Grace and Grit: The Politics, Poetics and Performance of Ageing as a Woman

ABSTRACT

The demographic shift to an ageing population in contemporary Western society offers a new cultural frontier, with rapidly shifting contours that demand creative and critical examination. Rather than take the predominant bio-medical perspective that views ageing in terms of decline and deficit, in this paper I emphasise the poetics and potential of ageing, within a framework of cultural gerontology. From an existential, phenomenological perspective, I weave together current socio-political and psycho-biological research into gendered ageing, with feminist literature on the topic and my own auto-ethnographic narrative as an ageing woman. Drawing on Simone de Beauvoir and Paul Ricoeur, I examine how narrative identity can shift in older age, particularly if a new sense of creative agency is developed that supports the re-storying of lives. I argue that the diverse group of “baby boomer” women currently in their 60s, who I focus on in this essay, will reinvent the face of ageing, as they once transformed the makeup of the workplace.

KEYWORDS:

• Narrative identity
• existentialism
• feminism
• cultural gerontology
• creative agency

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the two reviewers of this paper for their useful suggestions that have helped enhance it. I also gratefully acknowledge the women with whom I’ve had the privilege of sharing ideas and opportunities over this past five years, all of which have contributed to this paper in different ways. This includes my WIT academic colleagues, my creative writing group, my fellow WaW dancers and my long-term friends. Thank you.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Ann Webster-Wright has an academic background in health and education. Her research and publications focused on learning, authenticity and wellbeing in working lives, using phenomenological philosophy and narrative research. She is currently investigating narratives of older women’s experiences. In semi-retirement, she is an honorary research fellow at Griffith University and the University of Queensland, Australia. As her alter ego, Anni Webster, she writes creative non-fiction, is finishing a memoir on ageing and authenticity, and is part of the WaW Dance ensemble for older women.