The spectre of old age is very much alive and well in current queer culture – witches, crones, lesbian vampires, etc. But in terms of interacting with actual older women in reality, many multi-generational queer and lesbian spaces have closed their doors. Lesbian cooperative lands, bars, bookstores: there has been a steep decline in the opening of new spaces to replace the ones that have been lost, creating an inter-generational gap. And 19790’s-era lesbian culture in particular, created on a bedrock of social justice activism, has never attained the same pop-culture visibility of drag queens and hallmarks of gay male culture. 

Feminist Approaches

Over the years, there has been a push to include aging in the field of Women & Gender Studies. As Kathleen Slevin and Toni Calasanti write, “Feminists consider age but rarely old people or age relations…Old age, as a political location, has been ignored” (Age Matters, 2006). Feminist theorists have long challenged gender stereotypes and assumptions about the body – but surprisingly, old age is often absent from the larger frameworks.

How lesbians fit into existing notions of women’s aging is not always clear. In her excellent dissertation, Exploring the Hypervisibility Paradox: Older Lesbians in Contemporary Mainstream Cinema (1995-2009), Eve Krainitzki argues that the media portrayals of lesbians overlap with the invisibility of older women more generally, making them doubly invisible. To quote: 

“I investigate the continuity of the concept of the lesbian as ghostly (Castle, 1993) through narratives of illness, death and mourning. I argue that the narrative of ‘ageing as decline’ stands in for the process of ‘killing off’ lesbian characters (identified in 1960s and 1970s cinema). The intersection of the identity old with lesbian thus results in a double ghosting and ‘disappearance’ of the older lesbian character.” (Krainitzki, Abstract, n.p.). 

The concept of invisibility comes up repeatedly in discussions of older adults, but particularly in relation to women. Kathleen Woodward, seeking examples of “feminist aging,” observes that – “In academic and artistic circles…the older female body has been significant only in terms of its absence”  (162, Woodward). And in the popular culture, references to “women” are often too broad/generic, neatly lumping together more than half of the world’s population, with a presumed set of shared values and life experiences (typically involving motherhood and children).

To bring a feminist and queer perspective to Aging Studies is to think broadly and creatively, and not limit “woman” to a distinct set of life experiences or understandings. The experiences of butch, trans, and gender non-conforming women provide a lens that moves outside of patriarchy, towards a more holistic sense of aging, the body, and gender identity.

References

Performing Age, Performing Gender. Woodward, K. (2006). NWSA Journal, 18(1), 162-189. Retrieved January 31, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/4317191

Fundamentals of feminist gerontology. Garner, J. D. (1999). New York: Haworth Press.

Toward the croning of feminist gerontology, Ruth E. Ray, Journal of Aging Studies, Volume 18, Issue 1, 2004, Pages 109-121.