, and on and on.
How did this happen, this picture of old women? To understand this phenomenon we must look at our society's insistence⁷ that women are only valuable when they are attractive and useful to men. Women spend their lives accepting the idea that to be beautiful one must be young, and only beauty saves one from being discarded. Women's survival, both physical and psychological, has been linked to their ability to please men. It is small wonder that the prospect⁸ of growing old is frightening to women. By denying our ageing, we hope to escape the penalties placed upon growing old.
Old people are sent off to their own prisons. Frequently they will say they like it better. But who would not when, to be with younger people is so often to be invisible, to be treated as irrelevant⁹, and sometimes even as disgusting.
We have systematically¹⁰ looked down on old women, kept them out of productive life, judged them primarily in terms of failing capacities and functions, and then found them pitiful. We have put old women in nursing "homes" with absolutely no intellectual stimulation¹¹, isolated¹² from human warmth and contact, and then condemned¹³ them for losing their mental abilities. We have disrespected and disregarded old women, and then dismissed them as uninteresting. We have made old women invisible so that we do not have to confront our society's myths about what makes life valuable or dying painful.
Having done that, we then attribute to the process of ageing per se all the evils we see and fear about growing old. It is not ageing that is awful, nor whatever physical problems may accompany ageing. What is awful is how society treats old women and their problems. To the degree that we accept and allow such treatment we buy the ageist assumptions that permit this treatment.
What then does it really mean to grow old? For me, first of all, to be old is to be myself. No matter how society may classify me as invisible and powerless, I exist. I am a person, a sexual being, a person who struggles, for whom there are important issues to explore, new things to learn, challenges to meet, beginnings to make, risks to take, endings to think about. Even though some of my options are reduced, there are new paths ahead.
Words: 902
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1 drawn   

v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的

参考例句：

• All the characters in the story are drawn from life.故事中的所有人物都取材于生活。
• Her gaze was drawn irresistibly to the scene outside.她的目光禁不住被外面的风景所吸引。

2 devoted   

adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的

参考例句：

• He devoted his life to the educational cause of the motherland.他为祖国的教育事业贡献了一生。
• We devoted a lengthy and full discussion to this topic.我们对这个题目进行了长时间的充分讨论。

3 judgment   

n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见

参考例句：

• The chairman flatters himself on his judgment of people.主席自认为他审视人比别人高明。
• He's a man of excellent judgment.他眼力过人。

4 realization   

n.实现；认识到，深刻了解

参考例句：

• We shall gladly lend every effort in our power toward its realization.我们将乐意为它的实现而竭尽全力。
• He came to the realization that he would never make a good teacher.他逐渐认识到自己永远不会成为好老师。

5 marketing   

n.行销，在市场的买卖，买东西

参考例句：

• They are developing marketing network.他们正在发展销售网络。
• He often goes marketing.他经常去市场做生意。

6 rigid   

adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的

参考例句：

• She became as rigid as adamant.她变得如顽石般的固执。
• The examination was so rigid that nearly all aspirants were ruled out.考试很严，几乎所有的考生都被淘汰了。

7 insistence   

n.坚持；强调；坚决主张

参考例句：

• They were united in their insistence that she should go to college.他们一致坚持她应上大学。
• His insistence upon strict obedience is correct.他坚持绝对服从是对的。

8 prospect   

n.前景，前途；景色，视野

参考例句：

• This state of things holds out a cheerful prospect.事态呈现出可喜的前景。
• The prospect became more evident.前景变得更加明朗了。

9 irrelevant   

adj.不恰当的，无关系的，不相干的

参考例句：

• That is completely irrelevant to the subject under discussion.这跟讨论的主题完全不相关。
• A question about arithmetic is irrelevant in a music lesson.在音乐课上，一个数学的问题是风马牛不相及的。

10 systematically   

adv.有系统地

参考例句：

• This government has systematically run down public services since it took office.这一屆政府自上台以来系统地削减了公共服务。
• The rainforest is being systematically destroyed.雨林正被系统地毀灭。

11 stimulation   

n.刺激，激励，鼓舞

参考例句：

• The playgroup provides plenty of stimulation for the children.幼儿游戏组给孩子很多启发。
• You don't get any intellectual stimulation in this job.你不能从这份工作中获得任何智力启发。

12 isolated   

adj.与世隔绝的

参考例句：

• His bad behaviour was just an isolated incident. 他的不良行为只是个别事件。
• Patients with the disease should be isolated. 这种病的患者应予以隔离。

13 condemned   

adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• He condemned the hypocrisy of those politicians who do one thing and say another. 他谴责了那些说一套做一套的政客的虚伪。
• The policy has been condemned as a regressive step. 这项政策被认为是一种倒退而受到谴责。