Gender violence

A Comment

“If the truth were told, there are literally armies of us older women survivors.” (Canada)
“If we don’t speak on our own behalf we can be darn sure that no one else is going to either. Besides, who knows better than me what my life is like?” (Canada)

“He wouldn’t get me a doctor. I had to crawl on my hands and knees up the stairs to get into bed.” (Great Britain)

“I stayed with him 39 years. It was a long time to put in, but I wasn’t brave enough to leave…we moved down here and he only lived for another two years…. And then I was free!” (Australia)

“I left behind a financially very comfortable life. I live on a very small income, but I manage. I don’t need much. I just don’t ever want to ever see him again.” (Canada)

The quotations above are from older women in Canada, Great Britain, and Australia who shared stories of past and ongoing violence in their lives. Too many older women survivors of abuse remain silent and continue to mask the truth of their lives. For some women, the abuse began in childhood and continued through adulthood into their later years. These women often carry with them the long-term health impacts of being subjected to "control, domination, physical harm, threats, humiliation, and degradation." (OWLS, 1995)

The hypothesis that guides our research and advocacy is that older woman abuse is not gender free and not necessarily age specific. Rather, it is part of a continuum of gender-specific violence and discrimination that shapes many women’s lives from conception to death. In this brief commentary on abuse of older women, we draw attention to the social and cultural forces that impact our attitudes toward age and aging. These forces may have unconsciously supported the failure to include older women within the feminist framework of gender-based violence.

A notable aspect of the way feminists have addressed violence against women is that they have, without stating so, separated older women from women of other ages. This is not directly expressed, but underlies their work. Whenever domestic abuse is mentioned, the unspoken assumption is that this relates to adult women before they cross some invisible age divide, beyond which lies elder abuse. (Aitken and Griffin, 1996: 155) This is not a criticism of the women’s movement, but an observation about our culture and about attitudes in a society that keeps older women invisible to their younger sisters.

Is it ageism that blocks contemporary attention to these issues, or both ageism and sexism?

Gender
Gender governs the structure of relationships through the life cycle, from birth to old age. Gender differences in our aging process reflect biological, economic, and social differences. Gender influences our access to resources and opportunities, and shapes our choices at every stage of life. While gendered experiences impact the health and well being of both women and men in their later years, women who enter their older years with a past or continuing experience of violence and abuse often suffer unrelenting poverty and persistent health problems including chronic pain, depression, and disability.

It has generally been accepted that women’s experiences with violence stem from their subordinate status in society. An epidemiological report from the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health (1999) suggests that research and advocacy activities demonstrate a growing consensus that abuse of women and girls is best understood within a gender framework. Gendered violence shapes women’s lives and cuts across age, race, class, economic status, and religious differences.

While there is a significant body of work that examines the gendered nature of violence and abuse throughout women’s reproductive years, there has been little analysis of gender bias and violence in the lives of older women. Why is this missing? Does ageism block contemporary attention to these issues, or is it both ageism and sexism?

Gender and Ageism
The invisibility of older women’s lives in the research on women’s human rights in regard to equality and social justice was eloquently stated by Leah Cohen in 1984:

"The elderly in our society are generally rejected, but we are particularly disdainful of older women. The discrimination begins in infancy and escalates as we become mature women. But it doubles as we grow older, for then we are not only women, but old women, perceived as unattractive, unneeded, and parasitical."(11)

Is the invisibility of older women related to their diminished role in society? There is an uncomfortable sense that, after menopause, women are liabilities rather than contributors to society. This ties in to the popular culture and an institutionalized, stereotyped view of old age, particularly as it applies to older women. Older women are in double jeopardy as the sexism they experienced in their earlier years continues, with the added burden of ageist attitudes. Contemporary media encourage this by magnifying the negatives of the aging process, and equating beauty and value with youth.

The overriding image of older women in our media is one of dependency. This is reflected in attitudes toward older women’s issues and, among other areas, in medical practices and public policy on issues of abuse in older life. Individually, is it linked to our difficulty as women in dealing with our own fear of aging, loss of power, and death? As we reflect on research policy and practice involving health, social, and economic issues of later life, ageist attitudes often prevail. The result is that the reality of older women’s lives is not researched, analyzed, and translated into appropriate policy and practice.

Research
Violence against older women has been neglected by being subsumed into a gender-neutral research category: elder abuse. Through this categorization, the realities of the lives of older women are lost because age and dependency alone are seen as the major factors precipitating abuse.

Postmenopausal women are seen as liabilities rather than contributors.

Our thesis on the gendered nature of continued violence and abuse in the lives of older women was validated by the findings of a recent, national, medical study of postmenopausal women in the USA. In their paper in the American Journal of Public Health, the authors note that, "to date, no study has examined the (statistical) associations with physical and verbal abuse in functionally independent, cognitively intact, older women." (Mouton et al, 2004: 605) These researchers acknowledge the role of gender in experiencing abuse, noting that women 65 years or older are more likely than older men to be victims of all forms of abuse except abandonment, even after adjusting for women comprising a larger proportion of the aging population. They found in the medical field what we had seen in our work, that gender-based violence does not disappear with age but has been neglected by researchers.

A key finding of their research is that many functionally independent older women are exposed to physical and verbal abuse. "If a woman remains functionally independent, the risk factors for abuse mirror those for intimate partner violence." (Mouton et al, 2004: 609) These authors’ summary conclusion is that "[older] women are exposed to abuse at similar rates to younger women; this abuse poses a serious threat to their health." (abstract)

An older women’s movement is actively challenging current responses to "elder abuse."

Older Women in Action
In the 1960s and ‘70s, women organized and responded to gender violence and discrimination in younger years through volunteer advocacy and community-based services including shelters and safe homes. In recent years, the response has increasingly become one of lobbying local, national, and international political bodies to address this issue. There is little time and energy expended on identifying and addressing the needs of older women.

There is a growing movement of women in their sixties and seventies who are becoming more visible and politically active, nationally and internationally, by raising issues of gender violence, discrimination, and ageist policies and planning. They are challenging current attitudes, research, public policy, and practice on abuse and violence in later life. Using feminist theoretical and research frameworks, they are documenting older women’s experiences of violence and abuse in their lives. Older women are starting to use these research findings to influence policy makers, and policy directions.

Gender-based violence begins before birth and continues through old age. Prenatal victims may suffer through physical and psychological abuse of their mothers and deprivation of sleep and nutrition. Infancy and childhood may involve physical violence, sexual abuse, and psychological abuse including witnessing spousal violence. As adolescents, girls may suffer dating violence, sexual assault, and forced prostitution. During their reproductive years, and continuing through their later life, some women experience physical abuse, marital rape, and homicide. (Heise et al 1994)

As older women ourselves, we experience ageism and sexism. We are working to change the realities of age- and gender-based abuse, and invite others to join us. We opened this discussion with the words of older women and it is fitting to end in the same way:

"Older women survivors of abuse can no longer remain silent. Maintaining an acceptable ‘public face’ for the outside world masks the truth of too many lives. The costs are too high, for the individual woman’s physical, emotional well-being and for all of those in contact with her, not to mention the cost to society as a whole." (Canada)

Authors’ Note: The introductory and concluding quotations from anonymous older abused women are taken from Hightower, Smith, and Hightower (2001), Older Women’s Long-term Survival in Society (1995), Pritchard (2000), and Sargent and Mears (2000).

References
Aitken, L, and G Griffin (1996) Gender Issues in Elder Abuse, London: Sage.

Cohen, L (1984) Small Expectations: Society’s Betrayal of Older Women, Toronto: McClelland and Stewart.

Heise, LL, Pitanguy, J, and Germain, A (1994) "Violence against Women: The Hidden Health Burden." World Bank Discussion Paper 255, Washington, DC: The Bank.

Hightower, J, Smith, MJ (Greta), and Hightower, HC (2001) Silent and Invisible: A Report on Abuse and Violence in the Lives of Older Women in British Columbia and Yukon, Vancouver: BC/Yukon Society of Transition Houses.

Morgan Disney & Associates, Leigh Cupitt & Associates & Council on the Ageing (2000) Two Lives – Two Worlds: Older People and Domestic Violence, Canberra, Australia: Office of the Status of Women. (2 Volumes)

Mouton, CP, et al (2004) "Prevalence and three-year incidence of abuse among postmenopausal women," in American Journal of Public Health, 94 (4): 605-12.

OWLS: Older Women’s Long-term Survival Society (1995) Older Women Survivors: A Video and Handbook for and About Older Women who have Survived Abuse, Alberta.

Pritchard, J (2000) The Needs of Older Women: Services for Victims of Elder Abuse and Other Abuse, Bristol, UK: The Policy Press.

Sargent, M, and Mears, J (2000) Older Women Speak Up, Campbelltown, Australia: University of Western Sydney.

School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University (1999) "Ending Violence Against Women," Population Reports Series L, Number 11, December 1999. Author’s Note

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