Confronting and Resisting an Unlivable Age Culture

Abstract

“Confronting and Resisting an Unlivable Age Culture” draws on the work of feminist and narrative gerontologists to show that women can find value in the years they have lived as they age into old age. Even in the midst of loss, physical decrepitude, and decline, women can discover new possibilities for meaning and personal growth in later life and thus challenge the dominant decline discourse that has long served to strip old women of their identities. As this chapter focuses on the ability of older women to resist shame and affirm the value and complexity of their storied identities through the life review process and their counternarratives of aging and old age, it covers representative post-1960 fictional and nonfiction works by North American and British women authors, including Margaret Drabble, Penelope Lively, Carol Shields, Doris Grumbach, and May Sarton.