Older Women of Color: A Feminist Exploration of the Intersections of Personal,Familial and Community Life

SUMMARY

This paper examines the lives of older U.S. women of color who represent racial and ethnic heritages that have a history of unequal access to sources of economic and political power in this country. These women exemplify women with vastly different cultural traditions, but are similar in that they face discrimination as women of color. The combined impact of age, gender, and racial and ethnic background is neglected within our discussions of older women. This paper contributes to our understanding of older women of color by examining the personal, familial, and community aspects of the lives of older women of color. This exploration challenges feminist gerontologists to bring the discussion of this intersection to the center as we explore and seek to comprehend the reality of older women's lives. This scrutiny creates a space for the discussion of both the threats faced by women of color in their unique juncture as old, female, and of color as well as an illumination of the strengths manifested by these women. Further the need to embrace a feminist gerontological framework when practitioners work with these populations is addressed.     

Chinese Immigrant Women Workers' Mediated Negotiations With Constraints On Their Cultural Identities

Based on ethnographic fieldwork, this study examines the cultural identities of Chinese immigrant women workers in American society, that is, how the women negotiate with white supremacist cultural values that seek to interpellate them through their everyday use of media. I argue that through certain Chinese ethnic newspapers' cultural discourses, white supremacist cultural values penetrate the women's private lives and regulate their daily matters as minute as the color of their socks. Yet, the women's responses to these mediated discourses reveal that mainstream cultural values are only part of a more complex cultural quandary, which results from a number of constraints facing the women everyday: material difficulty, racial-cultural marginalization, and ethnic patriarchal control. In our group and individual interviews, my participants critically interpreted and negotiated with this cultural quandary. Their negotiation has great value, since it attests to their heightened cultural consciousness. From another perspective, however, their heightened consciousness has yet to develop into a strategic bicultural or multicultural identity, the “mestiza identity” in Anzaldua's words, as a result of the financial, racial, patriarchal, cultural, and psychological constraints in their lives. This situation leads us to reflect more on how we can help to lift these constraints, so that these women can strategically incorporate both Chinese and American cultural practices to improve their quality of life.     

Negating identity: a feminist analysis of the social invisibility of older lesbians

Older lesbians are invisible both within and outside of the lesbian community. Using a postmodern and lesbian feminist approach, in this article we identify a paradox in our society which defines lesbians in terms of their sexuality while older women are generally viewed as asexual. We suggest that this paradox contributes to the invisibility of older lesbians. Our focus is on the interactive nature of the relationship between personal and public constructions of lesbianism in the lives of older women. Finally, we discuss the potential impact of invisibility on self-identity, and using a feminist gerontological framework suggest implications for the empowerment of older lesbians.     

Negating Identity: A Feminist Analysis of the Social Invisibility of Older Lesbians

SUMMARY

Older lesbians are invisible both within and outside of the lesbian community. Using a postmodern and lesbian feminist approach, in this article we identify a paradox in our society which defines lesbians in terms of their sexuality while older women are generally viewed as asexual. We suggest that this paradox contributes to the invisibility of older lesbians. Our focus is on the interactive nature of the relationship between personal and public constructions of lesbianism in the lives of older women. Finally, we discuss the potential impact of invisibility on self-identity, and using a feminist gerontological framework suggest implications for the empowerment of older lesbians.     

Doing it from your heart: the role of older women as informal volunteers

This paper explores the contributions made by older women to the community as informal volunteers. It argues that ageing policy is not gender neutral and tends to ignore the contributions made by women outside paid work. As well as being ignored in policy, women's unpaid roles have been denigrated by some feminist commentators, who suggest that these roles subordinate the position of women. The aim of the present paper is to explore the lived experiences of older women in relation to their informal volunteer roles, using role identity theory as a framework. The study utilizes data from a qualitative study using focus group methodology. Findings demonstrate that informal volunteering contributes to the women's identity and gives their lives meaning. These findings suggest that a more positive policy framework around ageing is needed to ensure that the worth of these contributions is recognised.     

Older women, their children, and grandchildren: a feminist perspective on family relationships

Using gerontological and feminist frameworks, we explored the relationships older women have with their children and grandchildren. In-depth, qualitative interviews were conducted with 34 women, ranging in age from 55 to 88. From our analyses of the women's perceptions of their family relationships, two themes were prevalent: the centrality of children and the peripherality of grandchildren in their everyday lives. The women had varying degrees of involvement with their children and grandchildren, and these relationships contributed to their sense of self and family. Their relationships were not stagnant, but were continually reshaped as both the women and their family members proceeded through the life course.     

Older Women,Their Children,and Grandchildren: A Feminist Perspective on Family Relationships

SUMMARY

Using gerontological and feminist frameworks, we explored the relationships older women have with their children and grandchildren. In-depth, qualitative interviews were conducted with 34 women, ranging in age from 55 to 88. From our analyses of the women's perceptions of their family relationships, two themes were prevalent: the centrality of children and the peripherality of grandchildren in their everyday lives. The women had varying degrees of involvement with their children and grandchildren, and these relationships contributed to their sense of self and family. Their relationships were not stagnant, but were continually reshaped as both the women and their family members proceeded through the life course.     

Mental health and breast cancer screening utilization among older Hispanic women

Considerable racial and ethnic differences exist in the way the burden of cancer is experienced in the United States for older Hispanic women. This study utilized data from the 2008 wave of the Health and Retirement Study to investigate the mental health factors associated with older Hispanic women’s participation in breast cancer screening services. Logistic regression models were used. Findings indicated that anxiety and positive affect were associated with a greater likelihood of participating in breast cancer screening. Despite ongoing national conversations, evidence indicates there is agreement that underserved women need to be screened, particularly the older Hispanic population.     

Performing the “quing of berlin”: transnational digital interfaces in queer feminist protest culture

Abstract

This paper employs the figure of the “interface” to explore the work of German feminist rapper and spoken-word performer Sookee (Nora Hantzsch), who constitutes an ideal case-study for examining the interface between digital technologies, transnational feminisms, and local activism. Sookee is an underground hip-hop artist and queer political activist in Berlin, a location which features in her work as a site of subcultural dissent and contested identities. Sookee is also an academic; a youth outreach worker; a significant online presence; and an international creative collaborator. As such, she navigates the interfaces between multiple social groups, media, discourses, and cultural contexts—regional, national, and transnational. This article focuses on the digital circulations of Sookee’s material against the backdrop of her local performative and activist work. Her transnational collaborations with women MCs and poets from South Africa and America, as well as Europe, celebrate cultural, linguistic, racial, and ethnic difference by bringing in a diverse range of feminist voices to the German context.     

Empowering Members,Not Overpowering Them: The National Organization for Women,Calls for Lesbian Inclusion,and California Influence, 1960s–1980s

Standard accounts of the National Organization for Women (NOW) seriously underplay the duration of tensions between heterosexual and lesbian NOW members and the ways those tensions included both racialized analogies and tactical concerns. Based on personal papers, archival sources, interviews, and a re-evaluation of printed sources, I argue that by considering the perspective of national, state, and local lesbian feminist NOW members, we see tensions from the 1960s through the 1980s that have been missed by studies that focus either on NOW or on the growth of lesbian feminism or on second-wave feminist development generally. To legitimize their position, White lesbian feminists analogized their oppression with that of racial minorities while claiming to be better feminists than heterosexual women. Their approach is significant to conceptualizing the scope of feminist issues and tactics, the ways White women's discussion of race exacerbated racial divisions, and the fate of the Equal Rights Amendment.     

Patterns of Entry into Cohabitation and Marriage Among Mainland Puerto Rican Women*

This paper adds to our limited knowledge of racial and ethnic variation in union formation by describing and analyzing the first unions of mainland Puerto Rican women. Retrospective history data show that Puerto Ricans have shared in the post-1970 shift toward cohabitation. Puerto Rican women, however, are much more likely to enter informal first unions than the general population, and have a low propensity to transform informal unions into legal marriages. The paper examines the influence of family background and current activities on union timing and type. The relationship between partner attributes and the choice between formal and informal coupling is also considered.     

Healthy Older Women-

Health in older women in this discussion is considered from four perspectives of fitness: (a) physical, (b) intellectual, (c) social and (d) purpose. The important point is that it is not health, per se, which is so crucial in women's later lives, but rather their attitudes and their coping strategies to meet new situations, losses and crises. In addition, the responses of others, including professionals, are important in enabling older women to live productive lives in spite of adversity. Examples of positive models of women growing old with varying degrees of health problems are provided.     

Racial/Ethnic and Nativity Patterns of U.S. Adolescent and Young Adult Smoking

We document racial/ethnic and nativity differences in U.S. smoking patterns among adolescents and young adults using the 2006 Tobacco Use Supplement to the Current Population Survey (n = 44,202). Stratifying the sample by nativity status within five racial/ethnic groups (Asian American, Mexican–American, other Hispanic, non-Hispanic black, and non-Hispanic white), and further by sex and age, we compare self-reports of lifetime smoking across groups. U.S.-born non-Hispanic whites, particularly men, report smoking more than individuals in other racial/ethnic/nativity groups. Some groups of young women (e.g., foreign-born and U.S.-born Asian Americans, foreign-born and U.S.-born Mexican–Americans, and foreign-born blacks) report extremely low levels of smoking. Foreign-born females in all of the 25–34 year old racial/ethnic groups exhibit greater proportions of never smoking than their U.S.-born counterparts. Heavy/moderate and light/intermittent smoking is generally higher in the older age group among U.S.-born males and females, whereas smoking among the foreign-born of both sexes is low at younger ages and remains low at older ages. Taken together, these findings highlight the importance of considering both race/ethnicity and nativity in assessments of smoking patterns and in strategies to reduce overall U.S. smoking prevalence and smoking-attributable health disparities.     

Significant Relationships Among Older Women: Cultural and Personal Constructions of Lesbianism

SUMMARY

This paper focuses on the interactive nature of the relationship between personal and public constructions of lesbianism in the lives of older women. The cultural construction of lesbianism involves the historical and environmental context of the meaning of lesbianism framed within a societal level. Our discussion evolves around a case study of a lesbian in her eighties, living with a partner in rural Minnesota, We show that when public definitions are unavailable, older lesbians may not define certain aspects of their experience.     

Gender and the Residential Mobility and Neighborhood Attainment of Black-White Couples

Including black-white couples in the study of residential stratification accentuates gendered power disparities within couples that favor men over women, which allows for the analysis of whether the race of male partners in black-white couples is associated with the racial and ethnic composition of their neighborhoods. I investigate this by combining longitudinal data between 1985 and 2015 from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics linked to neighborhood- and metropolitan-level data compiled from four censuses. Using these data, I assess the mobility of black male–white female and white male–black female couples out of and into neighborhoods defined respectively by their levels of whites, blacks, and ethnoracial diversity. My results show that the race of the male partner in black-white couples tends to align with the racial and ethnic composition of the neighborhoods where these couples reside. This finding highlights that the racial hierarchy within the United States affects the residential mobility and attainment of black-white couples, but its influence is conditioned by the race and gender composition of these couples.     

Historical,economic, and political contexts of aging in African America

This article is an attempt to present some of the historical and political contexts of older women in general and to communicate pieces of the lives of African American older women, in particular. It presents some of the present day distortions as well as a sense of the historical, economic, and political realities of older African American lives, while trying to limit the use of the usual comparison approach to this topic.     

Development of an Attitudes Measure for Prenatal Screening in Diverse Populations

Background: Prenatal screening for chromosomalabnormalities is routinely offered to allpregnant women who present for care by their20th gestational week. Not all women,however, choose to undergo one of these tests,and choice of which test(s) to undergo alsovary. The reasons for variation in screeningtest behavior have not been fully explored.Methods: We examined the psychometricproperties of scales developed to measurefactors related to prenatal screening usingdata collected as part of a survey of 448racial/ethnically diverse pregnant women. These women were consecutively recruited fromprenatal care clinics when they were betweentheir 12th and 20th week ofpregnancy. The Theory of Reasoned Action wasused to develop to measures of attitudes towardand beliefs about prenatal screening. All itemswere subjected to factor analysis. Scalesidentified in the factor analysis were thensubjected to reliability analysis. Allanalysis was conducted for the entire studygroup as well as separately for eachracial/ethnic group.Results: Six scales emerged: who makes medicaldecisions, fatalism, health care trust, valueof screening, fear of screening and value ofpregnancy. All scales had adequate reliabilitywhen the analysis was conducted for the entirestudy group; however there were differences inreliability across racial/ethnic group.Conclusions: Because of these between groupdifferences comparisons of racial/ethnic groupmay be difficult to interpret and potentiallylead to erroneous conclusions.     

The Red Hat Society: Exploring the role of play, liminality, and communitas in older women's lives

There is an extensive literature on play. Yet, the role of play in older adults' lives has received limited attention. Strikingly absent is research on play and older women. Missing from the literature is how older women use play as a liminal context for social interaction and communitas. This is odd because by 2030 one in four American women will be over the age of sixty-five. The primary purpose of this study is to explore the roles of play, liminality, and communitas in older women's lives. The focus is the Red Hat Society, a social group for women over age 50 that fosters play and fun. Using qualitative interviews with focus groups and participant observation of a regional Red Hat Society event, the study highlights some of the strengths and weaknesses of current conceptualizations of play, liminality, and communitas.     

Historical,Economic, and Political Contexts of Aging in African America

ABSTRACT

This article is an attempt to present some of the historical and political contexts of older women in general and to communicate pieces of the lives of African American older women, in particular. It presents some of the present day distortions as well as a sense of the historical, economic, and political realities of older African American lives, while trying to limit the use of the usual comparison approach to this topic.     

Working with abused older women from a feminist perspective

Domestic violence in older families is often referred to not as family violence but as elder abuse. This chapter will begin by discussing how perceptions of this type of violence impact informal and formal interventions. The prevalence and etiology of domestic violence are described, along with how the joint forces of ageism and sexism affect older female victims. National, state, and local efforts to prevent and remediate the abuse of older women are also covered. In conclusion, the author presents implications for working with groups and individual abused older women from a feminist perspective.