Women Living Their Old Age Autonomously: New Readings from the Life Courses and Historical Injustices

Abstract

This essay is the product of a reflection that addresses the autonomy of women who live their old age and their contributions to the field of health. From stories constructed in a doctoral research, about their own health care, personal reflections emerge that provide new theoretical constructs and put in tension the hegemonic proposals referred to this topic, thus generating a situated, decolonizing knowledge, which opens the doors to look at old age in a different way. From this process two ideas are rescued: first, to understand the semantic distance between autonomy and independence, from where autonomy is built as a decision about themselves and not as the ability to perform the actions that mobilize those decisions, therefore, being autonomous and being independent are parallel and complementary paths that contribute to their healthy aging. Secondly, that inhabiting autonomy is a historically constructed experience and changes as they age and abandon the obligation to take care of other people, placing themselves at the center of their lives, without losing sight of the threat that old age can generate in this experience. It is proposed to re-semantize these concepts in health and incorporate into health practice a critical reflective perspective that recognizes the life course and the multiplicity of discriminatory systems that precarious the stories of women who live their old age, to contribute to the construction of a more just and equitable society.