Every November 25, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is commemorated. However, there is a type of violence that is hidden, that is invisible in some cases even to themselves and society, because it has been normalized, because there are barriers to identifying it, because many of those who suffer it are not aware or because Environmental professionals are not trained enough to detect it. It is gender violence towards older women. If not identified, prevention and eradication can become elusive.
Two studies carried out in Spain in 2019 by the Government Delegation for Gender Violence put figures. The macro survey on violence against women, which has been carried out every four years since 1999, revealed that 25.5% of women aged 65 or over had gone to formal help services as a result of physical, sexual, emotional violence or fear. (VFSEM). The figure rose considerably when the same entity carried out a study, now focused on women over 65 years of age who have already requested help from the Telephone Service for Attention and Protection of Victims of Gender Violence (ATENPRO Service). There, 78% of the women surveyed acknowledged having been physically attacked by their abuser.
However, these women rarely report their attacker. “When we want to do an analysis of how violence is in relation to older women, we have to look at objective data, which are complaints, calls to help lines, restraining orders and murders,” emphasizes Mónica Ramos Toro. , doctor in Social Anthropology, geroanthropologist and technical coordinator of the UNATE Social Group in Cantabria. This November 22, a group of specialists in gender violence and older people have joined forces to talk about this violence at an international meeting organized by UNATE.
“If the macro survey indicates that 6% of older women say they have suffered physical violence, in the ATENPRO survey it rises to 70%; That is to say, when you see all the types of violence of these women [mayores] It’s totally shot. Those who do identify it and already call the phone begin to say ‘he controls my money, he controls who I go out with, he has insulted me, he has threatened me, he hits me’, for example.”
Indeed, when the older woman takes the step of asking for help, the data are different. The 2019 study on women over 65 years of age who are victims of gender violence shows that 78% of those surveyed state that throughout their lives the abuser has pushed them; 75% say they have been slapped; 63% indicate that they have been hit with a fist or some object; 50% report having been kicked or dragged along the ground; 44% have been threatened with guns or knives and 30% reveal that the abuser tried to suffocate or burn them.
Those are the most recent figures. So far there are no published results for 2023. There have been no resources, time or interest to delve into a reality, that of older women, which, according to that study that should have set off alarms when it revealed that 40% of older women abused women have suffered violence from their partner or ex-partner for more than 40 years and 27% have been between 20 and 30 years old. Inhabit hell and let no one see the flames.
Why is gender violence against older women invisible or made invisible? It is made invisible, among other things, due to structural factors that perpetuate two types of discrimination: gender and age marginalization, according to experts. “They are perhaps much more invisible than violence against women in other age spectrums because this intersection between machismo and ageism makes it much more normalized,” considers Neus Pociello Cayuela, advisor to the Cabinet of the Ministry of Equality and Feminisms of the Generalitat of Catalonia.
The symptoms of this violence are in the culture, they are structural: “It is in the system and this means that, due to ageism, family networks and institutional systems often justify this violence under the idea that women are already older, “They have been like this all their lives, they have little time left and that normalization is reinforced,” says this specialist. This reality, he adds, makes its recognition difficult.
The phenomenon of gender violence against older women has been investigated since approximately 2011. But there has been greater echo of it for six or seven years, explains Pociello Cayuela. Although these studies still need to delve into an “intersectional view” that allows identifying the interaction of multiple discriminations in the same person.
Older women have been educated in the culture of secrecy, of keeping quiet, of “dirty laundry being cleaned at home.” That is why “socially it is difficult to understand that gender violence is not a personal problem but a social and political one,” says an expert.
There are some of these factors that are explained by history and culture. In this country, unlike groups of young women, “older women have lived in a context of political, religious and social repression that has been in society for a long time,” observes Arantxa Núñez Alcaide, master in Intervention in Violence against Women. Women and expert in equality policies and plans.
This population group has been educated in the culture of secrecy, of remaining silent, of “dirty laundry being cleaned at home.” For this reason, “socially it is difficult to understand that gender violence is not a personal problem but a social and political problem,” highlights Núñez Alcaide. “Those who have suffered this violence and discrimination throughout their lives have generated less resistance and less defense. They have learned to obey first the State, then the father, then the husband and then – in cases that we see now of violence from children to mothers when they are older – unfortunately also to the children. They have gone from obeying one to another,” he adds.
What prevents these older women from leaving this situation of violence? Núñez Alcaide explains how they have developed the role of enduring; it is difficult for them to tell their children about the episodes of violence they are going through because they do not want to cause problems. Sometimes they perceive this rejection in their environment. In other cases, these older women are financially dependent on their partners, they do not handle the issue or know their rights, which prevents them from reporting, separating or leaving the family home.
When they come to report, after a long work of accompaniment by social workers, they sometimes find that the judge tells them that if they have already endured 60 years, just wait a little longer for the aggressor to die. For Ramos Toro this represents “a terrible revictimization.” In the analyzed cases of older women, the abuser is often in a situation of dependency and they are not going to stop caring for him, they are not going to report him, they are not going to separate, warns Ramos Toro, a pioneer in the investigation of violence against this population group.
When an older woman dares to say that she is being violated, even to health professionals, in many cases they have probably not been prepared to address it, experts say. “In the case of older women, sometimes you have to address the abuser, sometimes you have to address the family, sometimes the approach is more complex and not even the professionals are prepared for that, because they have not been prepared for that reality. because they do not understand that there is a specificity in relation to older women,” emphasizes Ramos Toro.
Outings for older women
Recently there is a wave that drags multiple sectors, there is more institutional awareness that includes the municipalities. In the particular case of Catalonia, there is an increasing willingness to apply a strategy based on intersectionality to address challenges such as, especially, information systems and registration of cases of violence. “Transforming structures is long, but you have to roll up your sleeves and start,” encourages Neus Pociello Cayuela, who will participate this Friday in Santander in a specific day on this problem.
In the legal field, there is only one tool that obliges states to ensure the human rights of older persons, but it is only valid for the Americas—the Inter-American Convention on the Human Rights of Older Persons. In Spain, for example, For example, “there are commitments of will, but not of taking action,” laments Pociello. And at the same time she questions: “Are we taking older women into account? Have we counted on the entities that work the most or that are made up of older women to define this policy, this service, this awareness campaign?”
Ramos Toro advocates accompanying older women victims of gender violence in a process that makes them feel greater well-being. And, furthermore, train professionals who detect and generate a bond with them in which a space of well-being is sought. “We have to understand that we don’t have to act as saviors either, but rather that they make it visible that what happens to them causes them a lot of discomfort.” It is required, he adds, that they are aware that learned helplessness is normal, that normalizing violence is the most normal thing and that they do not have to feel ashamed.
Núñez Alcaide advocates making visible the most hidden sexist violence and putting it in the words of those who suffer it or else “they will not see it.” “Let them be the ones to talk,” he says. But he also takes a step forward and demands reparation for the damage. In her opinion, society owes a huge debt to older women: “What they have done for life and for care is a very important element… because they are victims, but they are also survivors of many things,” she emphasizes.
It is to stir up these silences that the UNATE Social Group, an entity specialized in the human rights of older people that works from Cantabria, organizes the international meeting ‘Gender violence against older women: naming the invisible’, which will be held this Friday November 22 at 6:00 p.m. and which can be attended in person or online. The event will feature the presence via streaming from New York of Silvia Federici, Italian-American writer, professor and feminist activist, as well as the Collective Survivors of Femicide, which will participate from Mexico. At Espacio Magallanes (Calle Magallanes, 6, Santander) there will be Mónica Ramos Toro, Neus Pociello Cayuela and Arantxa Núñez Alcaide.
This same Friday, these non-profit entities launch ‘The Violentómetro’, a tool built by older women from Santander so that other women like them can clearly identify what violence is in relationships. The Violentómetro has been translated into audiovisual language by the women who wrote it in a shocking video that directly challenges older women who suffer gender violence. If all goes well, some invisibility cloaks should become history.
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