Hell’s Grannies and Crazy Ladies—Challenging the Precarization of Older Women

Abstract

Abstract Older women are often portrayed as particularly vulnerable and in need of protection, producing processes of ageist “othering” that deny agency, foster “appropriate” behaviors, and work to exclude them from everyday life. While not denying many women face a precarious situation in later life, some older women resist their subjectivation as vulnerable. Drawing on a concept of precarity as governmentality, older women’s acceptance and resistance to being characterized as “vulnerable” and in need of protection are explored in relation to focus group interviews with female pensioners in four Swedish municipalities.