Violence and Abuse in Rural Older Women’s Lives: A Life Course Perspective

Abstract

Intimate partner violence in later life includes physical, psychological, sexual, and financial abuse. Although some researchers have investigated how women in long-term violent partnerships cope with abuse, little is known about the history, experiences, and needs of older women who leave abusive relationships. From a feminist, life course perspective, we interviewed 10 women who had left their abusive partners later in life. We used qualitative methods to analyze the data and found four major themes: (a) the women used the past to account for abuse in their relationships later in life, (b) recognizing abuse signaled to the women to fight back and exit the relationship, (c) financial abuse and exploitation affected women's mental and physical health, and (d) rebuilding was especially challenging as the women faced their future alone with financial, physical, or mental health problems. We conclude that abuse presents lasting and unique challenges for older women.

Intimate Partner Violence in the Golden Age: Systematic Review of Risk and Protective Factors

“…Furthermore, the research conducted in many areas of the world (e.g., Southeast Asia, North America, Europe, Africa) and in different social contexts (e.g., rural areas or immigrants and ethnic minorities) shows cultural differences although the selected construct (IPV) has been defined in the same way in cross-cultural papers. Among these, the most studied contexts and ethnic groups in the literature about IPV and aging are the Western (US) rural areas (Teaster et al, 2006 ; Brossoie and Roberto, 2015 ; Weeks et al, 2016 ; Roberto and McCann, 2018 ) and Asian elders (both residents in Southeast Asia and immigrants in Western countries) (Yan and Chan, 2012 ; Yan, 2015 ; Yan et al, 2015 ; Cheung et al, 2016 ; Han et al, 2017 ; Nam and Lincoln, 2017 ; Qin and Yan, 2018 ). The reason why so much literature has been produced about these cultures is made clearer later in this article.…”

“…The quantitative research papers are mainly cross-sectional; the difficulties in conducting longitudinal studies are probably due to the novelty of the issues, also caused by the victims' historical tendency to conceal their situation (McGarry et al, 2016 ). In qualitative research, the most used tools are in-depth face-to-face interviews (Zink et al, 2006 ; Tetterton and Famsworth, 2011 ; Band-Winterstein, 2013 , 2015 ; Eisikovits and Band-Winterstein, 2015 ; Yan, 2015 ; Weeks et al, 2016 ) and semi-structured interviews (Roberto and McCann, 2018 ). Band-Winterstein's papers are characterized by a phenomenological approach and discourse analysis.…”

“…The first model analyzes power dynamics in late-life relationships with a feminist lens. It aims to show the gender-biased structure of late-life families, where older women are victimized and repressed by structural elements temporally prior to feminist instances and fights (e.g., Roberto and McCann, 2018 [“feminist life course perspective”]; Weeks et al, 2016 ). The second model is guided by the idea that it is impossible to conceive of a phenomenon such as IPV in late life without considering multiple layers, including context, cultural and societal values, family, community, and formal and informal social support.…”

“…In fact, IPV seems to be more prevalent among ethnic minorities (yet at risk of other factors), often marked by powerful stressors (e.g., immigration) and machistic-patriarchal values (Sormanti et al, 2004 ; Paranjape et al, 2009 ; Liles et al, 2012 ; Cianelli et al, 2013 ). Late-life IPV also occurs more frequently in contexts where feminist trends have not arrived, such as in rural areas (Brossoie and Roberto, 2015 ; Weeks et al, 2016 ; Roberto and McCann, 2018 ) and in Confucian Asia (Yan and Chan, 2012 ; Yan, 2015 ; Yan et al, 2015 ; Cheung et al, 2016 ; Han et al, 2017 ; Nam and Lincoln, 2017 ; Qin and Yan, 2018 ). If aging itself brings more vulnerabilities for victims, it is probable that women remain subject to IPV and abuse due to the same social norms that impose the gender hierarchy (Crockett et al, 2015 ).…”

Violence against older women: A systematic review of qualitative literature

“…IPV in particular was described by older women as occurring throughout different stages in the relationship, spanning their youth and into older age. Older women often experienced an escalation of IPV and controlling behaviors despite the age and/ or illness of their partner [36,40,46,61,69,77]. Changing relationship dynamics due to ageing-including a husband's retirement, children leaving the home, women wanting to engage in activities outside of the home, or diagnosis of a chronic or terminal illness-triggered escalating IPV [36,40,46,47,56,69].…”