Lifetime abuse has recently received increased attention. However, the impact of such abuse on old age is less studied. This age group is marginalized due to the social construction of gender, ageism, stigma, and oppression. Being an older woman intersects with additional forms of marginality and, therefore, understanding and alleviating the experiences of older women call for an intersectional and life course perspective. In September 2022, the Minerva Foundation funded an international study group on “Lifetime Abuse: Emergent Issues” which was initiated by the Minerva Center of Intersectionality in Aging at the University of Haifa, Israel. This current special issue, which examines selected aspects of older women’s experience of lifetime abuse, is an outgrowth of that work.
One of the important criteria for assessing the relevance of specific pieces of research is their “transferability” and catalytic power in generating reflection among readers. By so doing, they help elaborate on how the research is relevant to their lived experience and social situations. Transferability is defined here as the process of applying results of research from one situation to another while considering “thick descriptions” about the context and intervening variables comparatively.
We hope that the studies presented in this special issue meet the criteria of transferability in various ways for audiences interested in the topics delineated above. The extent to which we succeeded can be judged by the readers alone.
Agudelo-Boter and Giraldo-Rodriguez provide survey data regarding the relationship between lifetime abuse and disability among older women. Populations such as those addressed in their study are doubly marginalized and transparent in most cultures and social contexts. As such, the information provided brings us to reflect on the need to explore the consequences of multi-marginalization in old age, the social and contextual factors can lead to it, and the extent to which visibility may help the development of policies addressing the challenges arising from such societal reaction.
Being labeled as deviant and living life while carrying stigma becomes an increased burden in old age. Gnaim-Mwassi, Avieli, and Band- Winterstein addressed this issue by exploring lifelong sexual abuse among older Arab women engaged in prostitution. The themes of sexual abuse in childhood, learning to become a prostitute, remaining entrapped in it, along with marginalization and uprooting from the family are described and analyzed. For this painful life-history, the women settle accounts with their native culture as part of old age. Regrets, alienation, estrangement from significant others and a sense of injustice are often part of the experience of groups labeled as deviant, and as such, may constitute key factors for intervention with such groups.
Another dramatic expression of the need to consider the social and contextual factors in understanding lifelong violence as framed and narrated by older women is expressed in Mahamid and Band-Winterstein’s study of lifetime abuse among older Arab Israeli women from a feminist lifetime perspective. Their study sheds light on the patriarchal context in which women live as well as the dominant position of men and the social conditioning to dependence of women and their acceptance of this status quo. Yet within this social context, older women develop an identity configuration based on a rehabilitative orientation that combines marginality and respectability. The complex interaction between the social context and the survivor identity must be considered when searching for ways to foster empowerment among those who seem powerless.
Smith’s paper brings us to the area of intergenerational violent relationships between older mothers and their adult children. It further reiterates the need to explore family relationships as a significant environment for understanding abuse. Smith explains how incidents of repeated abuse and neglect in early life negatively affect women’s ability to secure their own safety as mothers of adult children. The complexities involved in abuse as a life motif for both the survivors and perpetrators of intergenerational abuse bring us to the need to consider this, while also attending to the possible accounts and justifications which can perpetuate the abuse.
Old age involves retrospective examination and reflection concerning the meanings of difficult experiences such as lifelong abuse. Band-Winterstein, Shulyaev and Eisikovits performed a secondary analysis of in-depth interviews with older women survivors of abuse regarding forgiveness. Several key themes emerged: perceived dimensions of forgiveness; being forgiven; lost forgiveness and hope to be forgiven; self-forgiveness of the aging person. While aware of the potentially salutary effects of forgiveness, the either/or approach seems to be simplistic as forgiveness involves complex questions such as life circumstances, the issues for which forgiveness is sought, and the ability to reconstruct the self, following abuse.
We hope that reflection, transferability, and sensitivity to the experience of older persons will jointly assign this special issue the heuristic power we expect.