This book is about older women’s strength, freedom, tenacity, determination, resilience, independence, social and political involvement and, in particular, it is about re-imagining ageing.
Older women represent the great majority of older people. The book describes instances of age and gender discrimination and examples of social inclusion and protagonism of older women in Europe. It solicits a change in perspective, focusing on the necessary societal changes to make space to older people and older women in particular. How is society going to address age and gender discrimination in social and institutional settings? How should work settings change to effectively make space to older workers and in particular older women? How should the pension system change? How could public health systems could provide effective care to older people and be sustainable?
This edited collection focuses on older women’s rights rather than their needs, adopting a human rights based approach. Preservation of older women’s dignity, autonomy and security is its central topic, that is, ensuring that their rights are recognised. This collection offers insights valuable to a wide array of human rights activists, professionals, policymakers and social scientists, and older women themselves.
Part I: Focusing on Age and Sex Discrimination in Europe 1. Introduction: Older women in Europe and their Rights 2. Dismissed and Invisible: How Human Rights Law’s Treatment of Age Discrimination Reflects the Reality of Older Women’s Experiences in Europe 3. Economic Security of Women in Old Age: The Practice of the Gender Equity under Conditions of Pension Gaps and Feminisation of Households in Old Age in Europe 4. Drawing Attention to the Oldest Old Women Part II: Discrimination versus Inclusion and Protagonism: Some Examples from Various European Countries 5. From Invisibility to Empowerment: The Narratives of Older Women in Moggach’s The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel 6. Older Women’s Portrayal in Recent TV Commercials in Romania: Old, Reversed, and New Stereotypes 7. Grandmothers’ Agency in Care of Grandchildren during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Turkey 8. Struggles, Social Capital and Transformation: The Experiences of Older Women in Late-Life Learning 9. The Importance of Remembering that Leisure is (also) a Human Right for the Older People: Contributions From Older Portuguese Women Who Joined a Leisure Group 10. Older Women and their Opportunities to Participate in Culture, Creativity and the Arts in Later Life 11. Reimagining Older Women: From Followers to Active Community Leadership 12. Conclusion: Rethinking Ageing Societies
Isabella Paoletti, PhD is a researcher at CRIS (Social Research and Intervention Center), Perugia, Italy. Her research interests are informed by discourse analysis, ethnomethodology and ethnography. She has published extensively on gender and ageing; her publications include Being an Older Woman: A Study in the Social Production of Identity (2020, reprint).
