| Summary: | This article questions the gender-based descriptions and perceptions of autonomy and dependence. Based on the analysis of forty interviews with aging men and women, it is particularly concerned in the first place with the processes used to describe the bodies of men and women (who? what arguments? etc.). It goes on to ask in what manner the resulting descriptions reinforce (or not) the bi-categorization of sex and nature-related arguments which specify the modernist sex/gender system. The interviews have shown on the one hand that the pointers which bear witness to the material and subjective experience of old age depends largely on the observation of the body, particularly as engaged in anthroponomical work and in the conditions necessary for home-based care and, on the other hand, the reference to the body reinforces the sex-based nature of visions and practice linked to aging. As far as the norms are concerned, we have noticed the reorganization of the criteria of the assignation of sex-based positions and their hierarchical organization. The ever increasing references to the autonomy of those concerned are in fact based on supposedly neutral and objective bodily signs which gender-type forms of aging and act as a discriminatory factor in modes of accompaniment. Cet article interroge les désignations et les perceptions genrées de l’autonomie et de la dépendance au grand âge. Partant de l’analyse d’une quarantaine d’entretiens d’hommes et de femmes vieillissants, il s’intéresse en particulier aux processus à travers lesquels les corps des personnes âgées sont qualifiés (quels acteurs, quels arguments, etc.), puis comment les désignations qui en découlent renforcent (ou non) la bi-catégorisation de sexe et l’« argument de nature » spécifiant le système sexe-genre construit lors du passage à la modernité. Ces entretiens ont montré : d’une part, que la détermination des indices scandant l’expérience matérielle et subjective du grand-âge dépend désormais largement de l’observation des corps – en particulier de ...
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